PART 2 — THE PROMISE
Tyler pulled an old photo out of his wallet and held it up. It was a hospital room decked in tinsel, a little boy in a bed too big for him, and Santa sitting beside him with one arm around his shoulders.
That is my son, Tyler said. Two years ago he was at Akron Childrens over Christmas, too sick to come home. He had stopped talking to everybody. The doctors could not get him to eat.
Then a mall Santa heard about him and drove over on his own day off. He sat in that room for six hours. And before he left, he promised my boy a puppy. A real one.
Tyler reached down and scratched the golden retriever behind the ears.
The man Brandon mocked for playing dress-up had sat six hours by a sick boys bed and kept a promise that a hundred grown men would have let slip.
Three weeks later, Tyler said, a crate showed up at our door with a bow on it and a note that said, every boy needs a dog to get better for. My son is in remission now. That dog has not left his side.
The room was dead quiet. Brandon, who spends Christmas in Cabo, looked at the floor.
Mike just stroked his white beard and said, how is the little guy doing. And Tyler could not answer, because he was crying too hard.
My son wears a red suit and listens to children for a living. One of those children is well today, with a golden retriever asleep at his feet, because Santa turned out to be real after all.