"I was here first!"

  Julie was yelling from upstairs as I entered the big house and wheeled Sune across the tiles.

  "I claimed this room first. Now, get out, Will!"

  I sighed. William could be quite annoying when he wanted to and Julie had very little patience with him.

  "William, you're sleeping downstairs with us," I yelled. "There are two rooms down here only separated by one door. You'll be with us."

  I heard him on the stairs.

  "Mooom," he said accusatorily, and even crying a little for my sympathy. "Juju and Tobby are teas-ding me."

  William spoke with his pacifier still in his mouth and the words sounded funny. I had tried to get rid of the thing for months but he refused to give it up, even though we tried to hang it on a tree or said he could mail it to Santa. This month was going to be the one when I succeeded. I had made a deal with him that he could give it to Santa in person, then Santa would give him whatever he wanted for Christmas. I feared he would ask for an iPhone because both of his siblings had phones. I didn't want my four-year-old son to have a phone, but if that was the only way I could get him to give up his beloved binky, then I guess I’d have to cave in.

  Now, all we had to do was to find Santa.

  "Come down here. I have the perfect room for you," I said and let go of Sune's chair. He rolled it forward himself as he did most of the time. It was only when he got tired that I took over.

  "Look at that view," he said.

  "I know," I said and looked myself. It was really spectacular. Even more so than what I had seen in the pictures online. The house was old, from the seventies or so, had ten-foot ceilings and beautiful old Spanish tiles throughout the entire house. The kitchen was newer but still old-fashioned and cozy.

  "This place is perfect for Christmas," I said.

  Sune wheeled to the corner of the living room and the big fireplace.

  "The tree can go right here," he said, smiling. His eyes were exhausted from the long trip, but he was happier than he had been for months, maybe even years. He had been talking about coming here for so long I could hardly remember a time he hadn't. It felt so good to finally be able to give him what he’d dreamt of.

  "Then Santa can come down the chimney," Tobias said. He had just come down the stairs and was holding William’s hand.

  Sune’s and my eyes met. I knew we were thinking the same thing: he still believes in Santa?

  "Sure," I said, not knowing if the boy was just pretending to believe because of his younger brother or if he somehow had managed to keep the magic alive. Julie didn't believe anymore. At least, I didn't think she did. She never talked about it anymore.

  I walked to the fireplace and looked up. Yup. It was real and not one of those fake ones. It even looked like it had been used recently.

  "We better not light a fire, then," I said, smiling to Sune. "You know, just in case."

  8

  It had been a very long time since I last slept this well. The bed in the master bedroom at the rented house was awesome. Whether it was the mattress, the fresh ocean breeze, or just the fact that I was exhausted from the flight, I don't know. It didn't matter. I woke up just as the sun peeked over the horizon and its rays hit my face through the window. I felt rested and ready for a day in paradise.

  Sune was still sleeping, so I grabbed my sneakers and went for a run on the beach. The sun was still rising and created a beautiful light outside and in the sparkling water. Pelicans were fishing, dropping from the sky into the ocean. I couldn't believe how hot it already was at six-thirty in the morning, but I had barely run for five minutes before I broke into a sweat. I was used to being freezing for the first twenty minutes and the cold air hurting my throat. This felt like heaven.

  If I lived in a place like this, I would run every day, I thought to myself, wiping sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand.

  It was quite a surprise to me to notice that one of the houses I ran past actually had smoke coming from the chimney.

  Who has a fire when it’s eighty-two degrees in the morning?

  Thinking they were crazy Americans, I shook my head, turned the music up on my Apple watch, and sang along while running toward downtown Cocoa Beach. There were a couple of surfers out in the water, sitting on their boards waiting for a wave, and others about to join them getting ready on the beach, waxing boards and putting on leashes. I noticed that none of them were wearing wet-suits. The water had to be warm too. I decided I would go for a swim after my run. Back home, when preparing for the trip, I had looked at my bikini a little disapprovingly. I refused to believe that it was actually going to be warm enough to go in the water since I liked my water warm, but Julie had told me to bring it. She had googled it and knew it was going to be warm. I was still skeptical, but now, as I was sweating along on my run, I was happy that for once I had listened to my dear daughter. I was looking forward to a dip in the Atlantic Ocean.

  I ran past a couple of restaurants with decks that had views over the ocean, then continued all the way to the Cocoa Beach Pier before I made my turn. More surfers sat out there by the pier in the glistening sunlight and made me wish I had brought my camera.

  Thinking about the camera made me worry about Sune once again. I wondered if he was ever going to get back to his passion, back into photography again. Not only was it his profession in life, it was also his great love. He never went anywhere without his camera and he always saw the most beautiful patterns in things that I couldn't see until he showed me. It was a gift. And he used to be the one who took all the pictures wherever we went, and especially of the kids, but since he’d been shot, he hadn't even wanted to touch his camera. In the beginning, I had told myself it was a phase, that he would soon get back to his old normal self again, but I had only been kidding myself. Deep down, I knew an event like this was bound to change you. I couldn't blame him for it, not even for his bad moods from time to time that he would sometimes take out on me in a bad way. But after two years of things being this way, I was getting worn out. Fact was, I needed this doctor to fix him just as much as he did. I needed our lives back. I knew they would never be the same, but I needed things to move forward, to get better, to improve.

  I needed hope.

  9

  Even though I was playing loud music, I still heard the screams. They were so ear piercing that I immediately stopped running, pulled off my headset, and looked in the direction they came from.

  It was the house with the smoke in the chimney.

  "What the…?"

  I walked up the beach toward the house. A woman opened the sliding door leading to the wooden porch and staggered outside, gasping for air, dropped to her knees, then threw up.

  As soon as she was done, I heard her moan and scream, then cry and moan again, sounding like an animal in distress. I ran to her.

  "Do you need help?" I said.

  The woman didn't answer. She didn't even look up at me. Snot was gushing out of her nose and mouth as she cried and gasped almost inhumanly. I wondered if she was having a seizure of sorts and knelt next to her.

  "Can I help you? Ma'am? Do you need any medicine or anything?"

  There were more screams coming from inside the house. I wondered if I had walked into some sort of domestic dispute, if the woman was in trouble somehow.

  "Who's in there?" I asked. "Is that your husband? Do you need me to call for help?"

  The woman finally looked up at me, her eyes terrified, as she grabbed me with both her hands, clinging to me like I was her last hope.

  "My son," she said.

  "Your son? Is he in there? Is he in trouble?"

  The woman gasped for air and searched for words, but none came, only strange gurgling sounds coming from deep within her throat. I didn't want to wait for her to explain any further. I used my watch to dial 911.

  "What's your emergency?" the dispatcher said.

  I gave my name and told them I was from Denmark on vacation and how I had found the woman and that I knew she needed help but I didn't know what was going on exactly since the woman could hardly explain it to me. The dispatcher told me to try and get something out of her, so I addressed the woman once again.

  "You mentioned your son," I said. "Is he in trouble?"

  The woman's nostrils were flaring. "I…how was I supposed to know? That he would…"

  "How were you supposed to know what?" I asked. "You've got to tell me a little more here."

  "That he would…that he would crawl up…there?"

  The woman looked toward the chimney. The black smoke was still emerging from it and it had gotten darker and now it started to smell. It took me a few seconds to put the pieces together, mostly because it seemed so very unlikely a scenario.

  The terror of it almost paralyzed me. "Your…your son…he’s…up in there?" I asked and pointed.

  The woman sank, then nodded. "He was looking for Santa," she said. "I think he got stuck."

  10

  The firefighters came very fast and fought to get the boy out. It was the scene of a nightmare, a pure horror movie as they pulled from the bottom, then lowered someone down the chimney to push him out, and finally managed to pull him out, his charcoaled body unrecognizable. Only his face and shoulders had remained untouched by the fire.

  I held her in my arms till it was over while her husband held their teenage daughter close and covered her eyes so she didn't have to watch. I didn't know much about what was happening but I couldn't help but wonder if the poor woman had lit the fire in the fireplace herself this morning, thinking it would make the morning cozier for them all at Christmas time. Had the boy been asleep or maybe unconscious from lack of air? Had he been stuck there all night, hoping and praying someone would find him, maybe even calling for them, calling for his mother?

  No matter how I thought of it, it was terrifying and utterly, absolutely devastating.

  No mother should have to go through a thing like this.

  I gave the police my testimony and the paramedics cared for the mother. The detective in charge took my phone number and told me he would be in touch. I stared, baffled, as the family—or what was left of it—were taken away in an ambulance to the emergency room for observation. The look in their eyes shook me violently and I ran as fast as I could back to the house, threw off my shoes, and stormed into the kitchen where the kids were sitting.

  I had called them from my watch and told them to help Sune get out of bed, that I would explain later, and to make themselves some breakfast. We had shopped on the way there the day before so there should be enough food for all of them. Plenty of milk and cereal and also bread if they needed toast.

  The kids stared at me as I entered.

  "Where were you?" Julie asked angrily. "We had to do everything around here."

  She was feeding William next to her. The boy lit up when he saw my face.

  "Mommy!"

  I walked to him, took him in my arms and held him tight, then walked to Julie and Tobias and pulled them all into a hug. "You have no idea how glad I am to see all of you," I said.

  Julie pulled out of my embrace with a grunt. "Mom. That's annoying. Where were you?"

  "There was an accident. In one of the beach houses further down. A kid was killed."

  I avoided the gory details since I didn't see any reason to provide them.

  "What happened?" Sune asked.

  "It was an accident," I said. "But I had to help the mother and wait till the police and paramedics came and got the boy out."

  Julie turned and looked at me. "Got the boy out?"

  "Yeah, well…he was stuck somewhere; let's just leave it at that."

  "Where was he stuck, Mom?" Julie asked.

  She had lately developed a flavor for the horrific and liked to watch horror shows on her computer and read scary books. I wasn't so fond of her newfound joy for frightening things but considered it more or less a part of her growing independence since she knew I didn't enjoy it.

  "You don't need to know that," I said.

  Her gaze was overwhelmed with fascination. "No. Tell me, Mom. Where was the boy stuck?"

  I made a grimace for her to stop. I didn't want William to hear any of it, and frankly, not her either. She was too young.

  "Tell me, Mom, where was he? I bet it was a nasty place. Did he die from suffocation?"

  I stared at my daughter. Where had all this come from? Her father? It had to be because it sure wasn't me. I had seen my share of horrific stories and deaths; I didn't exactly enjoy talking about them.

  "Where, Mom. Where?"

  She saw me look at William, then she covered his ears with her hands. "He won't hear it. Heck, he won't even understand anything. Just tell me, Mom. Come on."

  I sighed, then said: "No. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll take a shower. I smell awful and feel even worse after what I have seen."

  I passed the fireplace, then shivered.

  Julie's eyes lit up like fireworks. "It was the chimney, wasn't it?" she clapped her hands in excitement. "It was the chimney. The boy was stuck in the…and then they…oh."

  I bit my lip.

  "I'll be in the shower if anyone needs me," I said.

  11

  The shower didn't help. The smell and the images of the charcoaled body wouldn't leave, no matter how much I scrubbed and washed. The smell was in my hair and in my nostrils. At least that's how I felt.

  Sune rolled into the bedroom and shut the door behind him, then approached me.

  "What the heck was that?"

  I sighed and sat on the bed. "I don't know." I looked at my hands. They were still shaking. "I am completely in shock still."

  "No, I'm talking about with Julie? Why did you tell her? I didn't want Tobias to know something like that and he was there too, so was William."

  I looked at him, our gaze meeting across the room. He had that look in his eyes I had grown to know so well. He was angry. It happened from time to time that he felt bitter and lost hope and then he would take it out on me.

  "I hardly think William understood anything. Besides, Julie guessed it."

  "And you don't think Tobias did too? He's not as stupid as you think, my friend."

  My friend. He always called me that when he had one of his episodes as I called them. It happened about once a week or so; he would yell at me for the smallest things. I had let him do it because I felt so sorry for him, but it hurt just the same.

  "I can't do this right now, Sune," I said with a deep sigh, then walked to my suitcase to grab my clothes.

  Sune scoffed. "You can never do anything, can you? Do I have to remind you that I’m the one sitting in a wheelchair, huh? I’m the one who can't move, and for every day, for every hour that passes that I haven't gotten back up again, the probability of me doing so shrinks."

  "We've been through this, Sune," I said and dropped my shirt. I turned to look at him. "We've done everything we can, okay? We've been through all kinds of physical therapy, all kinds of doctors. What else would you have me do?"

  Sune looked perplexed. He was yelling now. "I don't know. Something! I’m dying here. I’m withering away in this thing. If I don't get out of it soon, I will never leave this chair again. It's been two years, Rebekka. TWO years."

  "I know it has. You keep reminding me. And I am doing everything I can to help you." I picked up the shirt once again and looked for a hanger in the closet.

  "Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to have your son and stepdaughter help you out of bed in the morning? Huh? My son is eleven years old. I should be the one to help him out of bed, not the other way around. Do you understand how terrible that made me feel?"

  I turned to look at him again. I was so tired of fighting with him. I had hoped it wouldn't happen while we were on this trip, the trip he had been asking for, for so long. I had hoped that the prospect of seeing this doctor would spark the hope in him and he would feel less bitter and have fewer episodes. But I also knew that he was nervous about meeting him tomorrow. I knew he was and that made him angry.

  "I am sorry, Sune. I really am. But I had to help the woman and her family. It was an accident, Sune. I would have been back in time to help you if this hadn't happened."

  "Excuses. There’s always something, isn't there? How do I even know that what you’re telling me is true? You come home here with this story of a child stuck…"

  "HEY!"

  It was my turn to yell now. I no longer cared that the kids could hear us. "I have just been a witness to a terrible accident. I feel awful. I can't deal with this right now," I said as I threw my shirt back in the suitcase and left the room, slamming the door behind me.

  12

  Sydney Hahn was eating dinner with her mom and younger sister Trisha. On the calendar in the kitchen, it said December 2nd. On the calendar, there was a big picture of Santa. It felt like he was laughing at her, mocking her.

  She had dreaded this month all year.

  "Do you girls know what you want for Christmas this year?" Their mom asked. She was trying to sound cheerful, but not succeeding very well.

  Trisha looked up, eyes big. "I’m wishing for a new bike."

  "Good," their mom said without looking at her. She had hardly eaten anything, only pushed the peas around the potatoes on her plate. She had done that a lot and lost a lot of weight the past year.

  "How about you, Sydney?" she asked, drinking from her glass of water. "Do you have any wishes or are you too old for that now that you're a teenager?"

  "Very funny," she said.

  "What's it like?" Trisha asked. "To be a teenager?"

  Sydney shrugged. "I don't know."

  "You must know since you are one," her sister reminded her.

  "Yeah, well, it's not like you wake up one day and you're suddenly different just because you turned thirteen," she said. "It kind of just sneaks up on you, I guess. I don't feel any different."