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I paused at the top of the stairs. I wasn’t really supposed to look either. My mother had been very clear that the very first thing I should do was run in and wake her and my father so we could all go downstairs and enjoy Christmas together. But he doesn’t like getting up early. He’d be grouchy, maybe even angry, and it might take forever for Christmas to start.
Maybe a BMX bike was under the tree. Red, my favorite color, with knobby tires. I’d ride in the backyard even when it was muddy, go all the way to the creek.
I started down the stairs.
With a bike, I could go on long rides with my father. He had a black-and-white mountain bike that he threw in the back of the truck then disappeared for half a day. If I had a BMX, I could go too.
If.
Just as I reached the fourth step, the step beyond which I could see the tree, I heard a sound. I froze, slippered foot hanging midstep. At first, I only heard my heart throbbing. My chest hurt, and I reminded myself to breathe out, but quietly.
Then my mother whimpered. It was so quiet that I wasn’t sure I’d heard a sound at all. I glanced up the stairs to my parents’ bedroom door.
Closed.
But my mother yelped downstairs. And there was a crash.
My foot moved on its own. Down to the next step, then the next. Full stockings bulged with presents on the mantel. The tree sparkled.
I looked toward the kitchen. My mother stood in the doorway. Above her head was a plant that my father said was some kind of missile, but it was really just a plant. My mother said not to eat it because it was poisonous. She leaned against the doorframe and next to her was the one person I most wanted and most dreaded to see.
Santa Claus.
His boots were black. His suit was bright red, just like in the stories and he wore a red hat with a white blob of fur at the end. He looked just like he was supposed to. But he was doing something Santa should never do.
He was kissing my mother.
I spun and raced back up the stairs. I ran to my bedroom and hid under the covers. I wasn’t cold, but I shook and shook. Eventually, I stopped shaking and fell asleep.
When I woke it was light outside. Morning. Santa had come. My heart jumped, but then I remembered Santa kissing my mother on her long white throat and I didn’t even want to get out of bed. But I didn’t want to disappoint my mother. She expected me to be up early.
Slowly, I padded to my parents’ door.
“Daddy?” I whispered from the doorframe.
“It’s too early,” my father said. He didn’t even open his eyes.
It popped out before I could stop it. “I saw Santa kissing Mommy.”
My father groaned. “You have too much imagination.”
I shook my head.
He sighed and sat up in bed. His red pajamas had little Santas on them. Last year’s Christmas pajamas. “If you see Santa, he takes back your presents.”
In the distance, bells jingled. “Did you hear that?”
My father shook his head, yawned, and put on slippers. My mother was very strict about slippers.
He took my hand and we went down the stairs together. My father’s feet thumped against the boards. He even stepped on the creaky stair. He never had to sneak.
When we reached the bottom of the stairs, no one was there.
“See?” he said. “He’s not here.”
“He’s with Mommy.”
“Helen?” my father called.
No answer.
His grip tightened on my hand. It hurt, but I didn’t say anything. It was always best not to.
“I bet she’s in the bathroom.” He walked to the guest bathroom, but it was empty.
So was the upstairs bathroom. Both bedrooms. The living room, the kitchen. Even the laundry room. Empty.
But she couldn’t have gone far because her cell phone was right on the hall table on the charging mat. She never left the house without her phone. One time we had to turn the car around on the way to a movie to come back for it. My father called it my baby sister, Apple.
“Apple’s here,” I said. “She would never go far without Apple.”
My father stared at Apple for a long minute.
I went back into the living room. “Santa was here!”
I pointed at a bright red BMX bike parked under the tree. It shone in the Christmas lights.
My father was suddenly next to me, gripping Apple so tight his knuckles were white. “Where’d that bike come from?”
“Santa!” A card hung from the handlebars and I held it up so he could see.
“I don’t recognize that handwriting.” His voice sounded funny.
“Maybe an elf wrote the card.” I was already down on my knees next to my bike. It smelled like rubber and chain oil.
“Don’t touch it!” my father said.
I leaned back, startled. He pushed past and ran to the front door. I stood, looked once more at the shining bicycle, and followed.
When he opened the front door a wave of cold air rolled into the hall. I crossed my arms and stood next to him. It must have snowed while I was sleeping. Christmas snow.
Two sets of footprints started at the front steps, leaving tracks in the Christmas snow. Halfway to the sidewalk, the tracks stopped. All around them was completely unbroken snow.
My father looked at the tracks, then at the spot where they ended. One set of prints was small, a little bit bigger than mine, and the other was large, like his.
We stood in the doorway looking at footprints for a long time. I was cold everywhere but my feet by the time he slammed the door.
“She forgot her coat.” I pointed at my mother’s pink parka hanging on its hook. She would never go out without her coat.
My father scooped me up and carried me past my new bike and into the kitchen. He jammed headphones on my head and pulled up a cartoon on my tablet. I wanted to go back into the living room and play with my bike, but the look on his face was too scary. I stayed put.
He dialed numbers on his cell phone and started talking. He turned his back and waved his arms. His arms looked angry and I flinched back in my chair.
I tried to be as small as possible as I pretended to watch the penguin show. I scooted around so I could see my new bike while my father talked and talked on the phone. It was beautiful.
Someone knocked on the back door. I felt vibrations in the chair and I knew. I tore off my headphones and ran toward the sound.
“Merry Christmas!” I flung open the door. “Uncle Charlie?”
Uncle Charlie wore jeans and a pajama top under his coat. He clomped his boots against the porch and took them off before stepping into the kitchen. He knew the house rules.
“You’re not my mother.” My heart crumpled up like old wrapping paper. Light winked at the edges of my vision and I couldn’t breathe.
“It’s really damn early,” Uncle Charlie said to my father.
My father didn’t say anything. He pushed Uncle Charlie through the living room, past the bike, and to the front door. Then we three looked at the tracks in the unbroken snow.
“They just end,” Uncle Charlie said. “Like someone lifted them up into the sky.”
“The reindeer,” I said.
The sleigh must be far from here by now. It had to visit all the houses in the world in a single night. And my mother didn’t even have her coat. She must be very cold right now.
Uncle Charlie shook my shoulders. “Your lips are blue, kid. Get upstairs and get under the covers.”
I trudged up the stairs. I dragged the top of each slipper against one step and then the next. Eventually, I ran out of stairs. I looked inside my parents’ room one more time. I even opened the closet and checked under the bed.
Empty.
My crumpled paper heart ached and I climbed into their big bed and buried my face in my mother’s pillow. It smelled like her—flowers and smoke and vanilla.
A bright blue light pulsed against the ceiling. A police car. Was my father in trouble? Sometimes the police came for him, but usually not in the morning. Usually in the evening, after work when he drank in front of the television and my mother and I hid in the kitchen.
A lady with tired eyes came into the bedroom. She asked about my mother and about Santa. I told her everything. I was very clear about the footprints ending in the snow, but she didn’t seem to listen to that.
She asked what Santa looked like and if he had a white beard and I couldn’t remember. I remembered red and the boots and my mother’s neck thrown all the way back.
She asked about my father and whether he ever hurt my mother. I didn’t know what to tell her. No one ever talked about those things. But I wanted her to understand about Santa and why my mother deserved a good present, so I told her the truth.
Afterward, she took me downstairs. The bike was gone. All the other presents were gone, too, and black dust smudged the mantel and the tabletop.
“Mom’s going to be mad,” I said. “You made a mess.”
Uncle Charlie ruffled my hair. “She’ll give us hell for it over dinner.”
But she didn’t come back for dinner.
And neither did my presents.
Aunt Grace brought out dinner. It was a roasted ham and mashed potatoes and green peas. We always waited dinner on my father. Sometimes we sat around so long that my mother would give me a piece of cinnamon and sugar toast. “Shouldn’t we wait for Daddy and Uncle Charlie?”
“They’ll be late. Your Uncle Charlie called.”
“Where are they?”
“They’re at the police station.”
“Looking for Mommy?”
Aunt Grace bit her lips. “Your uncle will be home later, but your father...might not be home for a long time.”
My stomach clenched up like a fist and then relaxed. I took a sip of milk. “Where will I sleep?”
“You’ll sleep here tonight. Tomorrow we’ll go get your things and move them in here, like a sleepover.” She smiled at me.
I love sleepovers. Aunt Grace made good food and Uncle Charlie took me fishing at the creek behind their house. “I can go home when Mommy comes back.”
Aunt Grace’s fork clattered to the floor.
“Next Christmas,” I said. “Santa only comes once a year.”
I climbed off my chair and got her fork. She put it to one side and took another one from the drawer.
“We have a present for you,” she said.
It was a sled, with a polished wooden seat and red runners, like the bike but not as bright. I said thank you as my mother had taught me.
After dinner, Aunt Grace took me out to the sledding hill. We pulled the sled up, leaving tracks like my mother’s except ours ended in our boots. When we got to the top, I sat on the new sled, my gloved hands wet and cold, and Aunt Grace pushed me down the hill.
Stars sparkled above and the snow shone below. Faster. Faster. Then the sled hit a bump, and I flew between snow and sky.
And I knew that my mother had taken off from the front yard just so. She was never coming back, not next Christmas and not next year. She was in a place where my father could never hit her again.
The sled landed too hard and I rolled sideways into a tree. Tears ran hot down my cold face and when Aunt Grace got to me she wrapped her warm long coat around me and we rocked for a long time.
