December 6, 2002

Dear Santa,

Hello. It’s Anne. Do you remember me? The last time I wrote to you I was seven, called “Annie”, and instead of toys for Christmas, I asked you to please take Abigail’s horse away. Or, if horses couldn’t live at the North Pole like reindeer, to give him to someone else’s sister. Today, I am an adult of twenty-eight. And, today, my five-year-old daughter was found at the subway station down the block from our apartment, with the little suitcase her Nana gave her and the stuffed Mousie she has had since she was born. It is late now and Samantha is safe in her bed. Outside the window, I can see that it is beginning to snow, big wet flakes in the darkness. It looks magical, like snow always does when you are warm inside looking out and can conjure places like ice castles at the North Pole—where streets are not perilous and tragedy is not imminent. Here on my desk is Samantha’s letter to you, waiting to be mailed. Its hope and innocence have inspired me to write to you myself.

Oh, to be a child and oblivious to the terror that a mother has to compartmentalize—until a phone call hurtles into her house-of-cards like a grenade. When I was a girl, I always wondered why you and Mrs. Claus didn’t have children of your own. Now I wonder at the weight of being responsible for the happiness of the entire world’s children.

Eventually, I will have to care about the threats I received when I fled the CEO’s presentation at work. But, for now, I can barely piece together the chain of events that got me from the office to the subway station—the cab ride, the TV news van outside, the police officer who escorted me in. I recall him because he looked like he was twelve and acted afraid of me for some reason. The enormously pregnant woman—who had discovered Samantha drifting through the lobby—was chattering about how much Samantha reminded her of her son who was at school, in second grade, while she bobbed a squeaky stroller with a toddler back and forth. She kept calling Samantha “Sammie” and each time she said it, it jarred me. I was on perilous ground as it was, struggling in my heels in all the slush tracked in on everyone’s boots, struggling to understand why the twelve-year-old cop was asking questions and filling in forms, when I just wanted to get my daughter home. Although, Samantha appeared perfectly at ease and, it seemed, had charmed everyone, including the cop and the man trying to mop the floor who, with an exaggerated wink at me, gave her a bag of Skittles.

I am ashamed to confess that for a handful of seconds I wanted to hate the pregnant woman, in spite of the fact that she had essentially rescued Samantha. She was one of those women who manage to make yoga pants and those suede-y boots that resemble slippers and a puffy coat that did not close over baby-to-be look like a style statement. Her skin, devoid of makeup, was luminous and at one point, she swept a scrunchie off her wrist and pulled her glossy shampoo-commercial hair back into a perfect pony-tail, all in one fluid movement. Like a superhero. She will bake cookies, from scratch, with her children to leave for you on Christmas Eve. They will make homemade gifts for the kids in the hospital and the elderly in the nursing home. And I have no time for any of these things. She was judging me. Except that she wasn’t. She was nice. And kind. And this made it even worse.

At least I can take consolation in the fact that Samantha was not running away. She told me later that she wanted to see where the subway ended. She figured she should bring her suitcase in case it went as far as China. I had a hard time convincing her to unpack it. What she had inside is sure to give you a chuckle: a pajama shirt with a bathing suit bottom that she grew out of last summer, three pairs of underpants, a plastic travel container with the soap removed and her marbles added, an old cassette tape of Disney songs, and a can of soup (the kind you need a can opener, and an adult, to open.)

It will be hard to tell my mother and my aunt, even my sister, about this day. Not because they will judge me but because they, too, will not. I know that this makes no sense. They accepted my silence about the circumstances of my pregnancy, just as they accepted Samantha—with the no-nonsense pragmatism that is bred into the fiber of the women of my family. Even though I had nine years with my own father before he died, I don’t remember much about him. I feel as if I am more Mom and Aunt Jeanne’s daughter than I ever was Mom and Dad’s. I hope that they have instilled in me as much fortitude as they themselves possess, since I am raising Samantha on my own, without her father.

How could I have explained to anyone why I got on a plane with a complete stranger? To Argentina? Because he asked me? My actions could be described as those of a serious student finally released from the pressure cooker of university, business degree in hand, who never drank but then overindulged in glitzy cocktails at a celebration I hadn’t wanted to attend. It could have been the lights, chic and otherworldly, in a club much more expensive than I was used to. It could have been the way he moved, that he knew the tango, after years of warding off annoying frat boys, of never having time for boyfriends. It could have been that I was aching for sex and freedom, for a fling—someone ripe for the asking. But those explanations sound ordinary, cliché, even cheap. It didn’t feel like any of that at the time. It was transcendent. I am not one to be bewitched, and yet, he bewitched me. That week glimmered to such a height of perfection—that I did not need nor desire more, and I have not lingered, there, in memory. But today, I find myself thinking about him, as if a door flew open. What was he like, Santa, as a little boy? Did he lay awake all night on Christmas Eve hoping to hear your sleigh bells? Or was he the oldest, like Abigail, shushing his sister back to sleep? What kinds of toys did he ask you for? Is Samantha like him? I believe in my heart that she is.

I did not want to find him when Samantha was born. Most people would undoubtedly assume that because of the type of person I am and the type of career that I have that I didn’t want the baby. Most people would be wrong. Samantha has been my gift, the only one I could ever want.

When you read Samantha’s letter you will see that she is requesting ballet shoes and a hot air balloon—not a ride in a balloon but her very own to take adventures in—and that each letter in each word is written in a different color crayon. Yes, it took her hours to do, with Mousie in her lap. The ballet shoes and the lessons to go with them were easy, but, sadly, you will have to take the blame for not getting the balloon. It will be you she will be disappointed with long before me. And disappoint her I will. How do you not disappoint a child who wants a hot air balloon for Christmas?

If only I could ask you for something concrete, a key to figure out how to be a mother to this sensitive, dreamy, thoughtful girl. Maybe I am confusing you with God, or maybe, in a way, you are one and the same. I haven’t spoken much to Him lately either. I guess I used to figure that if I don’t ask much from Him, He won’t ask much from me. So, Santa, this year I have a Christmas wish. My life with Samantha will never fit into a traditional family mold.  She will quite probably never understand my choices, but what I wish for is this—that Samantha will always feel loved. Because I do love her, fiercely—like a mother lion and her cub.

Happy Christmas, Santa

With love,

Anne

P.S.  Thank you for not taking Abigail’s horse away. You, of course, always knew best.

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Tina Klimas enjoys her writing life in Redford, MI. “Hope” is part of a collection of linked short stories that she is currently at work on completing. Stories have been published in The First Line and RavensPerch. She is also a poet with poems appearing in THEMA Literary Journal, Bear River Review, and The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and a first poetry book manuscript that is searching for a publishing home.

Photo: S&B Vonlanthen