Page 34 of The Merry Matchmaker

She had room to answer one more letter for Monday’s page. What would be a good letter to end with? She thumbed through the stack, casually reading. Most of the kids wanted toys.

But then she came to a letter that broke her heart.

Der Santa, I wrot last year abot bringing me a new mommy but daddy furgot to mal it. Aunt Jenn is going to for me. Can you bring me a mommy for Christmas? Thank you.

Sincerly,

Corcoran Marks

P.S. I am in second grad. I am geting better at spelling.

She put a hand to her heart. How sad and sweet was this? Of course Corcoran would get to see his letter in the paper.

Dear Corcoran, she began.

And stopped. She tapped a Christmas red nail against her teeth, thinking. What on earth did you say to a child who wanted a mommy? Where was Mommy? Had she run away? Was she dead?

Stef suddenly thought of the old movieSleepless in Seattle. It was one of Adele’s favorites, and it had become one of Stef’s, too. The little boy in that had wanted a mommy, and in the end, he found one as Daddy met his future love at the top of the Empire State Building. Stef loved the scene where they all walked happily back to the elevator to go down to a new and wonderful life.

Sigh.

But that was the movies. She frowned. What to do with this letter? It was certainly beyond Santa’s powers to bring the child what he wanted. Corcoran’s daddy needed to have a long, comforting talk with his son.

This was another case of taking Santa off the holiday hook. She began to type, her fingers flying over the keyboard faster than the old guy’s sleigh.

Dear Corcoran, Santa would love to help you, but there is no room in my sleigh for a mommy. Why don’t you ask Daddy to find you a mommy? I’m sure he’d like to help Santa out.

She reread her answer. Yes, that was the best possible reply. Maybe Corcoran’s dad would read it and...take a trip to the Empire State Building. Or whatever. Her job was to respond in a way that let children know they’d been heard.

But she hoped someway, somehow, little Corcoran got what he wanted for Christmas.

Frankie’s cocoa was long gone, and the Christmas movie she’d streamed but paid no attention to was over. And she was still as grumpy as she’d been when she started it.

What on earth was wrong with her? She didn’t really want to date Brock, and yet now she was determined to. She didn’t want to squabble with Mitch, and yet she had.

She didn’t want to be alone, and yet she was.

What she really wanted was to turn back the clock to the days when her life was as close to perfect as a life could get, and she’d thought she had all the time in the world to enjoy it with a wonderful man.

She closed her eyes and envisioned Ike and herself in the living room, slow dancing to Boyz II Men, him singing “I’ll Make Love to You.” They had just bought the house and were so happy, their future laid out like the yellow brick road.

But then the flying monkeys had come.

Frankie grabbed a sofa pillow and hugged it, sobbing for what she couldn’t have. Sometimes loneliness blew in like a biting cold wind, and no matter what fires you built from memory, they weren’t enough to keep it away.

“All you have is today,” she reminded herself with a sniff as she went in search of tissue. Wasn’t that what Adele always said?

So Frankie’s today wasn’t the romantic, picture-perfect story that yesterday had been. It was still good. And really, yesterday hadn’t always been perfect. Grief had encouraged her to paint it that way.

Like all couples, she and Ike had had their share of arguments over the years. He sure hadn’t been supportive when she’d shared her dream of opening the shop, had predicted it would be a bad investment. He’d eventually come around, but not before a couple of big-time shouting matches.

He had been glad to be proved wrong, though, and she was glad he’d lived to see her succeed. She was also thankful he’d been around to walk his daughter down the aisle and meet his first grandchild. But sometimes she couldn’t help it; she resented the fact that he’d been snatched from her so suddenly.

She wanted him back. She wantedthemback. They’d never celebrate a fiftieth wedding anniversary, never take a fancy river cruise like they’d talked about, never sit together in the bleachers at their grandson’s baseball games—all those experiences that she’d taken for granted would be there for them in the future had been aborted.

She found a tissue and blew her nose. Dried her tears. That was enough self-pity for one night. Time for bed.

Before turning out the living room lights, she gave her street one last admiring look. There was something so comforting, so all-is-right-with-the-world about the sight of snow-topped houses with colored lights. She could see TVs still glowing behind a couple of living room windows—neighbors finishing up holiday movies. The Martinsons down the street had several cars parked along their curb, a sure sign that they were entertaining their pickleball friends. Mrs. Fortunata’s lights were out. At ninety-six, she was an early-to-bed kind of girl.

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