Page 27 of Wrecked for the Holidays

“Now that we have our picture with Santa, do you want to check out the store?” Papa hesitated for a moment before clearing his throat and asking, “Do you have any toys at all? When I looked around your room while getting your pajamas, I didn’t see any.”

Well, this was about to turn awkward. “Well, not exactly. Sometimes, I would sneak things out of the kitchen for when I took a bath, but anything beyond that, no. I ordered my pajamas while I was at the hotel, but I didn’t order any toys because I wanted them to be in a place where I was settled.”

While I spoke, I kept my eyes down and my voice quiet. He probably wondered if I was even little or just some random guy who moved into people’s homes.

“Then we have lots of aisles to check out, and there are only so many hours in the day.”

Maybe I’d been to a toy store before, but if I had, I didn’t remember the experience. At best, I’d stopped at the toy section of a big-box store, but that hardly counted. I’d racked my memory the other day and tried to remember a frivolous present. I’d finally remembered I’d been given a chess set. It might be a smart-people game, but I kinda sorta hated it. I remembered my brothers had liked it, though, and they played. The thought of my brothers playing chess at the dining room table while I worked on my coursework sent a wave of sadness through me. This would not do. Today, I was supposed to be happy, and I was going to stay that way even if it killed me.

“Then let’s go, Papa. Where should we start?”

“Downstairs first?”

Reed took my hand in his, and an avalanche of tingles went straight up my arm, landing squarely in my tummy. With my nod, we started off to look at all the things. We went through the tiny plastic building pieces, trucks, and trains. They were fine but didn’t grab my attention. But I liked a few of the barn animals, so Papa put those in the basket along with plastic fencing. The hard plastic dolls that posed were better, but they didn’t stir me. That all changed when we came to the baby doll section. I was entranced. They had all kinds of babies, big and little, cloth and rigid bodies, but I was instantly in love with all of them. Papa didn’t rush me at all. I stopped and looked at all of them.

“Love, why don’t you pick one or five to come home with us?”

“Oh, I don’t know how I could pick one.They’re all so pretty.”

“Why don’t you pick a few that you like?”

“I can?”

“Yes, you absolutely can.”

It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, maybe even worse than when I had to defend my dissertation to get my PhD, but I managed to narrow it down to two soft dolls. One boy, one girl. Papa said they must be twins. I could never separate the family, so they both got to come home with me. Papa offered to carry them for me, but I wanted to do that since they were my toys.

Once we finished downstairs, we took the escalator to the upper level. The pen aisle sent my heart racing. They had so many coloring books, crayons, colored pencils, and flair pens, and they were all laid out like Christmas had already come and gone. Papa just laughed as I came close to hyperventilating with the choices in front of me. He grabbed a basket for me to carry and said I needed to load up with anything I wanted.

“Papa, I can’t take everything I want. There won’t be room in the car for us.” I giggled, and he tousled my hair.

“I think it’s worth the risk. Worst case, we’ll tie them all to the roof.”

“There’s too much stuff.” This felt like an excellent point to make.

“Oh, you’re right. We’ll tie you up there instead. Good thinking, love.” Papa laughed when I swatted at him but danced away to grab a package of glitter gel pens to toss in the basket. “Don’t forget you’ll need something to use all these supplies on.”

We wandered over to the bound paper section, where there were even more choices for coloring books, journals, art books, and stationery. I intended to pick one or two, but Papa picked out five more.

The last section upstairs was arts and crafts. It hadeverything. There were paint-by-numbers, friendship bracelet kits, rock-decorating books, scrapbook supplies, and my personal favorite: the DIY Christmas ornaments. Some had melting beads, others involved gluing popsicle sticks together and decorating them with pens or paint, and there was more glitter than I knew what to do with. I had trouble wrapping my mind around all the options.

“How am I ’sposed to choose, Papa? I can’t bring home everything.” I stood in the aisle with one hand balled into a fist at my waist and my other arm clutching my babies.

“Ack, you caught me. I was about to say it, but how about five? You can pick five, and we’ll come back for more when you’re done with them.” That seemedreasonable, so I picked out twenty and narrowed it down from there because there was no way I could decide outright. Since it was the holidays, I picked out holiday kits because I had a secret plan to make Papa a present I thought he might like. He seemed like the kind of guy who liked homemade presents. I hoped so, anyway.

The only problem during all of this was my brain felt like it was about to explode with all the choices, options, and decisions I’d been making today. The more we stayed at the toy store, the more anxious and out of sorts I felt. So, by the time Papa suggested we look at stuffies, as much as I desperately wanted one, there was no way I could do it without screaming, and, honestly, I was close to it anyway. My future stuffie would stay on the shelf for now because it was all too much. Papa insisted on paying and, honestly, in my eagerness to get out of the store, there was no attempt to argue with him about it.

Whatever I felt, it was rumbling around my chest, and I didn’t like it. Not. One. Bit.

#

“Such a handsome couple.”Oh, that’s an extra-friendly way to greet your customers.Being included wasn’t enough to mollify me. The server at the restaurant Papa chose was flirty, and I imagined he was working for a good tip. Iknewthat, but the part of me that was jealous and petty rolled out, and I desperately wanted to keep that ugly trait as hidden as possible. I stayed silent and crossed my fingers that my impression of being fascinated by the menu was effective. I was curt and rude when the server returned with our drink order. It wasn’t a good look.

“Thank you,” Papa said, looking at me sidelong. “From both of us.” The server smiled, poised a pencil over their pad, and glanced between us.

“Have you decided on what you’re getting?” I was still stubbornly not speaking.

“Not quite yet. Can you give us a few more minutes?” Papa said with a pointed look at me.

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