Page 32 of Big Santa

He cries.

Not loud. He’s never been a loud crier. His chin wobbles and his eyes fill, and he presses his face into his brontosaurus so I can’t see it, and I sit in a hotel chair six hundred miles away with my hands useless on my knees.

His tears dry quickly, which makes my heart hurt even more. Four-year-olds should cry long and hard and loud about things that are unfair. They shouldn’t already know how to pull themselves together.

He learned that somewhere.

I know where.

“I’ll be home Friday,” I tell him.

He nods. Sniffs. Wipes his nose with the back of his hand.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, buddy.”

“Okay.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Daddy.” His voice is small and scratchy.

Noelle takes the tablet from him after we say goodnight. The screen shifts.

A blur of ceiling. A flash of the moon nightlight. The rustle of blankets as someone climbs off the bed. Footsteps. A door clicking softly shut.

Then Noelle is looking at me.

She’s in the hallway. I can tell by the colored lights blinking behind her, red, then green, then blue, warming one side of her face and then the other.

“He’s okay,” she says.

“I know.”

“He misses you.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “I know that too.”

“He’s still okay.”

I pause. “I’d come home right now if I could.”

I lean back in the uncomfortable hotel desk chair. It’s stiff and too upright, the kind of chair designed to be looked at instead of sat in. On the desk beside me, the room-service tray from dinner is still sitting where they left it. Half a steak, gone cold and gray. A glass of water. A tiny dish of butter I never opened.

It’s nearly nine in Tennessee, almost ten here.

“Thank you,” I say.

“You’re doing that again.”

“What?”

“Thanking me for taking care of him.”

“You are taking care of him.”

“Yeah. I’m his stepmom; it’s why I’m here.”

She says it like it’s the simplest thing in the world.