Finding Father Christmas Read Free Page A

and mushy and tasting
     of freezer burn. Over the waffles and strawberries I would hold up the small jug of maple syrup and pour a spinning circle
     of liquid gold. The first touch of golden syrup on my tongue tasted like joy.
    Eve Carson, the actress, always ordered scrambled eggs, with tomatoes instead of hash browns, and a small grapefruit juice.
     As the waitress walked away, I would watch my mother slip six or eight packets of sugar into her purse. She nabbed them in
     one smooth motion without taking her deeper-than-the-Pacific blue eyes off of me. One time she took a spoon. My mother was
     very good at the small things.
    Whenever we were cozied up to each other like that, I didn’t feel neglected or jealous of the hours she spent doting on her
     other love, the theater. When I felt her close, I found it easy to believe that I was to her the sun and moon and stars. I
     believed everything she said.
    Until the day I found the blue velvet purse with the golden tassels.

Chapter Four
    B efore I found the purse, I found the one-eyed dragon.
    If I had believed in an ordered universe at that time, I would have understood why the one came before the other. But as I
     mentioned before, I was young in my logic and naive in all areas of theology.
    The discoveries came close to each other while we lived in Ashland. On a beastly night during the second month of our stay
     at the Swan Motel, our air conditioner stopped working. It was too late to ask the front desk to call a repairman. And it
     was too hot to sleep.
    My mother told me to lie still and imagine I was a snow-flake, floating on an iceberg in Alaska. I tried, but it didn’t work.
     My Method acting skills were sadly lacking.
    “Then come with me, my little fish,” she said. “We shall go for a swim.”
    “Now?”
    “Yes, now.”
    I followed my mother down the stairs, both of us in our thin, cotton pajamas. The motel pool was small and separated from
     the parking lot by a chain-link fence lined with sheetsof hard green plastic. All the outside lights of the Swan Motel glowed with a pale weariness as if they were too hot to shine
     their brightest and had turned themselves to dim.
    “It’s still hot out here,” I whispered.
    “Yes, it is,” she murmured in the stillness. “Hot as dragons’ breath.”
    My mother lifted the latch on the gate that led into the pool area. She walked right in as if the “Pool Closed After 9 PM”
     sign applied to everyone but us.
    “They’ll be looking for a cool watering hole this night.” She dipped her foot into the shallow end. “When they come, you will
     allow the dragons to drink as much as they like, undisturbed, won’t you?”
    I nodded.
    “Your movements in the water must produce only the tiniest of ripples.”
    I nodded again and lowered my thin legs into the water.
    That’s when I saw him. The one-eyed dragon.
    In the darkness of the still waters, the smoldering light under the diving board appeared to be the half-opened yellow eye
     of a camouflaged dragon gazing back at us.
    A shiver raced up my torso.
    Ignoring the dragon, my mother demurely slipped her slender frame all the way under the water, submerging with barely a sound.
     I watched as her oversized pajama top billowed around her like a jellyfish.
    Bravely lowering myself into the water only up to my neck, I kept a watchful eye on the dragon in the deep end of the pool.
    He did not move. Neither did I.
    The gap between us remained a flat distance of undisturbed, watery space.
    My mother swam about freely, silently. I bobbed and blinked only when I had to. Then she motioned for me to follow as she
     slipped out of the pool.
    We trotted as quickly as we could back to our room.
    With a finger to her lips, she said, “We must hurry before one of them follows us into our room. Dragons are drawn in by the
     scent of chlorine.”
    She silently slid the key into the door and jiggled it once, twice, three times.
    “Hurry!” my tiny voice begged. The legs of