If This Was a Movie (Evergreen Park #2)

Chapter 2 – Nate

TWO

NATE

There are a million things I’d rather be doing right now than walking into the mall two days after Thanksgiving, but unfortunately, here I am fighting crowds and holding onto a small hand.

At least I dragged my sisters Sloane and Sutton with me, since it’s Sloane’s fault Sophie even got the idea to go see Santa on the worst weekend to visit a mall in the entire year.

“I hate you for this,” Sloane grumbles.

“Back at you,” I reply as Sophie stops at the back of a very long, winding line, dozens and dozens of sets of parents with over-excited kids in tow wearing puffy jackets and floppy hats the mothers shove into bags before their children sit on the big man’s lap in perfectly coordinated outfits.

At least Soph is in a cute outfit, courtesy of Claire, who bought it for her months before. It will be perfect for Christmas photos! she shouted when she handed me the bright red dress with fluffy white edging way back in September.

I can’t complain though, since two years ago when my ex and Sophie’s mom told me she was done with the back and forth, didn’t want to be a mother anymore and signed all rights over to me, my entire family jumped in to help. My three sisters and my mother created a schedule to babysit because, as a contractor, sometimes I work odd hours. My youngest sister, Claire, even moved into the small in-law cottage behind my house, becoming my full-time help with Sophie.

Now that my daughter’s in kindergarten, I mostly only need help on the occasional night or weekend I have to work late, meaning when Claire’s boyfriend asked her to follow him to California, she jumped at the prospect.

“Sophie, do you know what you want to ask Santa for?” my oldest sister, Sloane, asks my five-year-old daughter, using a hand to pull her into her side. She’s getting big, but still barely hits Sloane’s stomach.

Sophie’s blonde curls I was barely able to calm this morning sway when she shakes her head. “Nope.”

Sighing, I stare at the ceiling of the Evergreen Park Mall, praying for some kind of divine intervention. I’ve been begging Sophie for a Christmas list since November first, not wanting to brave the crowds, but each time, she comes up empty.

“You’d better figure it out soon, silly,” my middle sister, Sutton, says, with a laugh. “Santa is right there!” She points to the old man in a bright red suit that matches Sophie’s dress.

“Oh, I’m so excited!” Sophie says, jumping up and down swinging the Ashlyn doll she takes everywhere around so I have to dodge getting smacked in the knee with it.

Ashlyn, the doll I got on a whim when she broke her arm nearly a year ago. She’s barely let it out of her sight since, changing her outfit daily and brushing her hair diligently to take care of her “best friend.” My daughter doesn’t know I have four dolls I rotate every few days, in case she loses one, so they’ll all wear similarly, and two more in the box.

You can never be too prepared when it comes to a toy your child has determined is the reason for them to continue living.

We wait in line another fifteen minutes before a green-and-red-dressed elf takes Sophie’s hand, leading her to Santa with an all-too-fake, much-too-high-pitched giggle.

“I hate this shit,” I say to my sisters, watching my daughter climb onto some stranger’s lap. “Who thought this was a good idea, letting small children be hugged by a total stranger and sit on him?”

“Probably capitalism,“ Sloane replies, and I can’t argue that logic.

Instead, I move to the spot the employees guide parents to and listen intently to the interaction so I can finally know what to search online for. With my luck, it’s going to be something she’s completely made up in her mind, like a pink-and-purple unicorn she can ride around the house that shits glitter.

“What’s your name?” Santa asks, and Sophie smiles wide, a recently lost tooth on the bottom leaving a gap before she answers.

“Sophie Donovan. I live on 6 Auburn Avenue, Evergreen Park, New Jersey,” she says, and I run my hand over my face with a groan.

Santa makes a loud chuckle, cutting her off before she gives out my phone number and probably social security number for good measure. “Oh, don’t you worry, I know exactly where you are, you don’t have to tell me now!”

That’s my Sophie, for you: not a care in the world, trusting everyone and anyone in her path, loud and self-assured, and friendly to a fault. It’s a fine line I walk daily, trying to teach her to keep herself safe while not taking my favorite personality trait of hers away. If this was any other situation, I’d quietly remind her that we don’t give total strangers explicit information about ourselves or where we live, but this is Santa Claus, and that would probably ruin the magic.

Again, who the fuck decided this entire schtick was a good idea?

Still, I put it on my mile-long mental list to remind her before bed that Santa is the exception, not the rule.

“So what do you want Santa to bring you this year?”

I’m hoping the answer will be something easy and attainable, not some Furby/Tickle Me Elmo/Eras Tour tickets level of impossible, even though, considering she is the center of my universe, I’d find a way to get it for Sophie if need be.

But I don’t have to worry about dishing out five, ten, fifteen times the retail value on some junk she won’t even want to play with in a month's time. No, because my sweet, loving, kind five-year-old daughter looks this man dead in the eye, lifts up her Ashlyn doll in the air, today in her little pink ballet costume and dark hair in a bun, and says, “I want my dad to marry the real-life Ashlyn and make her my mom.”

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

“No, she did not,” Sloane whispers under her breath, and Sutton barks out a laugh. But the wish we both have that we misheard her is swept away when, upon Santa’s request for clarification, Sophie repeats herself with confidence.

“Where is she even coming up with this?” I say under my breath as Sophie fills in Santa on all the things she wants to do with ‘Ashlyn’ when she’s real. “I don’t even date.”

“Because you’re too caught up on your mysterious dream girl,” Sutton says with smugness in her voice.

Not for the first time, I regret getting drunk with my sister last February after Sophie fell asleep and telling her all about the woman I met on New Year’s who ghosted me not long after we met. That’s when I told her all about how I felt a connection I couldn’t describe, despite the short amount of time I spent with her, how I was sure to my gut she was meant to be mine, and I had no idea where things went wrong.

“A dream girl?” Sloane asks, her interest peaked.

“Ignore her, she’s insane,” I say.

“He met a girl on New Year’s and fell in love, but a week later after he canceled a date, she blocked him, and he hasn’t heard from her since.”

“Why did you cancel?” Sloane asks, always ready to tell me I’m the problem, as any good younger sister is wont to do.

“Soph broke her arm.” I’m praying they leave it at that, really wanting this conversation to end, but I know better.

“Did you tell her that?”

I run a hand over my face before shifting my focus from Sophie to Sloane. Sutton is looking at me, now interested, probably realizing she didn’t think to ask me that question.

“I told her I had a family emergency.”

“But not that your daughter broke her arm.”

Once more, I look at the ceiling, but unfortunately it still hasn't written the answers to life’s mysteries there yet. “I didn’t tell her I had a daughter.”

Silence follows before my sisters explode.

“You fucking idiot!” Sutton shouts.

“You have to be kidding me, Nathan,” Sloane says, using my full name. “Why didn’t you tell her!?”

“Because I liked her, okay?” I say, getting frustrated, then lowering my voice. “I liked her a lot, and I wanted her to give me a chance without having to dump on her that I have a kid.”

“God, Nathan, you really are so, so dumb. Have you ever considered that that’s what happened? Evergreen Park is a tiny town. She probably asked around about you to a few people and they filled her in on you and all of your drama.”

I actually…hadn’t thought of that, if I’m being honest. I assumed she just got turned off by something I did or said and set a clear boundary, blocking my number so I couldn’t contact her again.

“You think?” I ask, suddenly letting my mind see other possibilities. What if she learned about Sophie and thought the worst? What if she thought I was hiding even more things and decided to cut her losses before she got in too deep? Did I fuck up big time by letting things end where they did? “Things were good between us until right before my texts started marking as not delivered.”

“God, and this society says men are the smart ones, the breadwinners, the rulers of the world, but then this is the kind of logic us women are dealing with. Yes, Nate. I would bet everything was fine and dandy and then she found out you omitted the vital fact that you had a child. She probably decided you were a liar, or even worse, thought you were cheating on Sophie’s mother!”

Well, fuck. That would make sense, a potential new piece to the puzzle that’s been plaguing me for months.

“You need to find her. At the very least explain so she doesn’t go around thinking all of the Donovans are assholes.”

There’s a loud Ho! Ho! Ho! that breaks through our conversation, and I use it as an excuse to step away from my sisters and what I’m sure is going to be a long and painful beatdown.

I take Sophie’s hand as the elf hands her back to me, ushering me to the kiosk where I can buy a shitty photo that costs fifty dollars and Sophie can get a candy cane before we start to walk toward the exit to get out of this madhouse. My mind is still reeling from my sisters’ revelation, but now I have a more pressing issue in front of me as Sophie walks next to me with her wide, gap-filled smile, her doll in hand.

“Hey, bud…” I start, not sure where to go from here. Never once has my daughter implied she wanted a mother figure in her life, not even after she realized her mom wasn’t coming back every other weekend like she was used to.

Never once has she mentioned my dating, much less getting married.

Where the fuck has this come from?

I settle on keeping it simple and straightforward. “Sophie, what did you ask Santa for for Christmas?” Maybe if I pretend I didn’t hear, she’ll give me something reasonable, something I can actually purchase with money. Maybe I misheard—I am getting old and?—

“I told him I want you to marry the real-life Ashlyn and make her my new mom.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

“Uh, sweetie, that’s…” Sloane starts, turning a bit to avoid some asshole on his phone slamming into her. Sutton stayed behind to wait for the photos to be printed. “That’s not exactly what Santa brings, you know. He brings toys, not people.”

“Ashlyn is a toy. I just want him to use Christmas magic and make her real. Then Daddy can meet her and fall in love with her and she can be my new mom. I can be a flower girl at their wedding, and she can teach me how to dance.”

I jump at that opening, thinking maybe I can make due.

“Do you want dance lessons for Christmas?” I ask, looking at her. Maybe that’s what she really wants, and?—

“No,” she says simply with a small shake of her head. “I want Ashlyn.”

“A new Ashlyn doll?” Another shake of her head. “The Ashlyn Dreamhouse?” I ask, mentioning the giant gift I thought she was going to request as a last resort. I have no desire to sit and spend three nights meticulously assembling that nightmare, but I’ll do it if need be.

“No, silly. I want a real Ashlyn.”

When we step out of the exit and into the cold November air outside the mall, I pull Sophie to the side and get to a knee in front of her, helping to zip up her jacket and getting on her eyes level. “Sophie, sweetie, I don’t want you to be disappointed this year. Santa brings kids toys, not people,” I say as I zip up her coat, trying to keep my tone even and kind.

“Yeah, but he's going to bring you a wife. He told me.”

He very fucking well did not, because I saw the same panic on that man’s face as the one I felt and heard him try and divert you.

“I think he told you that he only brings toys,” I say.

“Aubrey asked for a puppy last year, and she got a puppy.” Audrey is the brat in Sophie’s class who gets everything and anything she’s ever wanted. She even makes the occasional rude jab about Sophie not having a mother when she’s at our house, and it takes everything in me not to snap at a five-year-old. She might have two parents, but her mom hits on me and not-so-subtly propositions me any chance she gets.

“Well, a person is not a puppy, Sophie,” I say. She looks at me for a long beat, and for a moment I think I’m in the clear, that she understands and is going to accept my statement as fact.

But then she shrugs.

“I don’t know, but it’s going to happen. Trust me.” I stand in defeat and reach my hand out for her, but she continues to stare at me, her little face suddenly fierce and stoic, like she really needs me to believe in what she’s saying. “Trust me, Dad. Christmas is for miracles.”

We are definitely going to need a miracle , I think to myself as we start to walk toward the diner I promised we’d go to after Santa. Unfortunately, when I look across the street, it looks like it might be closed. A bunch of police cars and a fire truck block the way, familiar faces gathering on the sidewalk in front of a building. For a moment, I wonder what’s happening until a rush of water coming from the road catches my eye and I realize it must be some kind of water main burst.

“Soph, we might have to—” I start as we approach. I’m about to tell her we might not be able to go to the diner, which is one block further, and if it’s still open, we’ll have to detour our way there.

But before I can say anything else, my daughter shouts, “There!” pointing toward the chaos ahead, and bolts.