Henry drove in, racing the car before switching it off, beating his feet on the frozen doormat, blowing as he entered the kitchen, helping her shut the door. “Beauty,” he said of the tree. “How you coming?”
“All right.” She picked up a big spoon, stirred the cranberries on the stove. “Do you think we could leave my sister’s in time to see Santa and do a little shopping?”
He kissed her on the back of her neck, grinned. “Why not? Matter of fact, I have a couple of things to get, myself, still.” His look of innocence was absurd.
My present, she thought. He hasn’t bought mine yet. And she reminded herself for the hundredth time to phone Mr. Salten at the men’s shop and tell him she’d decided to take the dressing gown for her husband and would he please deliver it, rush.
“Maybe,” he said, breaking and buttering a hot cinnamon roll, “we could skip Santa this year. Kids are pretty grown-up—”
“Nora would be scandalized!”
“I suppose so.” He ate a mouthful. “Mighty good!”
“Don’t spoil your appetite!”
“Fat chance,” he chuckled. “Hungry as a bear! Truth is, I’d miss Santa, myself. Saw him the first year they put him up and every year since.”
In Simmons Park, annually, the stores erected a giant mechanical Santa Claus whose arms moved to hand gifts to children, who talked over a loud-speaker in his midriff and who even sang carols in a sonorous voice. He was the yuletide deity and big wonder of Green Prairie; a child who missed him was unfortunate indeed.