In the blink of an eye, the season has switched from Halloween to Christmas, pumpkins to wreaths, falling leaves to decorated trees.
It is winter again.
I take a tiny box from a red Christmas tub and remove one of my mother’s heirloom ornaments. It is a fragile beauty, pink as my home, “Merry Christmas!” written in white glitter.
I hang the ornament and reach for another, a beautiful, multicolored bulb with a gold star cut into its heart.
What good is keeping your heart in a box—protected, unseen—if you cannot share its beauty with others?
I secure it to a branch.
Of course, there’s always the chance that it might break, be shattered into tiny shards, but I also know that it can be pieced back together again. As my grampa said, it may not be the same, but it can still be just as beautiful, albeit in a completely different way.
A few months ago, I wondered if it was the wrong men at the right time, or even the right men at the wrong time, but I’ve come to realize it’s neither. It had to be the right Susan at the right time.
I’m a better, stronger, more giving soul after this year of Santa insanity. I am more whole than I’ve ever been. And that’s a lovely place to be.
I don’t need a man to complete me. I am not “single.” I am coupled to community, to friends, to work, to passion, to books, to life.
Would it be nice to find someone someday to share my life with completely and without edit? Of course. But I no longer wallow in the fact that I’m alone, because I’m not. I’m loved, deeply. My family, my friends, my town—complete strangers—have proven that to me, and, if anything, I am even more proud of who and where I am.
A small town bookstore owner with a soul as bright as the bay on a winter’s day.
The ice slowly dissolving.
Proudly displaying cracks for the world to see.
That’s what I love most about the characters in my favorite books: women who have been knocked down by life, time and again, and yet get up and soldier on with faith, strength and resilience. I am fractured and forty. Sadly, there are too few books with protagonists like me. We should be celebrated. The broken are the most beautiful. And we are all broken. If we all would only just choose to share that with the world—not the faux perfection but all the times we’ve fallen backward into a pool—then the world would be a better place.
I finish decorating my tree, lit in the window, and smile. It may only be the first day of December, but I want to celebrate every single moment of the holidays this year.
I head back to the spare bedroom and take a deep breath before entering.
I open the closet and remove my parents’ pillows. The scent of Old Spice and Shalimar overwhelm me. I give the pillows a hug and then reach for my parents’ Santa caps. On the way out of the bedroom, I glance at the poem over the bed.
“It’s time,” I say.
I climb the stairs to the attic and place the pillows and caps in a green bin that I’ve already emptied.
“It’s not goodbye,” I say. “It’s just time for some happy memories to nestle alongside the old ones.”
I close the lid and turn off the lights.
I have a cup of soup and cocoa before the tree, watching the light fade outside and the tree lights glow, and then pull on my coat and boots. My early dinner hour is already over. It is snowing lightly, as it has been off and on since the town’s Halloween parade, and the earth glistens. I exhale and watch my breath dance before my eyes. I head onto my sidewalk and turn to look at The Pink Lady all bedecked in garland and lights.
“Looks beautiful!” my neighbor, Charlie, calls. “You’re among the first as usual.”
“Among the first?” I call. “I thought I was the first.”
“Ol’ Bobby Brennan got his up over Thanksgiving,” Charlie calls from across the street as he throws lights onto his bushes in the near dark. “Didn’t you feel the power surge?”
I laugh.
“See you later, Charlie.”
He waves and returns to work.
It is cold, but not frigid, and I feel exhilarated. I decide to walk to work, cutting by the Brennans to see Bobby’s handiwork. I can see the lights a block away, casting the neighborhood in a glow. Bobby makes Clark Griswold look like an amateur. There is not a spare inch of roof, gutter, window, railing or lawn not covered by a bulb, wreath, garland, inflatable or candle. I stop and take a picture to show my grandparents.
Despite the chill in the air, a warmth covers my body as I enter downtown. It is already bedecked in Christmas, as it has been since the Thanksgiving parade, the gaslights wrapped in green boughs and adorned with wreaths. Every window in town is flocked and frosted, featuring Christmas displays ranging from partying penguins to the northern lights.
But the town knows Santa is ours.
I stop in front of Sleigh By the Bay and watch the happy scene in my front window.
The big sign on the front door reads: SANTA IS IN THE HO-HO-HOUSE!
The tiny paper plate clock that I made in grade school—red dots with the numbers written on them marking the time, popsicle sticks as the hands for the time—still hangs underneath the sign stating that Santa’s here until 6:30 p.m.
And we are still here: not only my grandparents and me but also my parents, who live not only in us but will live in this bookstore forever.
I take a step back and can’t help but smile. People are lined up out the door waiting to get their children’s picture taken with Santa.
I watch my grandma take the hand of a little girl in a green velvet dress and lead her to Santa. She looks at the big, bearded man and then her parents, eyes wide, brimming with tears.
I move inside the door and cock my head to listen. I hear my grandma say, “Don’t be scared. It’s just Santa. He loves all children.” The girl nods and Santa sweeps her into his arms with a hearty laugh.
Santa rocks her gently on his lap, and then I can see him ask her name. She looks at him, and I see her say, “Susan.”
For a moment, my grampa is taken off guard. And then he sees me standing outside the window, and he smiles.
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” he says. “Such a beautiful name! Did you know that’s my granddaughter’s name?”
The girl shakes her head.
“It’s a special name, meant only for the smartest, bravest little miracles in the world.”
The girl smiles.
I realize Grampa is looking at me as he says this.
“What is your Christmas wish, Susan?”
Santa leans his ear toward her mouth—because it must remain a secret between child and Santa only—and Susan whispers her message.
Santa nods and gives the girl a kiss on top of her matching velvet bow. Then he turns and smiles for the camera.
The parents take a million shots.
I don’t know how much time there is left for such scenes, how many more years I’ll be blessed to witness this, so I simply stand here in our beloved bookstore for as long as I can and take a million mental pictures.
My cell rings. I rush to my office, shed my coat and wet boots and answer without looking.
“Happy December!”
Holly.
“Thank you,” I say.
“How are the Clauses this first day of the holiday season?”
“Making magic,” I say. “As usual. How are you? Sorry I haven’t called since Thanksgiving. Been a whirlwind.”
“I know,” she says. “I’m actually calling for a reason.”
My eyebrows lift. “I hate it when you call for a reason.” Holly laughs. “What is it?”
“Tristan called.”
“Restraining order?”
Holly laughs, hard.
I continue. “I haven’t spoken to him—or Micah or Jamie—much since July. I texted them a few times to say hi and ask how it’s going, but I didn’t want to be the ghost of their Christmas past.”
“Perfect segue,” Holly says. “Actually, I ran into him the other night at an event. Totally random. He told me he’s organizing a fundraiser for Jackson, the little boy he said he told you about who was shot and killed in Chicago. Tristan wants to start the after-school program he always wanted, and he wondered if you might participate. I said I’d ask.”
I close my eyes remembering Tristan’s story.
“Of course,” I say. “Is it an auction? How many books would he like to give away? Or perhaps I could get a big name author to speak or contribute.”
“Actually,” Holly says, “he wants you, Susan.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s racing in the Santa Run again, and he’s already enlisted Jamie and Micah to join as well as Leah, Luka, Noah and Fred.” Holly hesitates. “And me.”
“No,” I say. “I can’t go back to that.”
“Just hear me out,” Holly says, her voice surprisingly calm. “If you haven’t noticed, social media is still clamoring about your missed connection, especially with the holidays approaching again. Everyone wonders, if it wasn’t one of these three men, who was it? Who’s the hot Santa? Who’s the angel who understood your angel pin?”
“Okay, I get it, and I know you’re actually brainstorming headlines and content for your site right now,” I say. “Look, I’d love to help, but this seems so...”
“Random?” Holly asks. “That’s why it’s perfect. I actually believe it would serve as closure to you—closure on this forty-year funk, closure on finding Santa, closure on this run.”
“New year, new me?”
“Exactly,” she says. “To use a bookseller analogy, it’s sort of like you cut out the cliffhanger from a Grisham novel. I think this might be a wonderful thing to do. For everyone. You could even talk about how tragedy changes us. I know Tristan wants to talk about Jackson’s life, maybe this could give you a chance to talk about Jordan. These stories might resonate with folks, especially leading into the holidays.” Holly stops for a moment. There is silence. “It’s one day. What have you got to lose?”
“Seriously?” I ask. “Do you have no memory of what started a year ago.”
I’m about to say no again and hang up when I hear Tristan’s voice in my head.
‘For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.’
A chance for total and full forgiveness. The final period at the end of my story.
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
Holly yelps and then just as quickly adds, “This is still Susan on the phone, right?”