The strawberry hat he put on his head and would not take off.
He never put the Santa down. He did all of it one-handed.
At bedtime Terrence carried him up, hat and slippers and Santa and all, and laid him in the toddler bed in the old sewing room, and sat on the floor beside it with his back against the wall the way he did when Jonah had bad dreams. The night-light made a small orange moon on the ceiling.
"Daddy," Jonah said, when Terrence thought he was already asleep.
"Yeah, buddy."
A long pause. The Santa's bell made a tiny sound under the blanket as he moved it.
"Did Santa forget me?"
Terrence sat with that. He thought about all the true answers and how none of them were for a person who was not yet four. He thought about his mother on the porch saying you say his name.
"No," he said. "Nobody forgot you. Santa didn't forget you, and I didn't forget you, Jonah. I'm never going to forget you. I know exactly where you are."
Jonah thought about that in the dark for a while. Then he said, "Okay," the way he said it when you told him bees could sleep, filing it away to check later.
A board creaked in the hall.
Renee was in the doorway. She had changed out of the cream sweater into an old sweatshirt of Terrence's, and her face in the orange light looked scrubbed and swollen, like she had finally cried somewhere he had not seen. She did not come in. She stood with one hand on the doorframe, and Terrence watched her look at their son. Really look. Not past him, not at the top of his head. At his face, under the ridiculous strawberry hat, his eyes open and watching her back.
It went on a long time. Terrence did not move. He did not know if she could hear the monitor. He did not ask.