“Let me get my list!” Max said, pulling free and running down to his room. He returned with a small sheet of paper wadded in his fist. As Nick opened the door for Abbey, Max smoothed his list out. “Nick, do you know what I’m asking Santa for this Christmas?”
Abbey mouthed, “Thank you,” to her mom and her mom smiled, waving in return as she closed the apartment door.
Max was reading his list to Nick as they walked side by side down the walk to the car. The snow was really coming down. Her sneakers were covered in snow, the canvas feeling wet against her feet. Max was rattling off the end of his list to Nick as he looked up between items, trying to catch snowflakes in his mouth.
“That’s a great list you have there,” Nick said.
“It’s all my favorite things. I hope Santa will get them for me, but Mama says sometimes he just can’t fit it all in the sleigh. I tried to make my list full of small things so he could fit them.”
Nick nodded but made eye contact with Abbey, thoughts clear on his face. Was he reading between the lines? Did he realize that she didn’t have enough money to pay for Max’s presents? Well, this year, she would. He opened the car door for Max.
“Whoa!” Max said, climbing in. “It’s like a space ship in here!”
Nick smiled as he allowed Abbey to get in. She slid inside, and he shut the door for her.
“Mama, this car is cool!” Max said. Nick smiled again as he got in on his side. He seemed to enjoy making Max happy.
“It is cool,” Abbey said.
Nick started the car, the windshield wipers pushing the snow to the sides of the glass. He put the car in gear, and as they pulled away, he looked back at Max once more. “Off to see Santa Claus.”
Chapter Eleven
“I thought we were going to the mall?” Abbey said as she realized that Nick wasn’t driving in the correct direction. She said it quietly, trying not to let Max hear it. She didn’t want to alarm him.
“Santa isn’t at the mall,” he answered, his eyes not leaving the road.
“Yes he is,” Max said from the backseat.
“Santa is at the Children’s Museum.”
“What’s the Children’s Museum?” Max asked, and a swell of shame pelted Abbey’s cheeks.
The Children’s Museum in Richmond had replicas of caves for children to explore, real working trains on which to take rides, whole rooms for painting and stages with all the dress-up costumes one could imagine. It was a child’s dream. Abbey always tried to give Max the best of everything, but funds were limited, and she’d only been with Max to the Children’s Museum a handful of times. It’s not that she didn’t want to take him to a kid’s wonderland full of the latest educational activities and toys, but she just didn’t have enough money. Clearly, it had been so long that he didn’t even remember.
“Do you remember the place where you sailed the boats in that big water table?” she asked him, recalling how he’d stayed there for hours when he was only about three years old.
“No. Will I get to sail boats today?”
“If you want to,” Nick said. “We can play after we see Santa.”
Abbey didn’t want to have to admit that she didn’t have enough cash to pay for all their entrance tickets to the museum, and she was nearly certain that the photo packages for Santa were going to be more money than she had. She’d planned to snap a few photos on her phone, and she didn’t know if she’d be allowed to do that at the Children’s Museum. It was a good thing she was getting paid for decorating. She’d have to put it on her credit card.
As a child, she’d heard of the Santa at the Children’s Museum. He used to be at the old department store, Miller and Rhoads. Her friends at school would talk about having tea with him or the big Christmas breakfast that was offered for those who had the money for the most expensive tickets. Her mom, who was a secretary before she retired, had the same money dilemma that Abbey now faced, and Abbey had never been able to go to Miller and Rhoads.
She’d always gone to the mall. As a kid, she’d heard that the Miller and Rhoads Santa was the real Santa and all the others were just his helpers. She remembered looking very closely at Santa’s beard to see if she could tell if it was real. Luckily, her mom had always found a pretty good Santa, and so, when Max was born, they made sure of the same.
Nick pulled the car to a stop in the parking lot. The lot didn’t look very busy, which was surprising since she’d heard that the line usually snaked around the whole place and poured out the doors at times. Since it was just after Thanksgiving and a weekday, they’d gotten lucky.