“Atkins,” Lawrence said.

“Do you remember handing a note to Santa?” Ivy asked.

“Mama had me write notes to Santa every year. I kept it up until I was a teenager, sort of as a joke, I guess. When she died, I was going through her things and I found a bunch of them, in an old cigar box. She kept all my notes to Santa.”

“Except that one?” Ivy asked.

“When she told me we were going to see Santa, I insisted on handing him the letter myself. I wouldn’t even let Mama read it because it was going to be a secret, between me and Santa Claus, so Mama would be surprised, Christmas morning, when she woke up and Daddy was back home.”

“Oh God,” Ezra murmured.

“I think that’s probably the year I stopped believing,” Carlette said. “I had to keep pretending, for Mama’s sake, but that was the year I knew.” She looked across the square, at the bronze statue of the soldier, standing sentry in the night. “It’s been a long time since I let myself believe in anything, if you want to know the truth.”

“We were holding out hope that he’d be found alive,” Lawrence said sadly. “We didn’t want to spoil your Christmas.”

Carlette raised an eyebrow. “We?”

“Your grandmother and I. And your mother, of course,” Lawrence said. He fumbled in the pocket of his coat, but when he came up empty-handed Ivy gave him the delicate Christmas hanky she’d tucked into her own pocket. He dabbed his eyes with the hanky, then reached out his hand and took Carlette’s in his.

“Everett was our only child. He was everything to us. You were everything to us, Carlette.”

Chapter 23

Carlette Wheeler sank down onto the bench beside the old man. Her eyes filled with tears and her hands trembled as she moved to wipe them away. “I don’t know what to say. How can this be? It’s been so many years. I always just assumed…”

“I was dead?” Lawrence managed a feeble laugh.

“So … how old are you?”

“I’m ninety-six.”

“And Granny?”

“She’s been gone a long time now. Passed away while we were living out west. And your mother, Diana? Is she still…”

“No. She died when Ezra was in kindergarten.”

Ezra looked up at Ivy. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t,” Ivy said. “I had no clue.” She touched his shoulder. “It started with this Santa suit. Remember? That first night I moved into the farmhouse, we found this outfit in a box on the closet shelf.”

“Right. But what’s that got to do with anything?”

“After you left, I was putting the Santa suit away and I found a piece of paper in the pocket. It was a letter from a little girl.”

“A letter to Santa Claus,” Lawrence said.

“From a little girl named Carlette,” Ivy finished. “I kept wondering how that story ended. Okay, maybe I was slightly obsessed. I’d become friends with a woman who works at the courthouse: Phoebe. I showed her the letter, and she knew immediately who’d written it, because her mother grew up across the street from that house where you were living and she talked a lot about her best friend, Carlette.”