Page 3 of If This Was a Movie

TWO

NATE

There are a million things I’d rather be doing right now than walking into the mall two days after Thanksgiving, but unfortunately, here I am fighting crowds and holding onto a small hand.

At least I dragged my sisters Sloane and Sutton with me, since it’s Sloane’s fault Sophie even got the idea to go see Santa on the worst weekend to visit a mall in the entire year.

“I hate you for this,” Sloane grumbles.

“Back at you,” I reply as Sophie stops at the back of a very long, winding line, dozens and dozens of sets of parents with over-excited kids in tow wearing puffy jackets and floppy hats the mothers shove into bags before their children sit on the big man’s lap in perfectly coordinated outfits.

At least Soph is in a cute outfit, courtesy of Claire, who bought it for her months before.It will be perfect for Christmas photos!she shouted when she handed me the bright red dress with fluffy white edging way back in September.

I can’t complain though, since two years ago when my ex and Sophie’s mom told me she was done with the back and forth, didn’t want to be a mother anymore and signed all rights over to me, my entire family jumped in to help. My three sisters and mymother created a schedule to babysit because, as a contractor, sometimes I work odd hours. My youngest sister, Claire, even moved into the small in-law cottage behind my house, becoming my full-time help with Sophie.

Now that my daughter’s in kindergarten, I mostly only need help on the occasional night or weekend I have to work late, meaning when Claire’s boyfriend asked her to follow him to California, she jumped at the prospect.

“Sophie, do you know what you want to ask Santa for?” my oldest sister, Sloane, asks my five-year-old daughter, using a hand to pull her into her side. She’s getting big, but still barely hits Sloane’s stomach.

Sophie’s blonde curls I was barely able to calm this morning sway when she shakes her head. “Nope.”

Sighing, I stare at the ceiling of the Evergreen Park Mall, praying for some kind of divine intervention. I’ve been begging Sophie for a Christmas list since November first, not wanting to brave the crowds, but each time, she comes up empty.

“You’d better figure it out soon, silly,” my middle sister, Sutton, says, with a laugh. “Santa is right there!” She points to the old man in a bright red suit that matches Sophie’s dress.

“Oh, I’m so excited!” Sophie says, jumping up and down swinging the Ashlyn doll she takes everywhere around so I have to dodge getting smacked in the knee with it.

Ashlyn, the doll I got on a whim when she broke her arm nearly a year ago. She’s barely let it out of her sight since, changing her outfit daily and brushing her hair diligently to take care of her “best friend.” My daughter doesn’t know I have four dolls I rotate every few days, in case she loses one, so they’ll all wear similarly, and two more in the box.

You can never be too prepared when it comes to a toy your child has determined is the reason for them to continue living.

We wait in line another fifteen minutes before a green-and-red-dressed elf takes Sophie’s hand, leading her to Santa with an all-too-fake, much-too-high-pitched giggle.

“I hate this shit,” I say to my sisters, watching my daughter climb onto some stranger’s lap. “Who thought this was a good idea, letting small children be hugged by a total stranger and sit on him?”

“Probably capitalism,“ Sloane replies, and I can’t argue that logic.

Instead, I move to the spot the employees guide parents to and listen intently to the interaction so I can finally know what to search online for. With my luck, it’s going to be something she’s completely made up in her mind, like a pink-and-purple unicorn she can ride around the house that shits glitter.

“What’s your name?” Santa asks, and Sophie smiles wide, a recently lost tooth on the bottom leaving a gap before she answers.

“Sophie Donovan. I live on 6 Auburn Avenue, Evergreen Park, New Jersey,” she says, and I run my hand over my face with a groan.

Santa makes a loud chuckle, cutting her off before she gives out my phone number and probably social security number for good measure. “Oh, don’t you worry, I know exactly where you are, you don’t have to tell me now!”

That’s my Sophie, for you: not a care in the world, trusting everyone and anyone in her path, loud and self-assured, and friendly to a fault. It’s a fine line I walk daily, trying to teach her to keep herself safe while not taking my favorite personality trait of hers away. If this was any other situation, I’d quietly remind her that we don’t give total strangers explicit information about ourselves or where we live, but this is Santa Claus, and that would probably ruin the magic.

Again, who the fuck decided this entire schtick was a good idea?

Still, I put it on my mile-long mental list to remind her before bed that Santa is the exception, not the rule.

“So what do you want Santa to bring you this year?”

I’m hoping the answer will be something easy and attainable, not some Furby/Tickle Me Elmo/Eras Tour tickets level of impossible, even though, considering she is the center of my universe, I’d find a way to get it for Sophie if need be.

But I don’t have to worry about dishing out five, ten, fifteen times the retail value on some junk she won’t even want to play with in a month's time. No, because my sweet, loving, kind five-year-old daughter looks this man dead in the eye, lifts up her Ashlyn doll in the air, today in her little pink ballet costume and dark hair in a bun, and says, “I want my dad to marry the real-life Ashlyn and make her my mom.”

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

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