43. The Walls Close in

43

THE WALLS CLOSE IN

QUINN

100 DAYS 'TIL CHRISTMAS

Mick intercepts me on my way to the workshop in mid-September. The day is fading fast. The school-aged elves pile out of a steepled building, books tucked under their arms. Mick, however, has a knapsack slung over one shoulder and their hands are hidden behind their back.

"What have you got there?" I ask.

"I made something," they say, feet shuffling. "My parents helped me. It's a first draft. I was waiting until it was ready to show you. I got it printed, bound, and… look." Mick produces a collection of papers held together by stark blue spiral binding. The title page reads: A FLURRY OF POEMS BY BLIZZARD .

I beam as I hold the flimsy book they've handed me. A familiar feeling coils up inside my chest. It's the same one I'd get when a struggling student aced an exam or a shy student delivered a stellar book report to the class. I flip to the first page and the dedication reads: For the first-ever Merriest Mister. Thanks a bunch! "This is incredible. What do you plan to do with them?"

Elation dances over Mick's features. "After the Elf Extravaganza, a bunch of people came up to me asking where they could read my other poems. I typed up the ones I performed and polished up some others and made this. Once I feel like it's perfect, I'm going to print a bazillion and do a reading at Hand over Hearth and pass these out."

"That's amazing! When are you planning it for?"

"Oh, my mom says not until January, at least." They shrug. "Gotta make it through Christmas before. But I hope you'll come!"

My enthusiasm dims. "I—I won't be here anymore. This was a one-year post. I go back to the human world after Christmas."

Mick nods glumly. "Oh. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. I get it."

"You're going to do great things, Mick Flurry," I say, harnessing the remnants of my excitement over Mick's flourishing craft. Aside from turning out looks and judging gingerbread competitions, I'm glad I made a small difference here in one young person's life.

"Hey, Mick! You coming to the cocoa bar with us?" yells an elf with pigtails wearing a fire engine–red dress and clogs across the plaza.

"Be right there! See ya around." Mick flashes me the biggest smile before racing off to join their friends.

I tuck Mick's collection into my bag and continue toward the workshop, ready to wind down this chapter of my life. This magical detour has brought me fantastical memories to last a lifetime. I'm motivated to see how I can utilize everything I've cultivated here back home.

Patrick and Jorge are in the garage, where I get a firsthand tour of those bells and whistles Patrick was going on about out in the reindeer pasture. There are whole percussion and woodwind sections strapped to the flying beast, like we'll be conducting a symphony for the skies.

I get buckled in while Jorge discusses the other improvements made by the elves over the last year.

He might as well be speaking the way adults do in old Peanuts cartoons because I don't understand half of what he's saying. Patrick, on the other hand, is nodding vigorously, white beard bouncing.

For most of the year, Patrick didn't need to wear the cloak. Since this is his first test flight in preparation for his second Christmas, they need to replicate as many variables as possible to avoid any hiccups.

The reindeer are harnessed and ready to go.

I am, too. Ready to complete this practice run and be one day closer to returning home.

Honestly, I'm not even sure why Patrick wanted me to come on this practice run. I made the present delivery rounds last year out of necessity. This year, it feels like the council would want Patrick to go alone, as is custom. But I guess me being the first Merriest Mister has thrown custom out the window.

Patrick calls each reindeer by name, and we zoom out of the garage and into the air.

Unlike on Christmas Eve, we don't have far to go. It's a puddle-jumper flight. We're ascending longer than we're in the air. We circle until we come upon a replica of a suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of the village, which eerily reminds me of both Monsters, Inc. (a staple on movie days in my classroom) and The Stepford Wives (a movie Mom loves). The combination of simulation training mixed with movie-set Americana artifice is enough to give me the heebie-jeebies.

I shake them away as best I can, helping Patrick as much as I did last year.

In the first house, a holographic adult putters around in the kitchen for a midnight snack. I hang close to Patrick so the cloak's circle of protection includes me as we hide in a coat closet until the coast is clear.

The second house doesn't have a chimney, so Patrick pulls the magical emergency chimney from the sleigh. It's a four-by-four cube that attaches to the roof, expands to his width, and shoots us waterslide-style inside. I set out the gifts while Patrick samples the peppermint Oreos.

It's not until we're coming up on the third house, which is set apart from the rest and much closer to the village, that electric wonder strikes me with full force. My attention piques as I pitch forward in my seat and grab for the binoculars fixed to the dashboard.

From above, I get a bird's-eye view of a stone-exterior farmhouse with a snow-speckled roof, which is undeniably English-inspired—a tidbit I most definitely picked up from one of Patrick's prized coffee table books. A porch wraps itself in an L shape around the front of the house. The rockers from the chalet, or replicas of them, sway in the gentle breeze.

I've seen this place before in blueprints and 3D digital renderings and as a gingerbread creation. But this is a whole other level of jaw-dropping.

The sleigh slows to a stop atop the dream house. Our dream house.

Patrick doesn't act surprised by this place. Instead, he wordlessly slips down the chimney with a mischievous smirk partially hidden by his overgrown beard.

I follow him down into the place he envisioned for us. There's exposed stone throughout. The furniture choices could be summed up as quirky—none of the upholstery matches. There's a striped sitting chair, a floral couch, and a polka-dotted ottoman all keeping company in the same cleanly cluttered room.

I recognize this clutter as our clutter, from our first apartment. The organized chaos I grew to love. Our books, our picture frames, some of our New Jersey life has been moved here.

Patrick is tiptoeing toward a tremendous Christmas tree, lit proudly in the living room of my dreams, when I stop him with my voice. "Did you do all this?" I ask, both overwhelmed and perplexed.

The mischievous smirk makes way for a full-blown smile. "I did."

"Why?" I ask. Then, I'm hit with the fear that I sound ungrateful. This is a stunning display of his love, that's for certain. My heart doesn't know whether to glow or go dark.

"For us," he says, outstretching his hands to me.

I take them, even though uncertainty has inched up into my throat like it did during that first tour of our house in New Jersey. "For us? For three and a half months?" It seems like a waste of resources. I've seen the progress reports Hobart delivers over breakfast. Toy production is way down.

"I was hoping for forever," he says, staring deep into my eyes.

The uncertainty in my throat gets usurped by panic that blocks my airways like dry bits of cookie. "Wh-huh?" I croak. "But we're leaving. In January. After Christmas." Each fragment overlaps with the last until I take a deep breath.

"What if we didn't?" he asks. My nerves get shocked into a state of paralysis. "You said the morning after our anniversary that you wished we could stay here forever and ever, so I built our forever and ever home here to make that happen."

I look everywhere but at Patrick. That doesn't prove helpful. I'm noting all the care and craftiness he and the elves poured into this place, into getting it right. Yet I know in my heart this is all wrong. "Figuratively. I meant that figuratively, Pat."

His expression drops. "I may have Santa magic, Quinn, but I still can't read your mind."

"I'm sorry. This is all coming out wrong. We agreed to one year. That's it. We have families and friends and lives and jobs to go back to." I bite my tongue hard. I shouldn't have said that last part. It's such a force of habit.

Patrick barely flinches this time, which I suppose is a good thing. "Why do you want to go back to that school where they treat you like a workhorse and our marriage like it's an abomination?"

"I don't," I say, surprising myself. It's the first time I've voiced this. The words taste equal parts bitter and delicious. They ring clearly, announcing their truth. "I think maybe I want to work in a nonprofit that specializes in mentorship for queer youth. Something tangible and connection based. No more teaching toward a test or ripping my hair out with district mandates or trying to siphon my attention in thirty different directions."

"You can have that here. Look at all you did for Blizzard," Patrick says.

"I helped one elf inside a perfect utopia," I begin, flabbergasted we're having this conversation when he's supposed to be practicing for Christmas-present delivery. Hobart should be rushing out to stop this. "I can't stop thinking of all the queer kids, like Tyler, who we delivered the unicorn pillow to last year, who need support and guidance and a soft place to land when the people in their lives meet their identities with roughness and disapproval. The mission of the North Pole is to make the world a better place, but I can't do that when I'm stuck here, cut off from the world. I have so much more to accomplish back home. Don't you feel that way, too?"

He shakes his head, causing my stomach to free-fall. "I have so much more to accomplish here. I belong here."

"It's only been eight and a half months."

"I knew you for less time when I realized I belonged with you."

His sweet words hit me in a sour spot, square in my upset stomach. He's right. I've seen his evolution. Far be it from me to negate his truth. "Pat, are you really okay with giving up our life?"

"This can be our life now," he says. He does what he did that day we toured the New Jersey house: he stretches out his arms, spins, physicalizes the expansiveness of what this could be for us. "We're so in love here."

"That's true, but I've been treating this like a vacation," I tell him. "It's easy to be in love on vacation." Just like it was easy to be in love in college, I want to add but don't.

"It doesn't feel like a vacation for me, Quinn. This is work. Maybe even my purpose."

The determination in his blue eyes scares me. I've never seen him this set on shaking up his life, and by extension mine, before.

I'm at a complete loss for words when a child's voice rings out behind me.

"Santa Claus? Is that really you?" The mousy sound comes from a holographic girl in Christmas pajamas behind me. Clearly the elves have not yet shut down the simulation.

"Yep, kid," I say, stepping out of Patrick's golden circle of protection. "That's really him." Because it is. I can't believe I hadn't wrapped my head around it sooner, but when I stare over my shoulder at Patrick, my husband, the storybook man standing there is unmistakable. I don't know what to do with that information, but I know I can't remain here fizzling out any longer.

Feeling like the harried, frazzled Santa we met on Christmas Eve last year, without a goodbye, I walk through the hologram, through the foyer, and right out the front door into the vacuous night with no sense of direction and a wounded heart.