“He sounds like a very interesting man.”
“He was,” she said and found herself tearing up with memories of her father. But then she cleared her throat and put a mind to refilling Alexei’s mug, making sure to add a slice of real apple and a stick of cinnamon. That had been her idea. Her father had never been one for making food pretty, but she had been fond of adding little touches to make it look as good as it tasted.
“Thank you,” Alexei said, when she handed the mug back to him. Then: “We should talk about Nakamura.”
“I know. I’m sad he’s missing out on this apple cider, too. For somebody so lean, he likes his food. You’d never guess it.”
But Alexei didn’t pick up on this thread of conversation. “Tomorrow is Christmas,” he said.
She tightened her jaw. “But it’s not Christmas yet.”
“We should talk about next steps. I can have new IDs made for you, Kenji, and Sparkle and get them enrolled at a new boarding school. But it is not a good idea for you to go back to Chicago or Santa Fe. You will have to choose a new place to live if Mendez’s allies are looking for you.”
“It’s not Christmas yet,” she said again.
“We should see to these things sooner than later. Eva is very worried you have not seen a doctor yet.”
But she shook her head at him. “Alexei, I appreciate all you’ve done for us, but I still believe Suro is going to be here by tomorrow.”
He looked at her in the pitying way adults do when kids who are old enough to know better admit to still believing in Santa Claus.
“I know you do, but we have not heard from him at all. Chances are not very good for your wish to come true this holiday.”
Her answer to that was to paste a smile on her face before going to the door and calling out to everyone in the living room, “The new batch of cider is ready!”
And she tried to hold on to her faith in Suro. But throughout the evening, Kenji got grumpier and grumpier, making comments that seemed mean-spirited as opposed to socially awkward. And when she came downstairs to make him some warm milk, he shook his head. “Don’t bother,” he said. “He’s not coming. He’s dead.”
“Don’t say that,” she whispered, covering her heart with her hand.
“Why not? It’s true!” he said. “He’s left me here all alone because he couldn’t get a regular job like other dads.”
She bent down to talk to him at eye level. “Please don’t say that. Your dad loves you very much and I know he’d be here if he could.”
“He’s a bastard,” Kenji said.
And though she knew he was speaking out of hurt, she had to control the urge to shake him and say, “Don’t call your father out his name.”
Instead she said, “No, he’s very brave and he’s noble. More brave and noble than I think either of us could ever be.”
“Whatever,” he said. He pushed past her and ran back up the stairs to his room. She heard a door slam on the second floor a few seconds later.
She wanted to run after him and tell him it wasn’t true, that his father would be returning, he just had to keep the faith. But the old grandfather clock in the living room read 11: 50. As much as she wanted to believe, there seemed to be little or no chance Suro would be returning by Christmas as promised. And that meant he had sacrificed his life for her.
She waited with baited breath, and the minutes crept by, but soon enough the clock struck midnight. It was officially Christmas, and Suro wasn’t there.
She wept then, so heartbroken she feared she wouldn’t be able to pull herself together by Christmas morning. But she had to, she told herself. For Suro, she had to. It was her fault Kenji would grow up without a father. She had to do whatever it took to get him through this, even if it meant suppressing her own feelings until he and Sparkle could start at another school.
She raised her head and wiped at her tears, refusing to let herself be overtaken by grief or self-pity. “Be strong,” she whispered to herself.
But then she blinked several times against her wet tears. Maybe her mind was unraveling because she could swear she saw a figure coming up the moonlit path.
Was he real? And if he was, was it merely one of the guards who swept the premises every night?
She walked out of the house in bare feet and without a coat. She didn’t care about the cold night air. She had to make sure this wasn’t Suro.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” she thought to herself even as she began running toward him.
But whoever it was stopped in his tracks when he saw her, which made her stop, too.
For a moment they stood there in the brisk cold of the Texas night, too far away to see each other clearly.
But then the figure opened his arms, and she knew. She knew!
She ran into Suro’s arms, tears of happiness already spilling down her face by the time she crashed into him.
Later she would discover he’d dropped a cane in order to raise his arms to her like that. His knee had been smashed and he was also nursing a few broken ribs. His bruised face had taken many hits during his days of imprisonment in a Dominican Republic stronghold before he managed to kill the two guards interrogating him with his metal dinner plate. He eventually made his way through the Dominican crime lord’s lair, quietly picking off the soldiers one by one, until he found the man he was looking for in bed with two prostitutes and shot him point blank in the face with one of the guns he’d taken off his captors.
But at that moment, when Suro kissed Lacey under the light of the moon, his entire arm wrapped around her neck as if he couldn’t hold her tight enough, she would have never known.
“You’re a little late,” she said, laughing through her tears. “You told Alexei you’d be here by Christmas.”
“Sorry,” he answered. “I got held up. I also didn’t have time to shop for Christmas gifts.”
But she shook her head. “I don’t care,” she said. “You’re the best gift I’ve ever gotten.”
And for a very long time they stood there in the cold, exchanging kisses under the Christmas moon, giving each other the most perfect gift of all.
EPILOGUE
One Year Later
SURO stood with the girl who had him wrapped around his finger, looking out at Lake Michigan through the plate glass window of their Magnificent Mile penthouse condo. She was under a foot tall, and did little more than cry and poop, but he loved her more than he would have thought possible two years ago, when the thought of settling down again and having more children would have seemed like an inconceivable dream.