Page 55 of The Christmas Box

Iwait in Winterburger for my to-go order, a few of the booths and tables around me filled with lunch customers.

As I plodded up the snowy sidewalk to get here, the town felt entirely different than it had just hours before. Snowplows have come through, scraping away snow angels and leaving behind slush, and boot prints have pressed down any snow on the sidewalk not yet cleared away by shopkeepers. Kissing Lexi in the middle of the street last night feels almost like a dream.

But I know it really happened. Even though I tried to resist the urge.

I wanted to ask her to invite me in. I almost did. But same as when we were ice-skating, I’m not sure I should start something with her I can’t finish.

Though on the other hand, much as I hate to admit it, something about this place has started feeling almost like home again—and not in the bad way it once did, but in a warmer sense maybe I can only appreciate now, as an adult. Or maybe that feeling is about the woman who runs the Christmas Box. Maybe she’s just gotten inside me and made me begin to wonder what in Chicago I’m in such a hurry to get back to.

I’ve always been happy there, and I make a comfortable living. I have friends, and interests. I belong to a classic car club. I play pickup basketball every Tuesday. But…when was the last time I dated a girl who gets under my skin the way Lexi does, makes me laugh like Lexi does, warms up everything inside me like Lexi does, makes me see the world through through a more hopeful, giving lens the way Lexi does?

Yep, I should have asked her to invite me in.

That’s when Nick exits the kitchen into the dining room to take a seat, still in his apron, a soda cup in hand. Must be on a break.

The sight of him reminds me of the one wish on our list I haven’t done anything about yet. Christmas is coming fast, and I don’t have a plan, but I decide to wing it.

Uninvited, I slide into the booth seat across from him. Then I lean closer and speak in a low tone, like I’m some kind of holiday secret agent. “Listen, don’t ask me how I know this, but if your son is thinking of proposing, Christmas would be a great time. And if he’s not, maybe he should. But you didn’t hear this from me.”

I wait for the guy to tell me to mind my own business, or maybe look at me like I’m a lunatic—since that would be fair. But instead, concern knits his brow. “Is Marissa getting tired of waiting? I mean, I don’t blame her. Cash loves her—he’s just…”

When he trails off, I plow ahead, not needing to know any more about his family’s personal affairs than I already somehow do. “Look, I have no idea,” I tell him. “And I’ve said all I can say. We never had this conversation.”

“What conversation?” he replies smoothly, like a fellow spy.

“Order up for Travis,” Gail announces behind the counter.

I get up, grab my burger bag, then head toward the door. But then I stop and look back at Nick. “Hey,” I tell him, “if I don’t see you in the next few days, have a merry Christmas.”

“You, too,” he says.

And I walk out into the cold shaking my head. Since when do I wish people a merry Christmas? Who am I?

I shrug off the questions as I head down the street to my truck, though—because I have other, more important things on my mind. The woman at the Christmas shop, for instance. The fact that maybe it really is failing, and the look in her eyes when she told me that. And I’m also dreading the end with Dad. It’s all suddenly a little overwhelming.

Though back in high school, Mr. West once counseled me that when you’re going through something hard, you should just take one day at a time. “Concentrate on the steps in front of you today, not the whole journey,” he said. It stuck with me and helped me get through the rest of senior year, and then leaving home. Maybe I need to heed that advice now.

I walk into the manor toting my Winterburger bag and start my usual bob and weave through the residents roaming the hallways.

“Hi, Dottie,” I say, spotting her as I move past. Only then do I notice the anguish in her gaze and realize she’s not carrying her babydoll.

Just like the last time this happened, a protective fury rises in me, making it so I can barely see straight. And also just like last time, I spy a familiar old robe down the corridor—the man wearing it padding away in worn slippers, her “baby” dangling from his fingertips.

What is it with this guy? What’s it gonna take for him to leave Dottie alone?

I make a beeline toward him, determined to make him listen this time.

Though it’s only as I step into his path, only as he looks at me with that strange, innocent little smile, that I remember what Helen told me: He doesn’t know what he’s doing; he means no harm. And I realize that no amount of yelling at this guy is gonna make any difference.

Probably no amount of kindness or reasoning will, either, sadly—but it at least stops me from flying into a rage in the middle of Bluegrass Manor.

“Hey, Henry,” I say, having long since learned his name. “You can’t keep taking Dottie’s doll.” I reach down, gently removing it from his grasp. And for Dottie’s sake, because she’s watching all this, I make sure to hold the doll upright between both hands. “It’s very important to her. She loves it very much. It’s hers, not yours—okay?”

In the weeks I’ve been coming here, I’ve yet to hear Henry utter a single word and today is no different. He just keeps giving me that same empty smile.

Walking back to Dottie with the doll, I know I haven’t fixed anything long term, but…all I can do is deal with the steps in front of me today “Here you go,” I tell her, gently lowering the doll into her arms. Cradling it, she strokes its little face with withered fingers.

“See, she’s okay,” I tell the old woman soothingly. “She’s all right.” And as I stand over her, I feel the strange absurdity of the moment: How did I get here?

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