by Julia Kent
Before he could say anything, he watched as Lydia nailed Dan in the gut, and then bam! Jeremy was struck in the cheekbone by a whomp of white fluffy stuff, and it wasn't the kind that came at him in an unfortunately positioned parabola while watching porn.
“HEY!” he and Dan screamed simultaneously, Lydia making three snowballs to his one. Lydia and Dan had the home-field advantage, born and raised here in Maine, while he made snowballs like a sloth.
The two were merciless, and he was thankful they were on opposing sides. If they allied against him and Mike, he’d be buried under seven feet of snowballs within minutes.
Something hit him from behind, which was impossible because Dan, Lydia, and Mike were in front of him. Turning, he found two kids, about seven or eight, giggling madly as they pelted him – the nearest grown-up, if you could call Jeremy a grown up – with an avalanche of snowballs.
Were kids from Maine given a different curriculum in phys-ed classes? Did the schools teach this skill?
“YOU!” he shouted, pointing to each of them, earning two snowballs to the crotch for his hesitation. What they had in speed, he had in height, and soon they were running behind thick trees to take cover.
THWACK!
“SCORE!” Mike shouted as Jeremy's candy cane hat flew off his head, moved by Mike's snowball, the cloth plunking down on a decorated evergreen in a half-barrel planter along the sanded walkway.
“KIDS!” someone shouted. Jeremy ignored them and bent down, heedless of being hit, determined to make an arsenal of balls he could throw.
“KIDS!” The man's baritone grew stronger, but still, he ignored it.
“JEREMY! LYDIA! DAN! MIKE!”
Looking up at his name, Jeremy realized the bellower was Pete.
And the four of them were the “kids.”
Prepared for a dressing down, Jeremy began to grin. He hadn't been yelled at by a parental figure in...
Forever.
Instead, he got a mouthful of snow to the teeth.
If Lydia and Dan were professional snowball machines, it occurred to Jeremy as he ran to one of the thick maples where the little kids were barricaded, Pete was their Olympic coach.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
All four of them were whomped by Pete.
And then it rained white.
Conventional wisdom says that the older we get, the less agile, but Jeremy had learned that in Maine, this simply wasn't true, at least when snow is involved. Old yankees (lower-case Y, not the baseball players) were a grizzled bunch with ancient souls and young bodies. Pete had the reflexes of a twenty-year-old, decades of working with his body, but at his own pace and under no boss's schedule but his own, honing him to a finely-oiled human specimen who was clobbering all the people a generation (or two, as the eight-year-olds joined in) younger.
“KIDS!” a female voice shouted. The little ones turned to look, then resumed the fracas.
“KIDS!!” The woman shouted again, and Jeremy turned to find Mrs. Claus shaking her head at all of them.
“PETE! YOUR BUM KNEE!” she shouted, making everyone halt instantly, Lydia and Dan looking guiltily at their dad, who rolled his eyes.
“I'm fine! Took some ibuprofen, rubbed some of that salve from the hippy co-op on it, and I'm good as new,” Pete groused as his wife walked over, crimson skirt sashaying, white wig and round eye glasses perched carefully for full Christmas effect.
“You are going to blow out that knee again, Peter Charles. Get back in the house and ice it. Mike can't be Santa all day, so every snowball you throw is one that makes it harder for everyone else to make Camp Christmas a magic time for the little ones!”
Hangdog wasn't even close to the word that described Pete's response, but it would have to do.
“Fine, Mrs. Claus,” he muttered as he abandoned his impressive stack of snowballs and slowly walked back to their house, the limp slight but noticeable now that Jeremy thought of it. “Killjoy,” Pete added for good measure.
“I heard that!” she called out, but laughter tinged her voice. “And I'll accept that badge with honor if it means you don't moan in bed and ask me to rub it to make it feel better.”
I won't make a nasty joke. I won't make a nasty joke. I won't make a nasty joke, Jeremy told himself, as all eyes were on him, Dan and Lydia looking at the little kids, then Jeremy, pinging between them.
Sandy reddened as she realized the implications of what she'd just said.
“Hazel! Lewis!” a woman shouted, the little kids tearing off toward two women bundled up in snow gear, hugs punctuating their physical return to their mothers. The names rang a bell as Janelle and Karla, the women who ran the hippy co-op Pete just mentioned, waved vigorously.
Jeremy looked at Hazel and Lewis. Kids in snow gear all looked the same to him.
“That was fun,” Mike said, cheeks bright red, beard being tucked back in place. Lydia dusted herself off and held out her hands in a T-shape, the sign for time-out being universally accepted.
“VICTORY!” Lydia and Dan said simultaneously, earning a cackle from Mike as he watched the kids and their moms wander off toward a cabin with a vendor who sold hand-painted wood ornaments.
“Hah!”
While Lydia and her brother bickered over who was His or Her Royal Highness of Snowballs, Jeremy and Mike headed toward the lodge, Mike making sure he was a proper Santa before being seen. Jeremy split off from him, knowing the guy would soon be bombarded. A bazillion kids begging for a look from Santa wasn't his scene.
When he arrived at the golf cart behind the lodge, he sighed with happiness.
Happiness? Where the hell did that come from?
“Hey,” Adam said, popping open the back door, wheeling out a cart with two large plastic hot chocolate dispensers. As if it weighed nothing, he moved the five-gallon container onto the back of the cart, drink valve pointing out. Two of those, plus a smaller secured box with cups, lids, napkins, mini candy canes, and a shaker container filled with marshmallows, and Jeremy was ready.
The Hot Chocolate Golf Cart was always a draw. Soon, he'd be surrounded by children, but his job was easier than Mike's. He didn't have to deal with tears, or wildly unbelievable hoped-for presents (sorry, kid – no Teslas this year), or sad kids with parents and grandparents who died, were out of work, or disabled.
Those were the hardest. He wondered how Pete did it, year in and year out.
And now Mike was taking on part of that role.
“Jeremy!” Just as he was about to turn on the cart, he saw a flash of red and cream, Lydia rushing to him. Hopping in the passenger's seat – if you could call the twelve remaining inches of the front a “seat” – she panted slightly, then gave him a grin, gripping the stabilizer bar.
“Where to?”
“Cabin five.”
“What's being sold there?” He pressed on the accelerator slowly. No lurching when carrying eighty pounds of creamy chocolate goodness.
“Hand-knit baby wear.”
SLAM!
His foot did it involuntarily, jerking to the brake, hands gripping the steering wheel as his hunched-over posture made him feel more vulnerable than he liked.
“The containers!” she shouted, reaching back. But they stayed in place.
“You really think you're pregnant.” He said it with a finality, with a sense of awe, with less of a question to it than a statement of truth that needed words to have meaning.
“I don't know.” As he watched her from his peripheral vision, his own emotions too powerful to show her with eye contact, he gave a rueful smile. “You hear that women 'just know,' but I don't. I'm not one of those women. The only way we'll know for sure is when a pregnancy test says 'positive.'”
“And you said the soonest we can do that is Christmas Day?”
A small laugh, the kind you push out through your nose as if it's stroking the back of the skull, made him finally look at her. “Yes. Merry Christmas.”
His hand moved to her knee, the coarse red cloth
rough against his gloved hand. Her own palm pressed against the back of his hand, and they sat there for a moment, eyes unfocused, staring straight ahead, breathing in concert.
They were present for each other, uncertain whether the seed of a child they'd created together was there, too.
Time felt endless and rushed, all at once.
And then:
“HEY! YOU TWO! QUITCHER MEDITATING! HOT CHOCOLATE WON'T DELIVER ITSELF! WE'VE GOT COLD REVELERS WHO NEED THEIR LIBATIONS!”
Ah, Miles. Always good for a reality check.
A real laugh emerged from both of them as Jeremy eased his foot off the brake and drove carefully to Cabin Five, a ragtag group of older kids fast-walking behind the cart, eyes on the hot chocolate bins.
As he pulled up in front of the cabin's porch, Lydia climbed out gracefully, gave him a curtsy, and said, “Thank ye, kind sir.”
The kids all laughed.
So did Jeremy.
And then they both got down to the hard work of connection, community, and nostalgia.
Which felt more like joy than anything else.
9
Mike
Pete had warned him about the criers. The pants wetters. The over-eager hover moms. The debunkers, eager to tell the other kids Santa wasn't real. The glazed-eye terrified kids who turned nonverbal in the presence of Santa greatness.
But no one had prepared him for Khalil.
The boy couldn't have been more than five, with big brown eyes that looked too pretty to be real, and dark brown hair with a reddish tint, but as his grandmother leaned over, hand on Mike's shoulder, she whispered, “He's autistic. Khalil is ten, and his mother is in the hospital with pneumonia. She has lupus, so it's touch and go.”
Sandy sat next to him, tasked with greeting children, comforting the scared ones, and chatting up family. At the grandmother's words, she froze.
“Harriet? In the hospital? Oh, Ruth, I'm so sorry. What's wrong?”
The older woman's hand went to Sandy now, the two in a half-embrace as Khalil stood there, awkward. Ten? He was ten? Mike marveled at that, the child’s short stature and little-kid features making him wonder how he could seem so young yet have been through ten trips around the sun.
A mix of emotion poured through him, the need to compartmentalize kicking in quickly. In his old life, back in Boston, he'd have marshaled his inner troops faster, digging trench lines to contain feelings that were too loose.
Up here in Maine, he'd let those skills get rusty, not thinking he'd need them.
Not really wanting them, frankly.
But now? He felt the rust of old inner gears creak as he set those processes in motion.
And he smiled at Khalil, who stared back blankly.
“Harriet and Khalil came home,” Ruth explained to Sandy. “I always go to them because he's so difficult on planes, you know? They've been home for a week, and she came down with a nagging cough. Went into the hospital yesterday. Insisted I bring Khalil here. He loves Santa.”
At those words, Khalil's eyes cut to Mike, who smiled at him. The kid had gorgeous brown eyes, as if someone cut a hundred shades of brown and gold into pieces and made a collage with a pupil in the middle.
“Santa,” Khalil said, but the name meant so much more as Mike cleared his throat, then gave a hearty chuckle that made the kid's impossibly big eyes widen. He had a thin nose, high cheekbones, and the close-cut hair of a kid who had to be wrestled into a simple buzz cut with an electric razor.
Little boy simple.
Ruth, his grandmother, had white hair, grown long and braided, with washed out blue eyes that made Mike wonder if his own eyes would lose color like that, fade away like jagged rock worn smooth. Khalil must take after his dad, Mike thought to himself, though he noticed no one mentioned the guy.
“Ho ho ho,” Mike said gently, going into character but winging it. Pete had talked to him about the kids with special needs, how sometimes they couldn't handle much sound or that eye contact would be fleeting. “Be kind. You just need to be kind. Treat them like an individual. Go with what they need most,” was all he'd said, as if Mike would naturally know what to do.
He'd never missed Pete more than he did right now.
“Santa!” Khalil repeated. “Want Mama.” Gaze cutting to the lower right, the boy began muttering something softly to himself. It sounded like a string of letters.
Ruth's hand flew to her mouth as the little boy took one step closer to Mike, looking at the basket of candy canes in Sandy's hand. He reached for one, took it, then held it up to Ruth.
Hands shaking, she opened it for him, then gave Mike a guilty smile.
“It'll make this easier if he can taste it now. No meltdown,” she whispered.
“I love candy canes, too, Ruth. I'm just like Khalil,” he said, lightly patting the boy's shoulder.
Khalil stiffened.
Mike stopped.
“You like candy canes,” he said moving slightly closer to Khalil, who smiled shyly as he took the candy and pressed it against his tongue, then pulled it out, the opposite of licking.
“Yes,” the boy answered.
Mike felt like he'd scored a home run.
“Will you be my friend, Khalil?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like Christmas?”
“Yes. Want Mama.”
“You want to see your mama?”
“Want Mama.”
“You love your mama?”
“Love Mama.”
Mike looked at Ruth, who shrugged helplessly. “We're hoping she'll be home in a few days, but the doctors don't know. And it's complicated. Might take months for her to recover, and Khalil could need to transfer here. Enroll in school and get his IEP, his services somehow worked out with the schools. I don't know how it all works. The social workers told us her insurance doesn't cover...” Ruth shook her head hastily, as if ashamed. “Sorry for blabbing. I don't know where that's all coming from. I'm a mess. Need to pull myself together. I won't get into all that.” Her mouth went in a flat line, eyes on her grandson. “We'll be fine. Khalil will be fine,” she added in a louder voice, as if reassuring him.
Sorrow pierced Mike, his eyes catching Sandy's. She was fighting tears.
“Harriet's a fighter, Ruth. Always has been,” Sandy whispered in her ear.
Khalil froze. Mike realized he was listening to every word.
Understood it all, too.
“You like to be happy, Khalil?” he asked, sticking to safe, simple questions.
The boy nodded, touching the candy to his tongue.
“What makes you happy?”
No answer.
“Khalil likes to weigh things. And to look at stuff in microscopes. Harriet's always talking about how she needs a better scale because the bathroom one doesn't measure grams,” Ruth laughed. “And Khalil watches these videos on YouTube about all these fancy weighing contraptions.”
“Germs,” Khalil said. “Germs are yucky.”
“Germs?” Mike asked, taking the chance and putting his hand on Khalil's shoulder.
No tension this time.
“Yes. Germs are dirty. Germs make people ill.”
“You're right!”
“Ill is the opposite of healthy.”
“That's very true,” Mike replied, just going with it and trying to keep the kid talking. The more he spoke, the more relaxed Ruth seemed to be.
“Mama is ill. Mama is not healthy.”
Oh, boy.
Mike's throat tightened.
“Khalil,” Mike said, taking a big chance, bending down to catch the child's eye. “Your mama is going to be healthy. She will be.”
Sandy cut him a Be careful look.
“Want Mama for Christmas.”
“You want her home for Christmas?”
“Want Santa to bring Mama home.”
Mike's heart snapped in two. Right then, right there. Just – crack.
“I've never heard him speak so much,” Ruth murmured to Sand
y, who looked down the line of waiting families, which were mercifully small in number, though the kids squirmed. The mother in line behind Khalil and Ruth could hear everything and was clearly struggling with her emotions, too.
Khalil's eyes bore into him, as if all Mike's time on earth were spent in preparation for this moment. Deep brown eyes challenged him to do what Khalil needed most.
And Mike couldn't. He literally could not.
By God, he would if he had that power, though.
“You really want your mama home,” Mike said, using empathy in place of action because what the hell else could he do? Clearing his throat again, he realized he was damn close to tears. “And I'm going to try, but is there something else you want for Christmas?”
Khalil's soft little body leaned in to Mike, his fingers playing with the white fake fur piping on his sleeve.
“Want Mama. Want more candy cane.” Before Sandy could blink, his little hand went in the basket, and he grabbed one, head dipping down impishly.
“Ho ho ho, Khalil, that's fine.”
A child in line said, “I want two, too!” to her mother, who shushed her.
Sandy whispered something to Ruth, who suddenly pulled out her camera – an honest to goodness camera – and began taking pictures. Sandy always took a few for good measure with her own phone, ready to email them to anyone who needed them.
“You're a good boy, Khalil,” Mike said, feeling helpless. He couldn't promise to give the kid what he wanted more than anything else in the world.
And that was one feeling Mike just couldn't handle.
“Your turn's over, Khalil,” Ruth said gently, moving toward him to usher him on. Suddenly, the little boy's hands went to Mike's shoulders, the kid floppy in some parts, rigid in others, as he came in for what Mike realized was a hug.
Ruth gasped.
Sandy took pictures.
“Want Mama,” Khalil said into his ear. “May you please give mama.”
And then he let go abruptly and walked off, not looking back. Ruth did, though, calling over her shoulder, “Thank you so much!”
Leaving Mike and Sandy a puddle of emotional goo.
They blinked at each other, Mike gasping for air, the next family waiting respectfully, though the kids were restless.