Page 42 of Under the Mistle-Foe

“I’m happy you didn’t shut your heart off from the world. After your mom passed, I lost myself for a while and you had to watch me go through that when you were barely just an adult,” Dad started.

“Dad, we don’t have to talk about that,” I said and patted his hand. It was a lot smaller under mine than I’d remembered it being. He shook his head.

“No, we do. This has been left unsaid for too long. I was so absorbed in my grief that I never noticed how you shut yourself up as tight as a clam. It was too late by the time I’d realized. You’d already run away, hiding from the town and your own emotions?—”

I wanted to apologize again for running and leaving Dad here all by himself, but he held up a hand to stop me before I could.

“I know why you had to go. And I’m not saying it was right, but it was what you needed to do, and I accepted it. And I thought you could move on, away from here, but you weren’t happy. You became a shell of yourself, almost as if you were fighting against the world. And I didn’t know how to help you.” Dad patted my hand. “Now I can see glimpses of your old self reappearing. You’re healing, moving on, and I know your mom would be happy to see this.”

Shit. I wasn’t expecting to start my morning off with tears and my eyes burning to keep them from flowing.

After Mom’s death, I lived hating the world that took her away from us and thought if I shut myself off, then I wouldn’t have to feel the pain of loss again. But now I realized I was only doing a disservice to Mom’s memory.

She’d lived every day so full of love for her family and the community we’d built in town. I’d tried to deny it all by running away and never letting anyone in, but Dad had embraced her memory by continuing the traditions she’d loved. It made me realize again just how strong of a person Dad was.

As I cleaned up after breakfast, Dad sat at the table. “Jett’s a good boy,” he said out of nowhere. This wasn’t the first time he’d said that to me, but it was the first time I’d agreed with him. I knew this was his way of tacitly acknowledging our relationship.

“Yeah, he is,” I said with a laugh.

There wasn’t much time before the diner opened, so I quickly got ready and drove us both to work. Dad had been walking on his crutches more, which I read online was good at promoting healing in his leg at this stage of the process. While Dad set up the register, I brought the sign out to the front.

In the past week, I’d noticed new things hanging from the arch. I was glad to know Dad had been adding to it, filling it with happy memories for everyone to see, when I still couldn’t bring myself to add anything. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to honor my mom’s memories and continue her traditions, but that didn’t mean it was easy, so it really helped to see all these different memories on the arch.

I plopped the sign on the sidewalk. When I turned around to head back inside the diner, I noticed a tiny toy car hanging on a branch by the ground. It was weird to think Dad was playing with toy cars but plausible, but then I noticed other mementos that definitely couldn’t have been from Dad.Rainbow friendship bracelets, scraps of paper with poems written on them, mini Polaroid pictures of smiling families that definitely weren’t of me and my dad.

Then, off to the side of the arch, I found a laminated card with a fancy script that read:Cherished memories grow when shared. Let’s make this holiday season one filled with happiness and love for the community.

The letter was signed ‘Secret Santa.’ Who the fuck was that?

I called Dad out to take a look. Heguffawed after reading the card. “I don’t know who this Secret Santa is, but I approve. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier. Wearea community, and what better way to come together as a community than this?”

“Aren’t you worried at all that someone is going around telling people to randomly add their personal items here? What if someone steals theirmementos and the owners blame us?”

Dad gave me an incredulous look, like that was the stupidest thing I’d ever said. “Son, you’ve been in the city too long. Who would steal around here?” After he finished speaking, he went back inside, leaving me standing there studying the note. Dad might not be worried, but that wouldn’t stop me from trying to find out who this Secret Santa was.

“What are you doing?”

I jumped at the sudden voice behind me. I spun around to find Jett standing there, looking amused.

“What are you doing here so early?” Was the first thing that came to my thoughts.

“What? Not happy to see me?”

“No! I just thought you might want to sleep in, since it’s the weekend.”

He stepped into my space and pressed a sweet kiss to my lips. “Aren’t I allowed to come see my boyfriend at work?”

I instantly wrapped my arms around him and tried to deepen the kiss, but he pulled back and looked around me. “What were you staring at?”

My puckered lips met with air as Jett sidestepped me to look at the spot I’d been studying earlier. He picked up the laminated card and read it with a grin.

“My dad and I already saw the card. You don’t have to hide behind this moniker anymore,” I stated. Jett was the one who’d helped Dad set the arch up, so it made sense he was also the one to help fill it up.

“Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not your Secret Santa,” he shot over his shoulder, looking smug at my incorrect guess before entering the diner and leaving me there to continue staring at the damn card.

The mystery bugged me all day. I’d asked every single one of the diner staff if they were the Secret Santa, and nobody had a clue what I was talking about.

Hell, I even asked Kaysen if he was the one behind this when his entire family came for an early lunch.

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