Tinkling bells wake Martha.
Outside the bedroom, her children giggle.
Letting her husband sleep, she slinks down the hall, nightgown fluttering, the giggling growing louder. Someone lit the fireplace. Her children sit on a man’s lap… feeding him cookies by the fire. He turns. With a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, Santa beckons her over.
Instead, Martha returns to the bedroom. When she thanks Roger for “hiring Santa”, his eyes fly open. “I thought you hired him.”
Silence.
The giggles from their children have long since stopped.
