Page 8 of Please Send Snow
I smile, happy to know that the local families still come in to drop letters in the lobby mailbox for Santa.
“Welcome,” Michael tells them, gesturing to the mailbox with a flourish.
The kids giggle and race each other over to it. Across the lobby, the little dark-haired boy turns to watch them.
I know I’m supposed to be working, but watching this little slice of life unfold in the lobby is making me feel good for a change, so I just continue to soak it in.
The elderly couple calls Michael over and he moves to them, nodding as he listens. Meanwhile, the little dark-haired boy darts over to the mailbox to see what the other kids are up to.
“What’sthat?” he asks.
But the kids are talking to each other, and his dad is deep in conversation with Margo. Michael doesn’t hear him either—he’s too engrossed in chatting with the couple by the fireplace.
I look around, but no one else seems to have noticed the little boy, and I hate the idea of him being the only lonely person in this lobby.
Besides me.
“That’s a mailbox where you can send letters to Santa Claus,” I tell him.
“What?” he asks, marching over to me with a skeptical look on his face.
“Kids write letters to tell Santa what they’d like forChristmas,” I explain. “And then they put them in that mailbox.”
“Really?” he asks, looking thunderstruck.
“They sure do,” I reply.
I haven’t spent a lot of time around kids, but this one is pretty cute. He’s so tuned into this conversation that he’s practically quivering.
“I want to write one,” he says, the earnest eagerness on his face gives my heart a twinge.
I look around again, but his dad is still talking to Margo, and Michael is now sitting down with the couple. It looks like they’re regaling him with a long story.
“Hang on,” I tell the boy as I hop up and grab a pad of the lodge stationary from the desk, along with a pen.
Margo doesn’t even glance at me. Heading back to the boy, I feel a little shiver of joy like I got away with something, even though that’s silly.
“Here we go,” I tell him, placing the pad and pen down on the table.
“So I just write what I want?” he asks me, still incredulous.
“Well, my family has rules about our letters,” I offer. “You can ask for one thing for yourself, one thing for someone else, and one thing for everyone.”
I remember so many of my carefully compiled lists and all the amazing things I asked for: dolls and toys, books and vacations for my parents, and even world peace, while I was at it. I got a lot of the stuff I asked for, but I’m still waiting for the big man to deliver on that last one.
The little boy stares down skeptically at the blank pad.
“But you don’t have to do that,” I tell him quickly. “You can write whatever you want.”
“I want a train set for me,” he says right away, clambering onto the chair across from mine and getting to work on his letter, the tip of his tongue peeking out of his mouth as he concentrates on the pen.
I watch as he writes across the top of the page.
I wn tran set
A train set. That’s pretty old school for such a little guy, and something about it makes me like the boy even more than before. My dad would have loved every bit of this, and probably would have started sculpting an animal figure of him immediately, though I can’t decide what kind of animal. A little wolf cub? A small bear, maybe?
“Now what?” the boy asks. “What’s the next one?”
