Happily Letter After by Vi Keeland

CHAPTER 2

SADIE

“What the heck are you doing?”

The next afternoon, Devin came into my office and found me with a roll of Christmas wrapping paper laid out on my desk and a can in the middle. I shrugged and started to cut the paper. “Wrapping olives.”

“Uh. Why?”

I reached into the plastic bag sitting on my chair and held up the item I’d bought on my lunch hour. “How do you think I should wrap these? I don’t have a box.”

Devin’s bushy brows drew together. “You want to wrap men’s black socks?”

I set down the scissors and folded the red-and-white candy-cane-striped wrapping paper around the can. “Well, I can’t send the olives looking festive and not the socks.”

She plucked the socks from my hand and rolled them into a ball. “I have two brothers. My dad used to give me twenty bucks to buy each of them a gift at the holidays. Every year they got socks from the sale rack for a buck, and I used the rest of the money to buy makeup. They wrap best folded like this, into a ball.”

“Oh. Smart.”

Devin leaned against my desk and moved the tape dispenser closer to me. “So who are the olives and socks for? New guy I don’t know about?”

I shook my head. “No, they’re for Birdie.”

“Ohhhhh. Birdie.” She nodded as if it all made sense. “Who the hell is Birdie?”

“She’s a little girl who wrote to the Holiday Wishes mailbox. I want to make some of her wishes come true.”

“And she wished for men’s black socks and olives?”

“Yep. And a special friend for her dad. Her mom died of cancer a few years ago. So sweet.”

Devin frowned. “That sucks. But what’s her dad look like?”

“How should I know?”

She shrugged. “He’s single. And is about to have clean socks. That’s better than half the men you’ve gone out with lately already.”

I chuckled. “True. But I don’t think so.”

“Suit yourself. His kid sounds like an odd duck anyway. Who asks Santa for olives?”

I stopped wrapping and looked at her. “When I was seven, I asked for a rooster because I wanted fresh brown eggs.”

“But . . . roosters don’t lay eggs.”

“I didn’t say I was the smartest seven-year-old.”

Devin laughed as she walked out of my office. “I think you just made a case for why you should google Birdie’s dad. Sounds like maybe you’re a match made in heaven.”

I never ended up googling anyone. In fact, after I sent Birdie the olives and socks, I wished her well in my mind and never gave it a second thought. That is, until another envelope showed up at the magazine about a week later. When I noticed her name on the return address, I immediately dumped the other mail and ripped that envelope open.

A photo fell out of the letter onto the floor. When I picked it up, what met my eyes was a beautiful little girl with golden hair and a bright smile that melted my heart. It was a wallet-size school photo. Wow. This is her. It felt surreal to be looking at the actual Birdie. She was so pretty, with kind eyes and, from everything I knew, a beautiful soul to match. I put the photo aside and read the letter.

Dear Santa,

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God! You are real. You’re really real. I got the olives and socks today. The holes fit on my fingers! Not the holes in the socks. The holes in the olives. The socks didn’t have holes. My daddy’s socks don’t have holes anymore. They were so nice and soft. You should’ve seen him when he found the socks in his drawer! He still doesn’t know how they got there. He said today must have been his lucky day because he found them. And I laughed. It was so funny! And then he took me to the ice-cream place next to his restaurant to celebrate our lucky day. I couldn’t tell him that I was too full because I just ate a can of olives.

Did I tell you my dad owns a fancy restaurant? People wear high heels to go eat there. I prefer to eat in my feetsy pajamas. But Dad makes me wear a dress on date night. That’s on the first Tuesday of every month. Mom used to go with him. But now I do. It’s my favorite day of the month. Not because I like to look all fancy and eat at Dad’s restaurant but because after dinner, Dad comes home with me. He usually works really late.

Oh! And I also didn’t tell him I wrote to you. He would’ve told me it was too early to write to Santa and that I shouldn’t be greedy.

Last night, I told my dad that I really want someone else to braid my hair besides him. He doesn’t know how to do it right. Then I caught him watching a YouTube video on how to braid. I told him I want the kind of braid that goes across the top of my head. The fancy one. He was watching someone make that kind of braid. If he tries to braid my hair like that, then I’m going to feel bad and let him do it. And I’ll look silly.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for showing me that you’re real.

Birdie Maxwell

P.S. I am sending you one of my school photos. They gave me a lot, and I have no one to give them to besides Dad and my grandmas.

P.P.S. I added something to my Christmas list. Did you ever hear of 23andMe? In school we made these big trees that showed all our parents and grandparents on all different branches. Mrs. Parker told us all about how you can spit in a tube and find people related to you going back hundreds of years. I want to add branches to my tree, enough to cover an entire wall in my bedroom! My tree was one of the skinniest in school because I don’t have any sisters or brothers.

P.P.P.S. That wasn’t me dropping a hint. I don’t want you to buy it for me. My aunt always buys me dresses that I don’t like, so I’m saving that for her to get me this year!

I let out a long breath and kept staring at the photo. Birdie really could have been me at her age. We had so much in common, from our blonde hair to . . . well, our dead moms.

And her note about the braids totally brought back memories of my own dad trying in vain to do my hair way back when. He’d get so frustrated and give up. Then I’d end up going to school looking like Pippi Longstocking.

Yup. Her dad reminded me of mine. We were both lucky to have men like that in our lives. I felt for Mr. Maxwell, whoever he was—someone doing the best he could to make his daughter’s life as normal as possible.

When I returned to my desk with the mail, I attempted to work on my article for a bit before my mind began to wander. I started to think about Birdie again and suddenly switched my screen over to Google and typed in: Birdie Maxwell.

No.

Delete.

A few seconds later, temptation once again won out. I typed: Birdie Maxwell New York, New York.

I deleted it again.

What am I doing?

Just leave well enough alone.

Why do you need to know more about this poor girl and her father?

My heart raced as I typed again: Birdie Maxwell New York, New York.

Not sure what I was expecting, but the very first result was something I wasn’t prepared for.

It was an obituary. I clicked into it.

At the top was a photo of a beautiful brown-haired woman with her arm around a little blonde girl—a younger Birdie.

Amanda Maxwell, age 32, of New York City passed away on December 23.

Amanda was raised in Guilford, Connecticut, and enjoyed summers growing up alongside her many cousins, all of whom grew up along the Connecticut shoreline. She enjoyed hosting large family parties at the home she shared with her husband and daughter.

Amanda attended Guilford High School before graduating from New York University, where she majored in business. It was there that she met the love of her life, Sebastian Maxwell. Amanda worked as a business analyst in Manhattan for several years before attending culinary school. She and her husband, Sebastian, eventually opened a five-star Italian restaurant in Manhattan.

Despite her successes, there was nothing Amanda loved more than being a mom to her darling daughter, Birdie, who was her entire world.

Amanda is survived by her husband, Sebastian, and young daughter, Birdie Maxwell of New York City; her mother, Susan Mello of Guilford, Connecticut; brother Adam Mello of Brooklyn, New York; sister Macie Mello of New Jersey; and many loving aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Amanda requested an intimate burial and funeral in Guilford. The family wishes to thank all of those who surrounded her with love during her last days. For those who wish to celebrate Amanda’s life, visitation will be held at Stuart’s Funeral Home on Main Street in Guilford on January 2 from 4 pm to 9 pm. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you make a memorial donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Amanda’s name.

Devin’s voice startled me. “Are you crying?”

I wiped the tears falling from my eyes. “No.”

“What happened?”

I grabbed a tissue and said, “It’s that little girl . . . Birdie.”

“What about her?”

“She . . . sent a thank-you letter with a school photo of herself. And I should’ve just read the letter and stopped there, but I ended up googling her name, and the first thing that popped up was her mother’s obituary. The whole thing just hits really close to home.”

“Ugh. I can imagine. I’m sorry.” Devin looked at my screen, then scrolled up to the photo in the obituary, taking a few seconds to examine it.

I clicked on the icon at the top to exit out of it. “It’s okay. Anyway, I need to just stop thinking about her and get to work.”

“What did her letter say? I take it she got your olives?”

I reached for the envelope and handed it to her.

After Devin read Birdie’s letter, she said, “Oh my God. She sounds so sweet. And the dad . . . looking up videos on how to braid hair? Swoon. I bet he’s hot, too. I mean, the mom was so pretty.”

Feeling oddly defensive, I said, “Will you stop with that?”

“Why?”

My reaction to her talking about the dad—like he was some piece of man candy—sort of caught me off guard. I think I was putting myself in Birdie’s shoes. This whole thing was just such a sensitive subject. Was I sad for me? For Birdie? I didn’t even know anymore.

You know how sometimes you merely think of something and suddenly you see ads all over social media for it, as if the advertisers somehow got inside your brain?

A few days after Birdie’s letter came, I started seeing ads in my feed for these braided headbands made out of synthetic hair. Then once you click on the ad, forget it—they never stop showing them to you. Anyway, this headband looked just like a braid across the top of the head—the exact type of braid Birdie said she wanted.

Before I knew it, a week later, a box with the braided headband inside had arrived at my office address. I’d examined Birdie’s photo to match the headband to the closest shade of blonde.

Taking the candy-cane-striped wrapping-paper roll out from under my desk, I wrapped the braid before addressing the box and sending it on to Eighty-Third Street.