My Love

PRESENT DAY The toy store window took up half the corridor, floor to ceiling, glass fogged in a ring where at least forty kids that day had pressed their faces against it before Drew got his turn. He had both palms flat against it now, breath clouding out in front of him, eyes fixed on the display case mounted just inside. "Pa. Pa, look. It's the whole set." He didn't turn around. "All six. They've got all six." Elias came up behind him with three shopping bags cutting red lines into both palms, the strap of his own bag slipping off one shoulder, and looked over his son's beanie at the little glass case lit up gold inside the window. Six figures in a row, each one posed mid-fight, paint gleaming under the store lights. "I see it." "Can we get it?" the boy asked, face still glued to the glass. "You've got like twelve of those figures at home already." "But not the whole set." Drew turned to look up at him, appalled that this needed explaining. "I've only got four. Four out of six isn't even a team, Pa, it's barely half a team." "You had the names of all twelve memorized by Tuesday. You don't need a thirteenth." "That's not true." Drew crossed his arms, chin lifted, the way he did when he'd decided something was final. "The toy set at home is incomplete. I can't have a team that's missing the leader." Around them the corridor kept moving, shoppers cutting past with bags stacked up their arms, a stroller wheel squeaking somewhere behind, the whole place lit gold and green and threaded through with garland thick enough to lose a hand in. Somewhere above the second-floor railing a boys' choir was piped in on a loop, the same four bars of a carol looping back on itself every forty seconds. "All my friends in Zurich have it," Drew tried, switching tactics, the whine creeping in now. "Lukas has the whole set. Mira also has the whole set except the bad guy, and she's getting him for Christmas, so she'll have it too. I'll be the only one who doesn't." "You'll survive that." Elias knew he spoilt Drew. Ever since he was born the little guy had gotten everything he ever wanted, and he couldn't blame him for acting naughty now. He had tried being a little strict with him but didn't have it in him to do so. "I won't. I'll be uncool." The boy said, shuddering, like the word left a bitter taste in his mouth. "Everyone will know I don't have it and they'll think I'm the uncool one." Elias crouched enough to get closer to his eye line. "Being uncool because of a toy is ridiculous, baby. And it's not about the money. You know that." He dropped a bag and adjusted his son's beanie. "Then why not?" Drew cried, slamming his foot on the floor. "Because you don't need another action figure when you've got more than a dozen you actually play with. Wanting something the second you see someone else has it isn't a good enough reason to buy it." Elias reprimanded, reaching out to fix the loose button on the boy's coat, the boy shrugged his hand off. "I'm trying to discipline you"- he continued- "I'm trying not to raise you into believing you can get anything you want just because you can," he readjusted the boy's beanie. Drew's chin trembled. His eyes filled fast, and then he was crying right there in the middle of the corridor, loud enough that a woman with two bags of wrapping paper actually slowed her steps to look over. Elias felt his neck go hot. He crouched all the way down this time, bags forgotten, one hand landing on Drew's shoulder, aware of exactly how many strangers were now half watching a grown man fail to manage his crying kid two weeks before Christmas. "Hey. Hey, come on." Elias rubbed his neck. "But why!? Grandpa and Grandad let me get whatever I want anytime." Drew hiccupped, going for the only leverage he had left. "They always let me get whatever I want because they love me. You don't love me," the boy sniffed. For a second Elias lost his bearings. Those four words felt like a visceral cut. Those thoughts that he's tried so hard to suppress had been triggered. He stared at his son —fat tears rolling down his cherubic cheek, nose, a dusty pink, beanie shoved half back off his forehead, his heart broke. "Okay." He said it low, just for Drew, thumb catching the corner of the boy's grey orbs where a tear had gone crooked down his cheek, and adjusted his beanie. "Tell me about it. What's it look like, the one you don't have?" Drew sniffed hard, suspicious of the sudden softness. As though the man was trying to pull a prank on him."It's blue. Blue with a helmet. He's the leader, he's the one that makes the plan." He wiped his nose with the back of his glove, forgetting all manner of hygiene, his face lighting up. "Nobody else has him. He's the hardest one to find." "Then that's the one we're getting," Elias winked,getting to his feet. "Really?" Drew's eyes sparkled. "After I finish the rest of this shopping. Not right now, I've got two more stops and your Grandpa's scarf to find. But before we're done shopping for the day. I promise." Elias wiped the boy's whole face with a wipe he dug out from his bag. "Promise promise?" Drew's voice rang, already with his pinky out "Promise promise." Elias threw him a smile with a nod, looping his the boy's. That seemed to settle something in him completely, the way it always did once his Pa pinky swears. He straightened up, scanning the corridor with the fast recovery only a seven-year-old could manage, and then went still, eyes lighting up when they caught on something across the walkway. "Pa! Pa, look, that boy has him. He's got the blue one." Drew was already pointing, forgetting the last of his tears entirely. "Right there. He's holding him." Elias followed his son's finger across the corridor, past a cart overflowing with wrapped gifts, to a small boy standing beside a display of garland ornaments, gripping a boxed figure against his chest like he'd only just been handed it. The boy was maybe five or six, cheeks red from the cold outside, grinning at whatever the man beside him had just said. Elias heart melted by the sight. Then he did look past the boy,up, and everything in his chest dropped out at once. The man was already looking back. His smile for the little bit froze halfway in his lips. His mouth hung loose like he'd started a sentence and lost it somewhere along the way. Neither of them moved and neither could take their eyes off the other. Beside the man, the little boy tugged at his coat sleeve, oblivious, still grinning around the figure in his arms. "Daddy, look, look, that boy's got your hair" He pointed straight at Drew now, delighted with himself for noticing. "Look, it's the same colour as yours." The man didn't answer him. He was still staring at Elias, and Elias, frozen with three bags cutting into his palms and his son's hand now gripping his sleeve, found he couldn't look away either. Then the man and the boy started walking toward them.