Carrie on

I knew that it was you when I saw your package on the kitchen table. Among the second grade papers, and napkins fallen over from their holder, lay a bulging mailer with bad penmanship….Patch’s penmanship, of course, a doctor. I opened your package with cautious care and eager messiness….careful not to rip. Anxious to see. I opened and declared, “It’s the pendant, she’s here.” For a long time I held you in my hands in disbelief perhaps. I ran outside as the UPS man delivered Christmas presents wrapped in a brown cardboard box, and I giggled to myself, because I knew that you knew and understood. I knew what the kids did not…that Santa shops early because there’s a budget and that even with a budget (even a teacher’s budget, or a nurse’s budget) Santa makes it work. The mountains glowed in the evening light.  I felt like you’d feel at home here. Our home is small and comfortable. Our home is warm and full of sound….kid sounds. We like to eat, and tonight you sat at our round