Mommy's Wish

Gilly Wilson

93 Main St

West Lebanon, NH 03784

24th December 2024

Santa Claus

The North Pole

Dear Santa,

Hi again Santa, sorry that this letter's a little late, but it’s me Gil, and I’m finally 7 years old! I don’t really know whether or not I’ve been naughty or nice this year, Daddy seems to think I’ve been nice, so hopefully you do too. This year I come to you with only one wish, well, I mean I would like other things too, like some new clothes, mine are kind of dirty, but what I really want is for you to make Mommy happy again. Ever since the accident with Grammy she hasn’t been the same, and I know she blames me, but I don’t understand why, so the only thing I want this year is for her to be happy, and for her to look at me how she used to. There’s more I wanna write but I hear her yelling so I gotta go, I know you can do this Santa! Thank you!

p.s. If you can get me some new clothes too that’d be nice :)

See ya Santa,

Gilly

As I finish my letter for Santa, I hear Mommy yelling at Daddy through the crack in my door. I neatly seal the letter in my special green and red envelope, licking the flap, and quickly writing “TO SANTA, THE NORTH POLE” in big letters on the front of it. I place it in my Santa mailbox outside my window and make sure to flip the red thingy so that Santa knows that he needs to get it right away. As I’m about to close the window, I realize that going down all those chimneys must be hard for Santa, so I leave the window cracked to make sure he can get in easier and not have to go all the way down the chimney.

Things start to get louder outside my door, so I quietly creep up and open it, sneaking out to get a better listen on Mommy and Daddy.

“You know it’s his fault too David! He was in the car, doing stupid shit he wasn’t supposed to and distracting her,” is Mommy talking about me?

“He was six years old! You can’t really say it’s his fault,”

“Well, it was. Your stupid son that I never wanted to have anyway, killed my mom, whether you believe it or not that’s what happened, and I’m not going to sit here and listen to your dumbass say I’m lying!”

After Mommy finishes screaming this at Daddy, she throws a half-empty juice-filled glass at him, which she’s done before, but this time it hits him right in the face, shattering into a billion pieces. Daddy starts screaming, some of that juice pouring from where the pieces of glass stayed in his face. I run out to make sure he’s okay, but as I do Mommy sees me,

“You! Did you hear all that? I hope you did,” she comes up to me before I get to Daddy, her glossy eyes still glistening with that look, and punches me right on my cheek.

“Because I meant every word of it, it’s your fault, and you know what? I wish it was you who died that day; we’d all be much happier and better off if it was.”

After saying that, she leaves Daddy and me on the floor as she leaves the house. Daddy has stopped screaming; his whole face is covered in the juice now. All I can do is cry as I hear his breath start to dwindle. I don’t understand. It wasn’t my fault. Grammy was texting Mommy right before it happened, I was just trying to take the phone because at school they said that was bad and the cops would come, it’s not my fault, it’s hers. Hers and Grammys. Not mine.

Still crying, I go check on Daddy. He’s not moving anymore. The juice-stained glass is deep in his eye. I go and grab some band-aids and lay them next to him, he’ll need one when he wakes up, and then we can go find Mommy.

But tonight's the night before Christmas. Santa should be on his way soon, I ought to get to bed so he doesn’t skip over our house! I walk back to my room, with my face hurting really bad, and tuck into bed. My room is way colder than normal, so I make sure to grab my extra blanket before going to sleep.

Right before I go to bed, I hear it, it’s Santa! He used my window instead of the chimney! I knew this would be easier for him, thankfully he saw it, and that must mean he saw my note too! I hear his heavy feet plop down onto my crackly carpet and jolt up, excited to finally meet him.

“Santa!”

…

…

Beside my window was not a man in a red suit. Nor a fat man with a long, curly white beard. Instead, it was a short man in a forest green beanie. He had on a thick black jacket, black cargo pants, and worn brown gloves. Seeing me jump up scared him, but I had lost my opportunity of him being distracted because I was dumbfounded staring at him. This was not Santa Claus.

The man ran at me and covered my mouth with his gloved hand as I tried to yell. My screams came out muffled as the man slammed my head against my door.

“Shit. I can’t fucking get this place now, I’ve made too much noise, but this kid knows what I look like,” the man says cursing himself as he pulls out a pointy object from his pocket.

He looks me in the eyes,

“Sorry kid,” is the last thing I hear before he makes the pain on my face feel like nothing as he drives the knife right into my belly.

He let go of me, leaving me on the floor just as Mommy did and leaving right through the window. I looked at the knife lodged into my belly, it’s not that it hurt or anything, it felt like warm water was just running down my stomach. It was like spilling slightly cooled-down hot chocolate all over me. I stared at the knife for what felt like hours as I recalled the past month. With Mommy and Daddy fighting all the time, I haven’t had much silence to be able to think, and maybe that was a good thing. Now that I do, I realize that maybe it was my fault, maybe I really am the reason Mommy has been mad, maybe if I wasn’t around then Grammy would still be alive, celebrating Christmas with us like she always did. Instead, her and Mommy are both gone, and Santa hasn’t even come yet.

With my eyes getting heavy, I am oddly glad. Even though he hasn’t come yet he’s done exactly what I asked him. He granted not only my wish to make Mommy happy, 

but he granted Mommy’s wish too.