It made me sad that he didn’t remember me anymore, but Pops wasn’t hard to make happy, so I played along. “Sure am.”
He looked down at his feet, and his forehead wrinkled. “Where the hell are my shoes?”
“I’ll grab them for you. What color are you thinking with that suit? The brown or the black?”
He stared at me like I had two heads. “What moron would wear black with this?”
I smiled. “Brown it is.”
Pops had a ton of clothes packed into the small closet in his room. The bottom of which was lined with old school wingtips. I took out a brown pair and pulled a chair up to the bed before helping him turn to face me.
We talked as I slipped on his shoes and took out the shoeshine kit that was always in his bedside table.
“I like a high shine.” Pops pointed to his shoes. “So I can see my pretty face when I look down. Did you hear the one about the guy who gets his shoes shined and goes dancing at a club?”
I chuckled and shook my head. The human brain was pretty damn amazing. Pops couldn’t remember that I was his grandson, but he could remember a shit ton of dirty jokes. I actually hadn’t heard this one yet, but if he was telling it, I knew where this story was going.
“Nope, I don’t think I’ve heard that one.”
“Guy gets his shoes buffed so tight, they’re like a mirror, and then goes to the club. He dances with the first woman, trying to impress her, and says ‘I bet I know your favorite color.’ He looks down into his shiny shoe reflection and says, ‘red.’ The woman is impressed. Little while later, he dances with a second woman…guesses her favorite color is blue. Then he dances with a third woman—looks down and grows perplexed. The woman notices and asks, ‘What’s the matter?’ He says, ‘What color panties are you wearing?’ The woman responds, ‘I’m not wearing any.’ Guy says, “Oh thank God, I thought my new shoes were cracked.”
The two of us laughed. When I was almost done with Pops’ shoeshine, he said, “I’m going to open a store that sells suits someday. Good ones that fit right, imported from Italy. You should set up your stand outside. That’ll be a gold mine for you…men who spend on a good suit don’t like scuffed shoes.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he had opened up a store that sold suits—and then another, then another, then another—and eventually they expanded from men’s clothes to women’s, then to children’s. Today Kline’s even carried makeup, home goods, and had a small section of toys, like the robot sitting in my car parked outside. “That’s a great idea. I think I’ll do that.”
Even though Pops had appeared lucid for the last fifteen minutes, after I put away the shoeshine kit and came back from washing up, he looked over at me and asked, “Are you the shoeshine boy?”
I smiled sadly. “Yeah, I am.”
Rena came by a little while later. Pops had lost interest in talking and was back to staring at the TV. “Bryce? I should be getting Mr. Kline changed for bed.”
I nodded. “Okay, Rena.”
I said goodbye to Pops and walked down the hall with Rena toward the exit. “How was your visit?” she asked.
“He thinks I’m the shoeshine boy.”
Rena smiled. “That man can forget his own name, but he will never forget his style. He must’ve cut the women back in his day with how sharp he looked.”
“Yeah, he was something else. Didn’t matter if he was going to the supermarket, he wore his suit.”
“Your sister came by earlier. She said you were over at one of the stores playing Santa. Is that true?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Every Christmas season Pops used to put on a Santa suit and beard and play Santa in one of his stores—taking pictures for the kids who came. He loved doing it. When he started to grow forgetful, and couldn’t do it anymore, I filled in for him. I’ve done it the last eight years on Christmas Eve.”
“The staff must get a kick out of that.”
Sadly, unlike Pops, who everyone knew by name, most people didn’t even recognize me as one of the owners of Kline’s. I spent most of my time at the corporate office. But that anonymity worked for me today. No way would that manager have suggested Holly and I compete for the right to buy a robot if she had known who I was. Of course, I could’ve told her and walked out with the toy, but for some reason, I didn’t. “They enjoyed it much more when Pops did it. He really got into character for it.”
She smiled. “I bet he did.”
At the door, I thanked Rena and told her I’d be back tomorrow to visit again. The snow was really starting to come down heavy now, so when I got into my car, I considered just going home. But then I looked over at the robot sitting on the passenger seat and thought about the little boy I’d met today. This thing would probably make his year…so what the hell, I’d go slow and try to make a kid smile on Christmas Eve, just like Pops would if he could.
Holly
Some Christmas Eve this turned out to be. At least we were home.
After the doctors checked Mason out for any neurological damage, he got the all clear to leave the hospital. While he had hit his head crashing into a barrier, apparently there was no lasting damage. Thank God. I couldn’t imagine something happening to my son; he was my entire world.
Rather than head back to my sister’s so late, Mason and I headed home on the snowy roads to have a quiet, late Christmas Eve together. I’d let him stay up a little later tonight, and then after he went to bed, I’d play Santa and lay out all the gifts I had wrapped and hidden under my bed.
Unfortunately, the one gift he wanted wouldn’t be under the tree. After everything he’d been through tonight, I wished he could’ve woken up to the surprise of the robot. I’d have to explain to him that Santa Claus promised to make a special trip back after Christmas to bring him one. I had it all planned out. I would write a little note in “Santa’s” writing and leave it next to the cookie crumbs that were left behind. My son always left cookies out for Santa, and I’d always enjoyed them as a midnight snack. Ever since my husband died, I’d used those little late-night moments to talk to him while I sat there alone, eating the cookies and staring at the lights on the tree. It had become my own private tradition. A sad one at that.
It was now 9:30, and Mason and I had just taken the cookies out of the oven. I’d told him he had to go to bed after we finished baking. The air filled with the smell of molten chocolate.
He jumped up and down. “Can I have one now?”
“We need to wait for them to cool first.”
Several minutes later, Mason enjoyed three cookies with a tall glass of milk before we prepared a plate for Santa and left it on a small table next to the tree.
Then, I tucked my son into bed, hugging him a bit tighter than usual. To ensure he didn’t wake up while I was placing the gifts under the tree, I always reminded him that Santa needed him to be asleep in order to safely come in unseen. It always baffled me how easily kids bought into the whole Santa Claus thing. I kept wondering when Mason would figure it out. He was seven, which was about the age that I discovered the truth. But I was happy it hadn’t happened yet, because I was certainly in no rush to have him grow up.