“Acres and acres of them. The whole side of a mountain. It was a great place to go sledding when we got snow. Dad would put hay bales at the bottom of the hill, and we’d crash into them on purpose.”
“Sounds like a fun place to grow up,” Patrick said. “How far away did your mom live?”
“Not even five miles. But in town. She was a teacher, and since the school was only a few blocks away, I could walk there.”
“Tell me some more,” Austin urged. “About the farm.”
“Dad kept a big garden, and there was a spooky old barn full of broken-down tractors and farm equipment where we played hide-and-seek. One time, I was hiding, and a mouse ran across my foot, and I screamed bloody murder, and everybody thought I’d been bitten by a snake. I still hate mice.”
“Did you have a dog?”
“Always,” Kerry said. “Mostly just strays that would wander up to the house. I think word got out that Jock was an easy mark. And my mom always had dogs too. She has an English setter right now, named Alfie. He was supposed to be Murphy’s bird dog, but turns out, he’s gun-shy. So he came to live with Mom. And now, he’s a big, spoiled baby.”
“What else?” Austin yawned widely.
“Apple trees. I had my own special apple tree. I used to climb up there and hide out from Murphy. I’d read my library books and daydream and draw.”
“I wish I could have my own special apple tree to climb,” Austin said. “And a baby goat.” His eyelids fluttered. “And a dog and my own forest of Christmas trees.”
Patrick caught the waiter’s eye and signaled for the check. “We’d better get you home to bed, bud. Your aunt Suzie is taking you to see Santa Claus in the morning.”
“I’m not tired! Besides, I want an ice-cream sundae for dessert,” the boy protested.
“You know, a long time ago Santa Claus lived in my hometown,” Kerry said.
He looked up at her with the eyes of a skeptic. “I thought Santa lived at the North Pole.”
“Well, maybe he wasn’t real, but the Santa suit was, and it was full of magic. I’ll tell you about it while we walk home, okay?”
* * *
They walked the two blocks back to Abingdon Square slowly, with Austin in the middle, holding both their hands. It had grown colder, and she was glad for the warmth of the little boy’s mittened hand.
“Tell me about the Santa Claus suit, Kerry,” Austin said.
“A lady moved into an old house just down the road from our farm, and she found a beautiful Santa Claus suit in a closet,” Kerry began. “And it turns out, the man who lived in that house for many, many years played Santa Claus every year for all the children in the area. And every year, he and his wife would have thousands and thousands of Christmas lights on his house. He did a lot of other wonderful things for our community too. His name was Santa Bob, and I went to see him too, when I was a little girl.
“But after Santa Bob was a very old man, he died, and the house was empty. Until this lady moved in. She asked a man who sold her the house if he wanted to wear the suit for this big holiday celebration we have every year in our town—called the Christmas Stroll. So he did, and then, he and the lady fell in love. And a lot of other magical stuff happened, and now, every year since then, he’s the Santa Claus for the Christmas Stroll. And now, they have a little boy, and his name is Nick.”
* * *
The CLOSED sign was still stretched across the entrance to the stand. “I guess Murphy is in for the night,” Kerry said.
“It’s not that late. Why don’t you come up to the apartment?” Patrick suggested. “I’ll get this guy in bed, and then we can have a drink.”
The apartment was on the fourth floor of a handsome yellow-brick building. She could understand why neither Patrick nor Gretchen wanted to give the place up.
It was smaller and much less grand than Taryn’s place. But it had high ceilings and dark-stained wooden floors. There was a large, somewhat ratty leather sofa facing a fireplace, mismatched armchairs and end tables, and a coffee table that had seen better days. It looked like the aftermath of a breakup, where the parties had divvied up the best pieces and left behind the rest. A large, fake Christmas tree decorated with ornaments made of popsicle sticks, glitter, and construction paper stood in the corner near the fireplace, its lights twinkling.
But the star of the room was the wall of almost floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the street and the square. A child-sized table and chair had been placed there, and the space around it was littered with art supplies and toys. Lego bricks and picture books spilled out of plastic bins lined up beneath the windows.
Patrick pointed at a bar cart in front of some bookshelves. “Help yourself to whatever you want. I think there’s a bottle of white wine in the fridge. I’ll get this guy settled and be right back.” He disappeared down a narrow hallway lined with framed family photos.
Kerry found a bottle of bourbon in a brand she’d never seen before and poured a couple fingers of the amber liquid into a crystal rocks glass. She went to the kitchen in search of ice, and returned to the living room, drawn immediately to the wall of windows.
She sat on the window seat and gazed out at the scene below. The old-fashioned streetlights shone down on the square, where people strolled past, stopping to look at Spammy and the lit-up Christmas trees in the stand. Diners were coming and going from Lombardi’s, and a couple sat on the bench outside Anna’s, cuddled close together against the cold. Looking past the tops of the trees in the park, she spotted the Empire State Building, lit up in red and green. Buses and cars rumbled past on Hudson Street, and even the sound of a far-off siren made the bustle and rush of the city seem enchanting and exciting.
A door closed softly behind her and a minute later, Patrick joined her on the window seat, sitting so close their shoulders touched. “What are you looking at?”
“All this.” She gestured to the scene below. “The city, the neighborhood. You’ve got quite a view here. I can see why you didn’t want to give up this apartment.”
“Yeah. Austin loves it here too. Most mornings, he sits right here, eating his Pop-Tarts for breakfast. He loves watching you and Murphy setting up the stand in the mornings.”
“Pop-Tarts?” Kerry gave a look of mock horror. “Does his mom know you’re feeding that junk to her son?”
“Pfft. They’re fruit, right?”
“I got addicted to Pop-Tarts my freshman year of college,” Kerry confided. “My mom is kind of a health-food nut. She was appalled the first time I came home for the holidays with a box of Pop-Tarts in my backpack.”
“Sounds like you and your mom are pretty close,” he observed.
“We’re total opposites, but she loves and accepts who I am, and I’m so lucky that she does.”
“What will you do, when all the Christmas trees are sold?” he asked, sliding an arm around her shoulder. “Will you go back to … what’s the name of the town?”
“Tarburton. For the short run, until I can figure out my next move. The only thing I know for sure is that I don’t want to live there permanently.”