Page 114 of A Merry Mountain Christmas

“Me?” he asks, snapping his suspenders. “I’m his right-hand man. I have access to the naughty list, so you make sure you’re a good girl this year.”

A man quickly guides the girl away, his lips pressed thin.

I try to do the same with Aidan, but he stays put, rocking a little on his heels. It strikes me with certainty that this is too much for him, especially after the holiday yesterday. We hadtwoThanksgivings. First, we ate dinner with Maisie’s family. Her husband’s extended family came too, so it was a large group, complete with three children under the age of one, and at one point all three of them burst out crying in unison. Babies are a mystery to Aidan, even his little cousin, Mabel, whom he sees on a regular basis, and he had to wear his noise-cancelling headphones for most of the meal. My little sister, Molly, stopped by early on in the madness to say hello, but she celebrated separately with her boyfriend and some of their friends, so Aidan and I went to her house for Thanksgiving Round Two (a.k.a. dessert).

Everyone at Molly’s place was very sweet with Aidan, but I now realize that second stop was a mistake. And not just because it was overwhelming for my son. One of Molly’s friends, a frankly terrifying woman with pink hair and a nose ring and averydirect manner, cornered me and asked me dozens of questions about my dumpster fire of a life. For some reason, which may ormay not have something to do with the delicious spiced wine she kept pouring, I found myself sharing more than I should have. I say pink-haired friend because I honestly don’t remember her name…or what, exactly, I told her. What I do know is that I had to ask Molly’s boyfriend to drive us home. I can only hope the whole thing doesn’t end up biting me in the butt.

Given my current record, I don’t have high hopes.

“Chocolate would be bad for reindeer,” Aidan says. “You’re not Santa Claus. It’s not nice to pretend to be other people. People who do that end up in jail for fraud. That’s usually a felony.”

The man laughs as if Aidan told a funny joke. “That’s only if you’re pretending to be someone real, kid. If pretending to be Santa were a felony, there’d be thousands of fat men in red suits carted off to prison every Christmas.”

He picks up the flask and belches loudly.

Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap.

This man just broke the sacred, unspoken pact of adults everywhere—you do not, under any circumstances, tell someone else’s kid that Santa is fake. Most of the time, Aidan is oblivious to the subtext of what people are saying, but with a comment this direct…

I look at Aidan and let out the breath I was holding. He looks confused but not gutted. It’s going to be okay. This man’s idiocy passed over his head, just like most of the comments people have been making about Glenn.

“What are you, anyway? Eleven? Twelve?” Not-Santa says ruminatively. “You’re old enough to know the truth, kid.”

I turn to Not-Santa in horror and take a step toward him, ready to grab the pillow out from under his shirt and hold it over his mouth, but I’m too late.

“Santa’s not real,” he continues. “Shit, I found out when I was seven. It’s past time someone leveled with you.”

“Are you kidding me?” I snap. Rage bubbles up inside me, so hot and toxic it needs an escape. “He’s six.Six.”

Not-Santa’s eyes widen a little, and he gives a littleoops, oh wellshrug that has me feeling murderous, but Aidan lets out a strangled cry, and my attention shifts firmly to him. There’s a look of complete betrayal in his eyes.

“Mom, is Santa pretend?”

Oh, this is not happening. My shattered heart drops to the ground to break a little more, and my head keeps up its awful pounding.

I want to lie. The last thing I want to do is take one more piece of my son’s innocence from him, but he asked me directly, and I don’t like lying to him, and…

“Honey, Santa is a really beautiful story. LikeThe Octonauts.” My frantic mind registers the fact that he got over his interest in that show at least a year ago, so I quickly shift course. “OrDinosaur Train. He’s notrealreal, but he lives in our hearts and our imaginations.”

“What does that even mean?” he asks, enraged now, his voice high and tinny. The zipper’s going again, up, down, up, down, the movements furious. “A person can’t live inside us. That’s another lie! Who are the presents even from?”

“Dad and me,” I say. But that was another mistake. Because I’ve called attention to the most messed-up part of this scenario: his dad just left him one day, and he hasn’t come back.

Hewon’tbe back.

Despite knowing better, I reach for Aidan. He bats my hands away, tears rolling down his cheeks. I pull back, giving him the space he needs, even though what I need is to put my arms around my little boy, and he sinks down to the dirty ground littered with rocks, his hands over his ears.

He’s making a horrible sound, a keening, but I can’t go to him. I can’t. He needs space. If I touch him right now, it’ll only make his meltdown worse.

Not-Santa finally seems to realize he’s not wanted, or maybe that there’s a subzero chance he’s going to get laid, because his eyes go wide and he slips away, probably to sneak another sip from his flask behind an alpine fir.

I stand there, feeling a lack of control that is so appalling, so overwhelming that I want to join Aidan on the ground. But he finally stops, and he lets me pick him up. I carry him back to the car like he’s two, not six, and the relief of at least being able to do this—to hold him—is staggering.

“I don’t like it when you lie to me, Mom,” he says softly, his voice small, as I buckle him into his booster seat.

I grab his weighted blanket from the trunk, where I keep it for his occasional public meltdowns. Tears are still running down his cheeks, but they’ve slowed. I let myself sweep some of them away.

“You always tell me lying is bad,” he continues. “This is a pretty big betrayal.”

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