Chapter 10 - SANTA KNOWS OUR ADDRESS
Two years after Hazel and Nora stopped Reed at Rockefeller Center, the girls returned to the tree.
This time they were not alone.
Tessa held Nora’s hand.
Reed held nobody’s.
Hazel walked between them carrying a folded letter for Santa because at six she had decided mailing deadlines were “unfair to Christmas Eve emergencies.”
Reed wore a dark wool coat.
Same style.
Not same one.
Marcus and one security officer remained far enough back to be boring.
Tessa approved.
Good.
Rockefeller Center looked almost exactly as Reed remembered.
Lights.
Music.
Crowds.
Phones.
Children on shoulders.
The difference was inside him.
Not healed.
Different.
He could watch families now without feeling each one had been arranged to insult him.
Molly still came.
Of course.
A girl in yellow hat.
A father lifting his daughter.
A woman laughing while fixing a child’s scarf.
Memory did not ask permission.
Reed had learned not to treat it like an intruder.
Hazel turned.
“Reed!”
“Yes?”
“Santa letter.”
She shoved paper at him.
“Why me?”
“You’re tall.”
Excellent logic.
There was a mailbox display near holiday area for children’s letters.
Reed lifted Hazel enough to reach slot.
Then stopped.
“Do you want to do it yourself?”
“Yes.”
He held her under arms.
She pushed letter in.
Nora immediately demanded equal treatment despite having no letter.
Reed lifted her too.
She touched mailbox.
“Done.”
Tessa laughed.
“Very productive.”
They stepped away.
Reed asked:
“What did letter say?”
Hazel looked suspicious.
“Private.”
Good.
He nodded.
“Fair.”
Nora betrayed her in two seconds.
“She asked for skates.”
Hazel yelled.
Tessa intervened.
Normal.
Reed smiled.
Then Hazel said:
“And I told Santa our address.”
There.
He looked at her.
“3D?”
“No.”
Reed frowned.
Tessa went still.
Hazel smiled.
“4B.”
Of course.
They had moved.
Not because rent.
Not because Reed.
Not because danger.
Tessa’s building had a larger two-bedroom open one floor up with better light and a small dining alcove.
She moved in November.
Same landlord.
Same neighborhood.
Own lease.
Own income.
Reed carried boxes after asking.
He did not pay movers.
Tessa did.
“Santa updated?”
Reed asked.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I wrote.”
“Good.”
Nora said:
“Santa knows everything.”
Hazel corrected:
“Not addresses.”
Apparently doctrine evolved.
They walked.
Near edge plaza, Reed saw alley entrance in distance.
The old route.
Tessa saw his face.
“Do you want to?”
He knew what she meant.
Go back.
“No.”
Good.
Not every anniversary required reenactment.
Hazel noticed neither.
She wanted hot chocolate.
They found vendor.
Reed paid this time.
Tessa allowed.
Progress.
Four cups.
The girls burned tongues despite warnings.
Also progress? No.
They sat near low stone ledge.
Hazel said:
“Do you remember us?”
Reed looked.
“From two years ago?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
She gasped.
He smiled.
“Of course.”
“What did I say?”
He remembered exactly.
Mister, can you ask Santa to find our house?
He could have repeated.
Instead:
“You told me Santa had never visited.”
Hazel nodded.
Nora said:
“Because B2 wasn’t real.”
Tessa’s face changed.
The girls knew more now.
Age six.
Not all.
Enough.
“It was real,” Tessa said softly.
Nora frowned.
“No number.”
Tessa looked.
“A place can be real even if people don’t treat it properly.”
There.
Reed stared at hot chocolate.
Yes.
Hazel asked:
“Did Daddy live there?”
“No,” Tessa said. “We moved down there after Daddy died.”
Good.
No mythology.
“Daddy fixed building.”
“Yes.”
“Then got hurt.”
“Yes.”
Nora looked at Reed.
“Your company was bad.”
Crowd continued around them.
Tessa started:
“Nora—”
Reed held up hand.
“No.”
He looked at child.
“Yes.”
Nora considered.
“Still bad?”
Excellent.
Not a five-year-old savant.
A six-year-old asking simplest moral question.
Reed answered:
“Some parts are better.”
“Some bad?”
“Yes.”
Good.
Hazel sipped chocolate.
“Why?”
Reed almost laughed.
“Because grown-ups are slow.”
Tessa smiled.
Nora said:
“That’s dumb.”
“Yes.”
Perfect.
They moved on.
At six, Tessa and girls went to Rachel’s for family dinner.
Reed did not.
This Christmas schedule had been decided weeks earlier.
Good.
He would join for dessert at eight.
Before that, cemetery.
Always.
He went alone.
No Marcus near graves.
Yellow flowers for Molly.
White for Elise.
This time, he brought no speech prepared.
He stood.
“Molly.”
Wind.
“Elise.”
Nothing.
He smiled faintly.
“I put a whale on the tree.”
Elise would have hated mismatched theme.
Molly would have loved it.
“Hazel and Nora are six.”
He stopped.
Not because dead needed biographies.
Because saying names here once felt like betrayal.
Now it did not.
“Tessa’s good.”
Good was insufficient.
He laughed.
“You’d like her.”
Maybe dangerous sentence.
He corrected.
“You might.”
Better.
No dead person conscripted into approval.
He stood another ten minutes.
Then left.
At seven fifteen, he returned penthouse to change coat.
The tree waited.
Molly’s star.
3D ornament though address now 4B.
Reed considered changing it.
Didn’t.
3D was history.
Not current mail.
On table sat a small wrapped box.
Tessa had left it earlier.
Label:
OPEN BEFORE DESSERT.
ALONE.
He looked suspicious.
Opened.
Inside:
A ring box.
Reed’s heart stopped.
Then he opened that.
Empty.
A note beneath.
YOU KEEP CARRYING THIS AROUND LIKE I CAN’T SEE THE SHAPE OF IT IN YOUR COAT.
He laughed aloud.
Of course.
He had bought a ring three months earlier.
Not because he planned to ambush Tessa.
Because after choosing it, he had not known when asking would feel like a question rather than a reward.
The note continued.
IF YOU ARE GOING TO ASK ME SOMETHING, ASK.
DO NOT ASK THE GIRLS FIRST.
DO NOT ASK MY SISTER.
DO NOT ASK DANIEL’S MEMORY.
ASK ME.
Reed sat.
Tessa.
Of course.
Last line:
AND NOT TONIGHT IN FRONT OF TWENTY PEOPLE.
He laughed again.
Perfect.
So he did not propose that night.
Good.
He put empty box beside tree.
At eight, he went to Rachel’s.
Dessert.
Noise.
Children.
No ring.
Tessa saw his face when he entered.
Her mouth curved.
“You opened it.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He leaned close.
“You’re cruel.”
“Accurate.”
He kissed cheek.
Rachel shouted:
“Not in kitchen.”
Family.
Not his by ownership.
By invitation.
Good.
The proposal happened three weeks later.
January.
Ordinary Sunday.
Tessa’s apartment.
Girls at Rachel’s overnight.
No Christmas.
No anniversary.
No crisis.
Reed cooked badly.
Tessa ate politely.
Then:
“You’re doing it.”
“What?”
“The face.”
“What face?”
“Ask.”
He stood.
Not kneeling yet.
Then thought.
Knee was fine.
Not necessary.
He stayed standing.
“Tessa Morgan.”
“Yes.”
“If you say no, nothing changes tomorrow.”
Her face softened.
“Good.”
“No housing.”
“I know.”
“No school.”
“I know.”
“No security unless you want it.”
“I know.”
“The girls’ relationship with me does not become leverage.”
Her eyes filled.
“I know.”
“Daniel stays their father.”
“Yes.”
“Elise and Molly stay part of my life.”
“Yes.”
“I am not asking you to save Christmas.”
Tessa laughed through tears.
“Thank God.”
He smiled.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Will you marry me?”
She took time.
Because she could.
Then:
“Yes.”
Reed closed eyes.
Good.
When he opened them:
“Can I—”
Tessa held out hand.
“Yes.”
He put ring on.
Simple.
Not enormous.
She looked.
“You had this three months.”
“Yes.”
“Coward.”
“Yes.”
Good.
The girls learned next morning.
Hazel screamed.
Nora asked:
“Does that make Reed Daddy?”
Tessa answered:
“No.”
Reed nodded.
“You have a dad.”
Nora looked.
“Daniel.”
“Yes.”
Hazel asked:
“What are you?”
Reed thought.
No title ready.
“Tessa’s fiancé.”
Hazel groaned.
“That’s boring.”
“Very.”
Nora said:
“Reed.”
He smiled.
“Reed works.”
Good.
No adoption plan announced.
No name changes.
No instant blended-family myth.
Just next step.
The following Christmas Eve, three years after the alley, Hazel did not ask Reed to find Santa.
She asked if Santa needed updated apartment numbers when people moved.
Reed said probably.
Nora said Santa should use a database.
Tessa said no one in this family was giving Santa personal-data access.
Reed laughed.
They walked past Rockefeller Center together.
Then past the alley without entering.
The old building no longer belonged to Sullivan.
B2 no longer existed.
Daniel’s corrected record did.
So did the girls’ memory of a basement they had once thought Santa could not find.
At home—Tessa’s home, soon to become theirs after they chose a new place together rather than turning Reed’s penthouse into a monument or her apartment into a concession—Hazel hung the old 3D ornament on the tree.
Nora hung Molly’s yellow star only after asking Reed.
He said yes.
Tessa hung a new ornament shaped like a small red door.
No address.
No family name.
Just door.
Reed looked at it.
“What’s that?”
Tessa smiled.
“An entrance.”
“Very symbolic.”
“Don’t ruin it.”
He laughed.
The girls ran toward kitchen.
Cookies burning.
Someone shouted.
Reed followed.
Three years earlier, two five-year-olds had stopped one of New York’s most feared men and asked him for something his money could not buy.
Not toys.
Not coats.
Not even a house.
They wanted to be findable.
Reed had thought the answer was an address.
It was more complicated.
An address mattered.
So did records.
Rules.
Adults who listened.
Systems that did not erase people because they were poor, grieving, inconvenient, or easy to hide.
Money could buy repairs.
It could pay lawyers.
It could fund settlements.
It could not make a family trust him.
It could not make Tessa love him.
It could not turn Hazel and Nora into replacements for Molly.
Those things had to remain beyond purchase or they meant nothing.
From kitchen, Hazel shouted:
“Reed!”
He turned.
“What?”
“Smoke!”
Of course.
He went.
Not because everyone in the city feared his name.
Not because he owned buildings.
Not because someone had asked him to fix a system.
Because people he loved were in the next room, and they had called him.
May you like
This time, he did not have to find them.
He only had to answer.
