Behind the black knit of the mask, the man’s eyes go small and squinty. “What Santa cams?”
I gesture to a square, white device in the keeping room behind me, wedged in the corner of the ceiling. It picks up on my movement, and a red light winks. “The motion sensors have a direct line to Santa’s workshop, but there’s no app on my phone. Santa is the only one who can see.”
The man’s lips spread in a smile so wide, the corners disappear behind the fabric. “That’s… I have to give it to you, Jade, that’s pretty near genius. No joke. So dang clever I wish I’d thought of it myself. Not that my house is anywhere near as fancy as this one is, but that’s some real smart parenting right there. Really, really good job.”
What am I supposed to say—thank you? Please don’t tell my kids there’s no Santa?
But I also don’t miss the information he slipped in there, maybe on purpose, maybe by accident. That his house is not as nice as mine. The implication that he’s a parent. The kids might not have noticed, but I did, and it thrills me. It tells me if I’m patient enough, he might just blurt out more.
“But I guess that’s bad news for me, though, huh? Means I’m on the naughty list.”
Baxter gasps. Beatrix doesn’t respond.
The man wriggles a grape off the stem and pops it in his mouth. “But okay, kids, this is another teachable moment, so listen up. Let’s talk about the lesson here. When I asked your mom about the sixth camera, what did she do?” He surveys the kids while chewing another grape.
No one responds.
Baxter wriggles around to face him. The talk of Santa has perked him up some.
The man cups a palm around the lump that is his right ear. “What’s that, Beatrix? You said she didn’t lie?” He leans back and grins some more. “Smart girl. Your mom didn’t make up some story or try to trick me with the Ring. She passed the test. When I confronted her with the discrepancy, she told me the truth. And do you know why she did that?”
The mask is making him hard to read. Animated eyes, smiling mouth chomping away at a mouthful of grapes—but none of it’s real. This man is a performer, shrugging in and out of character faster than I can keep up, switching up his demeanor like a summer storm, light to dark then back again. I have zero idea what he’s thinking.
Baxter, though, is warming up to him. This man’s tone, his campy grin—Baxter only sees what he sees: a smiling adult in our house, cracking jokes and eating our food. So what if he’s wearing a mask? Spider-Man wears a mask. Batman and the Ninja Turtles wear masks. In all our talks about stranger danger, we’ve never covered what happens if the stranger comes into the house. He only knows that home is a safe place, where the adults are both authorities and protectors. In his six-year-old brain, none of this makes any sense.
He sits up straighter on my lap. “No. How come?”
It’s like he didn’t speak. The man stares at Beatrix, who is not fooled like her little brother. She glares across the counter at the masked man, and the air around her charges.
“Leave her alone,” I say, on high alert. “This has nothing to do with Beatrix.”
The man’s showman smile vanishes. “Yes, it does. This has everything to do with her. If the four of us are going to get through this afternoon in one piece, I need all of you to understand that you have to be truthful. I need to know that she’s not going to be constantly trying to slip something by me. Something like…oh, I don’t know, sneaking a cell phone from her mama’s bag when she thinks I’m not looking.”
First of all, get through the afternoon…what does that even mean? Cam doesn’t get home until well past midnight. This situation can’t possibly sustain itself until then.
I straighten up. Level my gaze at him. Wrap my arm around my daughter like a seat belt.
“She understands, okay? She gets it.” My voice is loud and strong, surprisingly fierce in the quiet kitchen. It’s stupid, I know, to use this tone with a masked man wielding a gun, but my sole priority here is my children. Their safety. Their mental well-being—assuming we make it out of here alive. Hearing the steady calm in my voice will keep them centered. “Please just…just talk to me. Leave the kids out of it.”
The man plunks an elbow on the counter and leans in. “I’d love to do that, but you know as well as I do that children need boundaries. They need to learn that for every action, there is a consequence. Do you understand what I’m saying here?”