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The mother was gathering her things. She reached into her faded canvas tote bag—a bag printed with the logo of a long-defunct regional discount pharmacy—and pulled out a pair of small, purple knit mittens. One of the mittens had a large hole at the thumb, mended clumsily with white sewing thread that pulled the acrylic yarn into an awkward, puckered lump. She knelt down beside the booth, slipping Chloe’s small feet into a pair of worn sneakers that were visibly split along the rubber toe cap.
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“Alright, monkey,” the mother whispered, her breath faintly condensing in the draft coming off the diner’s entry door. “Time to go check our camp.”
“Is Santa going to find the camp, Mommy?” Chloe asked, standing up and brushing a stray pancake crumb from her fleece. “There aren’t any chimneys there.”
“Santa has GPS on the sleigh now, remember?” The mother smiled, buttoning Chloe’s thin, quilted jacket up to her throat, pulling the fleece collar tight against the child’s neck. “He doesn’t need chimneys. He just looks for the bravest little girls in Pennsylvania, and your name is right at the top of the satellite screen.”
