I nod. It’s crazy, but I feel it, too.
“So, who are you, really?”
“Joy Faith Candellaro. I’m a high school librarian from Bakersfield. ”
“Joy Faith, huh? That’s a grand name. ” He steps back, makes a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Well, come on in. ”
I step past him and limp into the house. I can feel him staring at me, and I know he has a dozen unanswerable questions—I know because I’ve asked them of myself—but just now I’m caught between worlds, the here and there of my dream and this reality.
There is no registration desk. That’s the first thing I notice. No wall of old-fashioned keys, no counter full of brochures and tourist maps. Like Rain Valley, some of what I saw was real and some was pure imagination. I don’t know how to make sense of it.
I turn to my left and see the lobby. The living room.
Just as in my dream, there is a huge stone fireplace.
The decorations Bobby and I put on the mantel are still there—the polyester pile of glittery snow, the cast resin homes and stores, the mirror skating pond and horse-drawn carriages. In the corner of the room, exactly where I put it, is a Christmas tree, draped in lights and ornaments. Beneath it, a lone package sits.
The single present is long and thin. It’s crudely wrapped and held together by big strips of masking tape. JOY is written on it in red crayon. It is a present for me.
And that’s when it hits me: I never had Christmas this year. My holiday was spent in a white room that smelled of disinfectant and flowers. There had been no magical holiday morning, no presents to open, and no unending games of Monopoly.
No one saved Christmas for me.
Until now. Tears sting my eyes but don’t fall. Of all the people in my life, these two—strangers in the real world—have saved the holiday for me. How is that possible? Or isn’t it?
“It’s March,” I say, looking up at Daniel. Suddenly I’m afraid again that it’s all a lie. “I’m in a coma somewhere, aren’t I?” I step back from him.
“He never stopped believing,” Daniel says to me. “He wouldn’t have Christmas without you. ”
“But the tree . . . ”
“It’s our sixth one. ”
I limp past him to the tree. I need to feel its pointy needles, smell its sharp fragrance.
These are the decorations he put up, one by one, the mementos of his young life. That one was Mommy’s favorite . . . I made it in day care.
There’s a new ornament on the branch nearest me. It’s a small picture frame, formed of fired, painted clay. The kind of thing a child would make at one of those pottery places. Inside the red-and-green frame is a stick figure painting of three people—a dark haired man with a big smile, a curly-haired boy, and a red-haired woman. Below the people are our names, written in an adult’s careful hand: Daniel, Bobby, and Joy.
“I made it for you,” Bobby says, grinning. “But Daddy helped. ”
I turn to Daniel. My heart feels swollen suddenly, tender. I don’t know what to say to this man who is both a friend and a stranger.
I feel myself starting to cry. It makes me look like a fool, to be moved by something so small, and by people whom I barely know, but I can’t stop the swell of emotions. I’ve felt alone for so, so long now, and now—however impossibly— I feel as if I’ve finally come home. “You must think I’m crazy . . . ”
Daniel wipes the tears from my cheek. “You know what’s really crazy?” he says in a voice so low that only I can hear.
“What?”
“A man my age believing in magic. ” He puts his hand around the back of my neck and pulls me in close. “I don’t know how this whole thing happened, or where we go from here, but I know one thing: We’ve been given a gift. ” Leaning down to kiss me, he says, “Merry Christmas, Joy Faith Candellaro. We’ve been waiting for you. ”
It is a quick kiss, a touching of lips and nothing more, but it reaches deep inside me, warms a place that has been cold for a long time. I lean into him, put my arms around his neck. As if from a distance, I hear a little boy giggle.
“Come on, Joy,” Bobby says. “You have a present to open. ”
And I smile. Here and now. It is the best present of my life.
I look up at Daniel and whisper, “Magic,” and I know that for the rest of our lives we will believe.