The boy, around six, had a red nose and wide eyes that missed nothing. His jeans were a little short, his sweater sleeves barely reaching his wrists. He sat very still, but his gaze kept drifting to the road, tracking every car like it might be the one that changed everything.
“Is that our car, Mommy?” he asked, voice soft.
Another SUV rolled past, its windows glowing with warm interior light, the silhouettes inside leaning toward each other like a secret.
The woman shook her head, smiling anyway, like she could soften disappointment into something safer.
“No, sweetheart,” she said. “Just someone else going home.”
The boy nodded, then went quiet, eyes lingering on the bright windows of nearby houses. Mark watched him without meaning to. He didn’t want to look. Looking meant feeling. Feeling meant remembering.
A gust of wind swept down the street, sharp as a reprimand. The woman pulled the boy tighter. He leaned into her shoulder like he trusted her warmth more than any promise the city had ever made.
The bus stop fell into a hush again.
Then the boy whispered, so softly it almost belonged to the snow.
“Mom said Santa forgot us again.”
The words floated out like a fragile ornament, suspended in the air. In that instant, something inside Mark went still.
His fingers tightened around the cold coffee cup. He didn’t drink. He didn’t breathe for a second.
That voice. That small, brave voice.
It didn’t sound like the boy’s voice.
It sounded like hers.
A memory arrived uninvited, sharp enough to cut: a little girl the same age, standing on tiptoe at a window on Christmas Eve. Her hair was messy from excitement, her pajamas too big. She had a picture in her hand, crayon lines scribbled with devotion.
Daddy, she had said, bright as bells, I made this for you. You’re coming home, right?
He had promised he would.
He had believed himself.
He had stayed in the office anyway, chasing numbers like they were oxygen. He’d told himself it was temporary. He’d told himself it was necessary. He’d told himself he’d make it up to her with gifts so big they’d blot out the absence.
And then he lost her.
Mark swallowed hard, the motion visible in the tense line of his throat. Slowly, as if pulled by gravity he couldn’t fight, he turned his head toward the boy.
Not irritation. Not judgment.
Something heavier.
Something cracked.
The woman noticed the attention like a mother notices danger before it speaks. She shifted, pulling her son closer.
Mark forced his voice to work. It came out low, careful, as if volume might shatter whatever was holding him together.
“How old are you?”
The boy glanced at his mom first, like he carried her permission in his pocket. Then he answered, a little proud.
“Six. I turned six last week.”
Mark nodded. “Six.”
“We had cake from the store,” the boy added, because warmth isn’t always heat, sometimes it’s just a story. “It was vanilla.”
“Vanilla’s good,” Mark said automatically.
The boy grinned, delighted to have found agreement. “Even if the frosting melted in Mom’s bag on the bus.”
The woman gave a soft laugh, the sound thin but real. “He likes to talk,” she said. “Especially when he’s cold.”
Mark looked at her then. Really looked.
The thin coat. The trembling fingers. The eyes that tried hard to stay bright, like a lantern protecting its last bit of oil.
“I could call you a cab,” he offered. “Get you somewhere warm.”
Her smile tightened, polite the way people get when they’ve learned kindness often comes with hooks. “That’s kind. But we’re okay. We’re waiting for the bus.”
Mark glanced down the empty street. Snow started falling again, heavier now, thickening into a quiet curtain. The world beyond the streetlamp felt muted, distant, as if the city had stepped away to let something private happen.
“The bus isn’t coming,” he said, calm but certain.
The woman’s posture stiffened. “You sure?”
He nodded once. “Storm’s thick enough. They cancel the late routes first.”
She swallowed, holding her son tighter. “We’ll wait a bit longer. Just in case.”
Mark didn’t argue. He stared at the snow collecting on the curb, then heard himself speak in a gentler tone he didn’t recognize.
“My place is a few blocks from here. It’s empty. You could come in just to warm up.”
Her face sharpened with instinct. “We’re fine. We’re used to this.”
“It’s just a house,” he said. “No pressure. You don’t have to stay long. Just… not out here.”
The boy stirred, rubbing his eyes. He looked at Mark and whispered to his mom, loud enough for Mark to hear anyway.
“He looks like Santa. Like the one I drew.”
The woman laughed again, softer. She looked back at Mark.
He didn’t smile, but he didn’t look away either.
Something in him was not threat. Something in him was loneliness, and she recognized it the way tired people recognize tiredness in strangers.
“Okay,” she said. “Just for a little while.”
The boy clapped once, sudden joy sparking like a match. “Is it a castle, Mr. Santa?”
Mark blinked, startled by the title. Then he nodded.
“Not quite,” he said. “But it has walls and heat.”
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