Total pages in book: 41
Estimated words: 38786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
“Excluding ‘made by Mrs. Claus’ stitched on the inside of his suit, he has no other form of ID. We don’t know who to call.” She rolls her eyes. “But I’m sure once word gets out that we have a sick Santa in our ward, a news crew will soon show up. It isn’t the best way to get a formal identification, but it is better than having him spend Christmas here alone.” I stop nodding in agreement when she nudges her head to the double doors she recently walked through. “You can go sit with him if you want. I’m sure he’d appreciate the company.”
“Is that allowed? I’m not exactly family.”
“Are you sure about that? You seem to have forgotten that I know your last name.” She barges my shoulder like I don’t hear every joke on the planet about my surname a million times each December before she gestures for me to follow her. “I’ll never do my rounds if he’s left alone. It doesn’t feel right so close to Christmas, so you’d be doing me a favor if you’d sit with him.”
When she walks me into a curtained-off room, my heart sinks. Santa looks tiny out of his suit and strapped to a bed by monitors.
I wait for the ICU nurse to leave before asking, “What’s his diagnosis?” I had planned to be a heart surgeon in college, but my roommate’s gratitude for assuring his girlfriend her chances of a happily ever after significantly improved when she walked in on him with her best friend altered my plans.
I still work on hearts, just not with a scalpel.
“The original diagnosis was a heart attack, but we think there’s something wrong with the ECG machine. It’s been on the fritz since he was admitted.”
When Jae switches on the electrocardiography to record the electronic signals of Santa’s heart, my shocked eyes rocket to her.
His heart is beating out the tune of jingle bells.
“You’re an ass,” I mutter under my breath when Jae bursts out laughing before exposing she’d placed one of the pads on her iPhone speaker.
“Don’t be mad. It’s Christmas.” After dragging over a chair to the side of Santa’s bed, she tells me she will be back in an hour to check on him. “If you need anything before then, hit the buzzer on your right.”
I wait for her footsteps to stop sounding in my ear before taking a seat.
Just as fast, one of Santa’s eyes pops open. He drags it to the left before pulling it to the right.
Only once he’s confident the coast is clear does he speak. “Is she gone?”
Although shocked by his quick recovery—he was flatlining only hours ago—I nod. “She said she’ll be back in an hour.”
“She said that five minutes ago, and I was barely alone for a second.” He yanks off the blanket covering his legs, displaying he’s placed back on the boots the first responder officer removed at the scene of his collapse. “I almost got caught.”
“Should you be doing that?” I ask when he commences ripping off the pads of the heart monitor. “You collapsed. Your heart—”
“Is perfectly fine,” he interrupts as he removes the final pad.
As he enters the cubicle next to us to gather his Santa jacket, he asks, “How’s yours? Looks like it took a bit of a beating earlier as well. Understandable with your whole, they’re better women because of me speech.”
“It’s good. It’s fine.” Its crumpled remains aren’t up for discussion with a man I don’t know.
I grow panicked I said my inner monologue out loud when Santa breathes heavily out of his nose. “I thought you were ready, but I may have jumped the gun a little early.”
“For?” I ask, confused.
My bewilderment augments when he replies without pause for thought. “For the wish you made when you were ten.”
That was the year Casey told me Santa didn’t exist. I was super pissed, not solely because she had stolen the magic of Christmas from me, but because it meant it was less likely my wish would come true.
I wished not to become my mother. I wanted one true love, not a dozen, because I didn’t want anyone to hurt me how my mother hurt my father when he came to collect us that Christmas Eve to learn she was engaged for the fourth time since their divorce.
Only when I got older did I understand the gap between my mother’s third and fourth marriage. She’d given my father a sliver of hope that we could be a family again before she bumped into my little league baseball coach three weeks before Christmas.
Santa squeezes my shoulder, pulling me from my thoughts. “Maybe next year?”
I nod before realizing I don’t know what I’m agreeing to. “Next year for what?”
As he breaks through the curtains of the cubicle meant to keep him alive, he shouts, “To try to re-grant your Christmas wish!”