Recovering
Maeve’s dad did it every year: the long white beard, the beer gut, the Santa suit. He dressed this way nearly every weekday from mid-November until Christmas and posted up in the mall to take pictures with kids and hear their wish lists. Maeve, in her second year at community college, was stuck spending her winter break driving him to and from his gig in Plymouth Meeting—the lesser of the two area malls by a longshot—because he’d lost his license for drunk driving a month earlier. He claimed he didn’t think he was above the legal limit, but Maeve had questions about that. It had happened at the right time; they do background checks on the Santas before the season starts, and he didn’t get his DUI until after he’d already passed. He was trying to keep the whole thing under the radar. Maeve dropped him off and picked him up at the far end of the parking lot so no one would notice he wasn’t driving himself anymore.
Two weeks before Christmas, she sat in the car and waited for him to come meet her after his shift. It was snowing slightly, the first of the season. Maeve turned her music low and watched the snowflakes melt instantly against the windshield. On the way over, the low tire pressure light had come on, a side effect of the swift temperature drop. She didn’t know shit about cars, so she decided her dad could deal with it on the drive home.
For it being so close to the holidays, there were surprisingly few cars parked. She saw her dad coming across the lot, still in his full getup, and unlocked the doors. He was carrying a big Macy’s bag he tossed in the back before sliding into the front seat. He pulled off his Santa cap and held in his lap.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said.
“Aren’t you supposed to take that suit off before you leave? So kids don’t see Santa getting into a dented Camry and wonder why he doesn’t have a better ride?”
“Nah, no need to hide. If a kid asks too many questions, I got all kinds of explanations ready to go. Part of the job.”
She nodded toward the backseat as she backed out of the parking spot. “What’s in the bag?”
He winked. “Santa secrets.”
“We don’t need to be doing presents.”
He waved her away. “I get the employee discount.”
She wasn’t sure if this was true, but she didn’t press him on it. Her dad pulled a comb out of his pocket and tugged it through his beard. Kids, especially the younger ones, loved to play with Santa’s beard, sticking their grimy little fingers in it and knotting it all up. Sometimes she thought her dad was a saint for putting up with it, and sometimes she thought it was a sign that he was mentally unwell. It didn’t escape her that he’d started the Santa thing three years ago, right after her mom had left him and taken Maeve’s little brother, Ernie, with her. Maeve had decided to live with her dad partly because she hated her mom’s new boyfriend, Hank, and partly because her dad paid less attention to what Maeve was up to. It was easier to go out and party and sleep somewhere that wasn’t home when her dad was dead-drunk on the couch. But if she was being really honest, it was mostly because she couldn’t stand for him to be alone.
“Heard some interesting news today,” her dad said. “They’re saying the Plaza is gonna need a new Santa next year because their best guy is retiring. You remember Chris Maggio? Used to come to our Fourth of July picnic when you were little. Anyway, he’s got ALS. Sad fucking story, but good news for me. Hate to say it that way. But you know the Plaza’s where the money’s at. An extra dollar on the hour is what I’ve been hearing, plus more shifts.”
“How you gonna get the DUI past them?”
Her dad’s smile faltered. He scratched his chin and stared out the window. “I’ll figure it out. Not everyone can play this part, you know. I’ve got a natural beard. That’s hard to come by. And it’s not like I did anything violent.”
It could’ve been violent, Maeve thought. Out loud, she said, “Sorry about Chris Maggio.”
“What? Oh, right. Too bad, really. Good guy, Chris.”
They were quiet for a bit. At a red light, she zoned out, the dashboard’s glowing exclamation point blurring as she let her eyes go in and out of focus.
“Oh, hey,” she said, “I forgot to tell you. The tires need air pretty bad. Would you mind taking care of it?”
He gave her a stern look. “Maeve, come on. Fixing tire pressure is nothing. You gotta learn how to do it yourself. You know I won’t always be there to take care of your car.”
“I know, I know. I’ll learn. But for now?”
“All right. For now, I’ll do it. We can stop at the Wawa on the way home. They’ve got the nice automatic pumps. But you’re gonna watch and learn. Deal?”
“Deal.” Maeve smiled despite herself. She’d been irritated with him lately, especially with having to give up a chunk of her time off to cart him around to this ridiculous gig, but every now and again he could charm her out of irritation. She’d always liked his insistence on making her independent. Not in a tough love kind of way, but more like a gentle teacher. For all his shortcomings, the man knew how to take care of himself. She remembered when she was younger and the electric company shut the power off after too many unpaid bills, he’d taken her to the basement and shown her how to rig it so the lights came back on. You could only do it so much before they’d catch on, he said, so you had to be careful. When the house stuttered back to life, it had felt like a magic trick.
Outside, the temperature kept dropping and the snow kept coming, the roads getting ice-slicked. Maeve drove slowly, nervous about the tires.
“So,” her dad said, “you talk to Mom lately?”
In her periphery, she could see him twisting and twisting the Santa hat in his hand, like he was wringing out a wet towel.
“A bit,” she said.
“How’s she doing? Good?”
“Yeah. She’s good.”
“How’s the kid?”
“Ernie’s good.” She smiled a bit. Ernie was six and cute as hell. All rosy cherub cheeks and a mop of curly hair. Whenever she went to her mom’s, he made her play pirates with him. They would sit on the couch and pretend it was a ship, and she would ask him what he saw, and he would shout out total word-association the way kids do, all kinds of nonsense sea terms. A mermaid! he’d say, or, A shark eating a dolphin! Last week, he asked if she knew that a group of narwhals was called a blessing. She hadn’t. He was always learning new things, and it was always astounding her, the way a kid’s mind could just grow and grow and grow.
Up ahead, the Wawa came into view. She switched lanes so she could turn in.
“I was thinking,” her dad said, “that maybe you could talk to Mom about Christmas? About Ernie coming over for a bit? I’m getting the tree this weekend, and I was thinking we could get all the Christmas decorations out of storage. Remember that giant bear with the Santa hat? Rudy? Thing’s nearly as big as you. Boy, you used to be obsessed with him when you were little. We can set him up in the living room, next to the couch. Ernie’ll be so excited. And I found some old tinsel in the basement! You can’t get that stuff anywhere anymore. Ernie never got to see tinsel on a tree. I got—you know, your mom never sent me the Christmas list. Ernie’s list, she said she got everything on it, so I didn’t need it. But I’ve been keeping track at work, you know, of what the boys his age are asking for? I got him something real special. Hottest gift of the season.”
She drummed her fingers nervously on the steering wheel. “Is that what’s in the Macy’s bag? What is it?”
“Oh, nothing,” he said, grinning ear to ear. “Just a brand-new little something-something you can’t find hardly anywhere.”
He grabbed the bag from the backseat and pulled out the box inside to show her a brand-new gaming console. Maeve didn’t know much about video games, but she knew the thing was expensive, and that it had been sold out everywhere for a month at least.
“Dad! Jesus, how did you even get that?”
“Santa’s magic.”
“Stop, I’m serious. How much did it cost?”
“Don’t worry about it.” He reached over to place the bag back on the seat behind them. “I’m good right now. We’re good.”
Maeve pulled the car up to the air pump. She chewed her lip.
Her dad cleared his throat. “Look, I know your mom is skeptical. But you can tell her—I mean, you know I’ve been doing better since the DUI. I’ve been doing real good.”
“I’ll ask, Dad. But—”
“I know, I know. No promises.” He waved his hand in the air like it was no problem, just some small idea not even worth talking about. “All right, come on. You’re getting out of the car too. We’re learning a new skill today.”
Maeve laughed, thankful for the change of topic. She turned off the car and got out, pulling her coat tight around her. The wind was whipping and frigid, snow smacking against her face and melting on her lips. She squinted her eyes and bounced on the balls of her feet as her dad started up the air machine. He looked absurd, standing there in the Wawa parking lot in the snow, Santa Claus filling up his tires.
“Okay, Maeve. Can you open up the car door and check that sticker in the frame, at the bottom? There should be a number on there labeled PSI. Should be in the thirties.”
Maeve opened the car door and knelt, searching for the numbers. “Found it. Thirty-two.”
“All right, now come over here and watch. It’s easy. All you gotta do is set the number on the machine and stick the hose like this.”
He moved the pump to each tire, and Maeve tried to commit the action to memory. He was right; it was easy. He moved about the car, a bright and merry patch of red against the dreary gas station. She listened to the whirr of the machine, the pump hissing, stopping, hissing again. She followed behind him, screwing the cap back on each tire once it was done. She watched her dad and thought about her mom and Hank. Neither of them were the type to teach you how to pump a tire, easy or not. Who would teach Ernie this stuff? Her dad—he was complicated. But he tried. He really fucking tried. She pictured Rudy, the giant bear, set up in the living room, waiting for a kid who would never come. Her dad, placing presents under the tree for a son he barely knew. She’d try, with her mom. She’d try to talk to her. But she didn’t think it would work.
Her dad stood up and dusted his hands together. “All done. Easy right?”
Maeve nodded. “Very.”
“You wanna get something to eat while we’re here? Pork roll and cheese?”
“Sure. I want to wash my hands after that anyway.”
He nudged her with his elbow. “Aw, come on. A little dirt never hurt.”
Maeve felt strangely soothed as they entered the Wawa. There was something calming about a place that always felt the exact same. She knew where to find everything, from the candy aisle to where, in the long line of coffee spouts, she could find the vanilla one she loved. The music never changed either. For her whole life, classic ‘90s rock filtered through the store.
She went to wash her hands while her dad poked around the hot trays for bagel sandwiches. The women’s room was empty and a mess, toilet paper strewn across the floor and trampled on, covered in dirty footprints. She stepped around it to the sink and fixed her hair in the mirror, which had gone wild and unruly from the wind. She wondered how to broach the topic of Christmas with her mom. Was her dad actually doing better since the DUI? It had barely been a month, which didn’t seem like enough time to say. It was hard to gage better against something that had become so consistent in her life it was like ambient background noise. She didn’t pay attention to her dad’s drinking anymore. After her mom left, it felt like it happened in a vacuum: no one to yell at him, no one for him to yell at. He drank, and he watched TV, and he fell asleep. Maeve moved in and out of the house on her way to parties, dates, class, her part-time job bagging groceries at the Acme. When he got the DUI, she’d felt horrible for not paying more attention. And then she’d felt thankful, like maybe it would turn things around. But afterward, she’d forgotten to check if he’d learned a lesson after all.
Maeve dried her hands and left the bathroom, ready to browse the chip aisle, when she heard yelling. She recognized the sound of her dad’s voice booming from somewhere in the store, though she couldn’t make out the words. Without thinking, she started running down the short hallway and out into the store, calling for him.
He was standing by the front door, being blocked by a tall, scrawny man with greasy hair whom Maeve was pretty sure she’d gone to middle school with, though she remembered not a thing about him besides his face. The guy was barely half the size of her dad, but he had tried to make himself seem large by starfishing his limbs in the door frame.
“I wasn’t trying to fucking take anything!” her dad was yelling.
Everyone in the store had turned their eyes on him, a Santa spewing expletives at some poor employee.
“Sir, I saw you put two sandwiches in your—” the man cleared his throat as though he was embarrassed to say it, “your Santa suit.”
“This thing doesn’t even have pockets!” her dad said. He picked up the heft of the velvet jacket with fur lining and shook it around, then moved his hands up and down the suit as if to prove they wouldn’t snag on anything, no pocket or divot with which to hide the sandwiches in question.
Maeve came up beside her dad and touched his arm, which he ripped away from her before actually seeing whose hand it was. When he saw it was his daughter, he looked briefly apologetic.
“This guy thinks I stole sandwiches,” he said. “Treating me like a goddamn criminal.”
“Maeve, hey,” the guy from middle school said. His face flushed red. He pointed his thumb at her dad. “Is he with you?”
Maeve swallowed. She looked for a nametag, his name long discarded alongside all the other useless memories she’d once had of middle school. It said Danny.
“Hey, Danny,” she said. “Good to see you.”
“How do you know this guy?” her dad asked.
“We went to middle school together,” Maeve said. She turned back to Danny. “This is my dad.”
Maeve’s dad was breathing heavily out of his nose, his face red as a kid hanging upside down on monkey bars.
“Oh,” Danny said. “Shit. Look, I’m not trying to cause trouble—”
“It’s fine, it’s cool. You’re just doing your job.” She put her hand back on her dad’s arm, speaking to him quietly, like she was the parent and he the child. “Dad, why don’t you go grab us some chips?”
“Not until this asshole admits I didn’t steal shit,” her dad said.
“Dad,” she said, her voice firm. “Please.”
Her dad clenched his teeth, his jaw squaring beneath his enormous beard. “All right.” He stabbed a finger at Danny. “But I’m gonna call your manager tomorrow. This is out of fucking bounds. Stealing a damn sandwich.”
He shook his head and muttered under his breath as he walked to the chip aisle.
Danny lowered his voice. “Maeve, I’m really sorry, but I saw him do it. I know it sounds ridiculous. But he put them under the Santa suit. They were the pork roll Sizzlis.”
Maeve almost laughed in his face. Something about the Sizzlis, the exactness of the corporate terminology, felt absurd. She glanced back at her dad to make sure she wasn’t looking before fishing a ten dollar bill out of her wallet and handing it to Danny.
“Listen,” she said. “He’s a recovering alcoholic. He’s hard up right now, but he’s working on it. I’ll talk to him about it, I swear. Please, could we just drop it? It’s the holidays. He’s a mall Santa for Christ’s sake.”
Danny scrunched up his face, glancing around as though looking for approval from some unseen authority. He quickly snatched the money from her and shoved it in his pocket. “Okay. But I can’t let him off if he ever tries it again, you know.”
Maeve closed her eyes for a moment and let out a breath. “Thanks, Danny. Really, seriously, thank you. He won’t do it again.”
Danny pressed his lips together into a smile-that-wasn’t-a-smile, his eyes exuding unwanted sympathy. He returned to his spot behind the register and exchanged an uneasy glance with the other cashier as Maeve’s dad approached, holding a bag of chips. He grabbed two new bagel sandwiches and put it all down on the counter. Turning to Danny, he said loudly and pointedly, “I’m paying now. See? I would like to pay for this now!”
Danny grimaced and started scanning the food. The discomfort was palpable between all three of them. Maeve’s eyes wandered around the store, watching customers try their very best not to make eye contact. When Danny read out the total, Maeve turned to her dad. He started to reach for his wallet, then seemed to have the dawning realization that moments ago, he’d claimed to not have any pockets with which to store things. She quickly stepped closer to the register and pulled out her credit card.
“I got it, Dad,” she said, handing the card to Danny. “Why don’t you go turn the car on?”
He grumbled his assent. When the door swung closed behind him, she tilted her head toward the overhead lights and gently closed her eyelids, pinching the bridge of her nose.
On the ride home, her dad didn’t say much. He asked if it was all right with her if he started eating, and she said fine. Heat wafted out of the peeled-back tin foil and curled in the air. The whole car smelled like grease. She turned onto their street.
“I didn’t do it, Maeve,” he said. “That kid was wrong.”
“I know, Dad,” she said quietly. “He apologized to me about it. It was just holiday stress. He said there’s been a lot of stealing, so he was on high alert. He realized he was mistaken.”
“Damn right he was mistaken.”
“I never liked that guy anyway,” she said. “He was an idiot back in middle school, too.”
“I bet.” Her dad let out a deep laugh. “Yeah, I bet he was.”
Maeve pulled up along the curb in front of their house. It was decorated with multi-colored string lights, dancing on and off. Her dad had put them up earlier that week while she was asleep and surprised her with it. He’d strung garland around the fence with big red bows and hung a wreath on the front door. It looked perfect. Her throat quivered as she watched the lights blink one by one down the row, as if to say hello.
They got out of the car. Her dad carried the food and the Macy’s bag while Maeve searched her purse for her house keys. Their breath materialized in front of them like cigarette smoke.
“So,” her dad said, “you’ll call your mom tomorrow? About Ernie?”
Maeve turned away from him and stuck her face further into her bag as if she was still digging around, though she’d already found her keys.
“Sure, Dad.” She let out a small cough, then wiped her eyes quickly on her coat sleeve before lifting her head to unlock the door. “Of course. I’ll call.”
Katie Henken Robinson is the Senior Editor at Electric Literature and the author of Terrestrials, forthcoming from Harper in 2028. Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Southwest Review, Split Lip Magazine, and The Masters Review, among others. A 2025 Masters Review Best Emerging Writer, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellow, and winner of the Tennessee Williams Festival Fiction Contest, her short stories have been named finalists for numerous prizes and awards, including The Stephen Dixon Fiction Prize and The Perkoff Prize. You can find her at katiehenkenrobinson.com.
