The highway hummed beneath them, steady and low, a sound that seemed to live in the bones if you listened long enough. Snowflakes spilled through the headlights in endless sheets, bright for an instant, then gone. The windshield wipers moved in their slow arc, leaving streaks that blurred the world beyond into long smears of red and white.
Every so often, a cluster of houses appeared, glowing with colored bulbs or single candles in the windows. Then the road swallowed them again, giving way to wide stretches of dark woods. The ride home from her aunt’s house was nearly an hour, most of it a rhythm of light and absence, color and shadow.
In the back seat, Eve sat curled toward the door. Her coat hung half-open, her scarf loose, one mitten forgotten on her lap. In her palm, a ribbon from one of her gifts coiled and uncoiled. She wound it tight until her finger flushed red, then let it slip loose, repeating the motion as if her hands were keeping time with her thoughts.
The car was warm, the heater blowing in steady breaths. The windows fogged in wide halos, then cleared, over and over, as though the car itself was breathing along with them. From the backseat, the scent of garlic and tomato sauce slipped from tinfoil-topped containers, mingling with the sweetness of cookies in a tin. And beneath it all lingered the faintest trace of pine and cinnamon, a quiet reminder that another Christmas Eve had come and gone.
Her parents spoke softly in the front. She couldn’t make out all the words, but she knew the cadences by heart, the way her dad leaned forward, turning his head to the side, before changing lanes, the way her mom’s laugh slid out like a secret when he said something only for her.
For a long while, Eve said nothing. She let her gaze drift to the side window, where the snow looked less like falling and more like rising, like they were driving through stars instead of weather.
Finally she broke the silence. “Mom?”
Her voice wasn’t loud, but it lifted both their heads.
Her mother turned in her seat, half-twisted toward her, her face caught in the glow of the dashboard. A strand of hair had slipped loose across her cheek. Her eyes were soft, waiting.
Eve looked at her for a moment, then back to the window. The snow tumbled upward in the glass. She said it plainly, like naming the date or telling the time:
“I know Santa isn’t real.”
The words hung in the air, quiet and enormous.
Her father’s hands tightened on the wheel, the tendons in his wrists standing out. He didn’t speak.
Her mother’s lips parted, then closed again. She drew in a breath that began like laughter but left her as a sigh instead. In the dim light her eyes shone, too wet to hide.
“Oh, honey,” she said softly. Not the kind of oh that denied or argued. Just the kind that meant I hear you.
Eve waited. She thought she’d feel something collapse inside her, sadness, maybe, or the hollow everyone always spoke of when magic was gone. For an instant, she felt a sting in her chest, quick and sharp. But then it slipped away. What filled her instead was something steadier.
She sat taller, shoulders pressed against the seat. “I figured it out,” she said, and the words carried pride.
The memory came back sharp, as though her mind had stored it away on purpose.
Santa had been planted in Nonna’s armchair, the red suit stretched snug across his belly, the beard puffed out like a pillow. His laugh filled the room too big, booming and bright, echoing louder than it needed to.
When Eve stepped forward for her turn, she didn’t bounce like the younger cousins. She moved smoothly, almost serious, like she was walking into a test she meant to pass.
Santa patted his knee. “Come here, Eve!”
She climbed up carefully, folding her hands in her lap. Her head tilted, her eyes narrowing, not dazzled, not impressed, just curious.
“Did you get my letter?” she asked.
The question rippled across the room, too small for anyone else to notice, but sharp in its aim.
Santa’s laugh burst out instantly, practiced. “Well of course!” he boomed.
But Eve hadn’t written one this year. Not a list. Not a note. Not even a quick hello. The smile that tugged at her lips was invisible to the crowd but undeniable to her.
The camera flashed, freezing the moment for the family photo album, but the real picture was tucked away inside Eve’s mind, a piece of evidence saved for later.
The ribbon tightened around her finger in the car until the skin blushed deep pink. Ahead, the taillights of other cars stretched like a string of red beads across the dark highway.
“He said he got my letter,” she murmured. Triumph edged her voice. “But I didn’t write one.”
Her mother turned halfway in her seat, lips pressed tight, her eyes wet though she tried to steady them. Her father let out a sound low in his chest, half breath, half laugh, and swallowed it before it escaped. He reached to adjust the heater, then didn’t, his hand hovering a second in midair.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was thick, like the kitchen air just before the oven door opens. Eve was warmed by the knowledge that the first crack in the story had been hers to find.
Santa’s lap wasn’t the throne of wonder it used to be. Eve sat neatly, hands folded, her eyes roaming the room like she was counting pieces on a game board.
She counted.
Uncle Tony by the fireplace, scarf thrown over his shoulder, gesturing like a man telling a fish story. Check.
Uncle Sal, laughing and arguing about whose car would be stuck in the drive, jangling his keys like proof. Check.
Older cousins, lined along the hallway arch, pretending to be too old to care while angling for the best view. Check.
Her father at the kitchen doorway, her mother right beside him, both smiling wider than the moment called for. Check and check.
Every man accounted for. Not one missing.
A frown pinched her face, brief as a heartbeat, before she smoothed it away. Maybe the trick was cleverer than she’d thought.
Then Santa shifted. A glimpse of boots beneath the red pants, black, heavy, scuffed, laces shoved into the tops instead of tied. White salt stains catching the light. One eyelet showed a dot of bare metal, like a tiny silver wink. She noticed, but didn’t claim it as proof. Just another detail, saved like a bead in a pocket.
“Thank you,” she said sweetly when he pressed a box into her hands. She felt the ridges of the cardboard through the paper. She smiled for the camera again, but her mind was still counting.
On her way back to the couch she passed Aunt Jan, who bent to kiss her head; the smell of her perfume, powdery roses, lingered a second around Eve’s cheek. She sat, smoothing her skirt, and laid the gift in her lap like evidence waiting its turn.
Back in the car, Eve dropped her gaze to her own boots, edges white with dried salt. Melted snow pooled in shallow puddles on the mat. She nudged one toe against the other, then leaned forward, her voice low but certain.
“I counted everyone. All the uncles. Dad. Even my cousins. Nobody was missing.”
Her father’s eyes flicked to the mirror, then back to the road. Her mother turned in her seat, her mouth pulled into a thin smile.
“You really were paying attention,” she said softly.
Eve let out a single breath of laughter through her nose, pleased. “Of course I was.”
Streetlamps passed overhead, spilling their glow through the windows in bursts. Each one lit her reflection for a moment before sliding past, like a series of brief acknowledgments.
The box Santa had given her earlier had felt solid, sharp-edged beneath the paper. She’d noticed the design as the flashbulb went off: white paper printed with candy canes and green sprigs of holly.
At the time, it hadn’t meant much. Another tag scrawled From Santa.
But later, after dessert plates had been stacked in the sink and laughter had softened into smaller pockets around the room, she saw it again.
Her mother placed a gift into Grandpa’s lap.
Eve froze. The same white paper. The same candy canes leaning at the same angle. The same green holly leaves printed across the same slant.
Her mother’s tongue pressed into her cheek as she smoothed the seam flat with her thumb, just as she always did when wrapping.
Eve sat straighter, her chest lifting. Her heart didn’t drop. It leapt. The Santa paper and the Grandpa paper were one and the same. Another piece fit cleanly into place.
The ribbon slipped loose from her pocket in the car. She looped it back around her finger, watching the deep groove it left in her skin.
“The paper matched,” she said suddenly. Her voice carried no sorrow, only the pride of a detective revealing evidence. “Santa’s gift to me was wrapped in the same paper Mom used for Grandpa’s.”
Her mother’s breath escaped in a sound caught between laugh and sigh. She didn’t speak right away.
“You noticed that?” she asked finally, her face catching the glow of the dash.
Eve nodded. Her eyes stayed on the snowfall racing toward them. “Yeah.”
Her father’s hands eased on the wheel. He said nothing, but in the mirror she caught the faintest pull of his mouth, pride hidden where he thought she wouldn’t see.
Eve pressed back into her seat. Outside, the highway looked the same, dark stretches, endless snow, but inside she felt older, as though she had passed a test no one knew she was taking.
The house was exhaling by the time she bent to pull on her boots. Voices called across rooms about missing gloves. Plastic containers snapped shut in the kitchen. The scent of coffee mingled with the sweet smoke of a candle nearly burned down.
And there they were.
Black work boots tucked against the wall. Heavy, scuffed, laces shoved down into the tops. A crust of fake snow clinging stubbornly at the seams.
Her mitten stilled midair. She had seen them earlier beneath the suit.
A moment later Marco appeared, his hair damp, his cheeks flushed. He bent, scooped the boots up by their tongues, gave them a shake, and walked back to the kitchen where her cousin was waiting.
Eve’s eyes followed him, unwavering.
The puzzle locked.
Not an uncle. Not her dad. Marco. Her cousin’s boyfriend.
The final piece belonged to her.
She zipped her coat and stood, taller than she had when she’d walked in. Not disappointed. Not heartbroken. Triumphant.
She had solved it.
The tires thrummed beneath them, the heater purred. Snow poured through the headlights in restless streaks. The heater blew against Eve’s legs, warm enough to make her drowsy, though her mind was alive and sharp.
She pressed her palms together, still damp from melted snow. For a long stretch she said nothing. Then, quietly, she broke the silence.
“The boots were Marco’s.”
Her father’s eyes flicked to her in the mirror, her mother twisting in her seat. Neither looked surprised, but something passed between them, sorrow and pride, tangled.
“I saw him pick them up when we were leaving,” Eve said. Her voice was calm, even. “The fake snow was still on them. It was him. I knew it.”
Her father turned back to the road, jaw tight. His thumb worried the seam on the steering wheel, a habit Eve knew meant he was holding words back. Her mother’s lips trembled into a smile that carried both ache and admiration.
The silence thickened again, but this time Eve welcomed it. She leaned into it, let it surround her like a blanket.
“Do you want to talk about it?” her mother asked.
Eve shook her head, her eyes fixed on the glass, where the world outside hurried past.
The ache came briefly, sharp, fleeting, like a note lingering after a song ends. Then her mind unspooled the night, filling the space.
Her cousins shrieking, voices loud enough to rattle the picture frames. Wrapping paper flying in red and green storms, ribbons curling across the carpet like vines. The sound of tape being found and lost and found again, the squeak of the dispenser like a small bird. Her aunts spilling from the kitchen, flushed, one of them laughing so hard she bent double, dabbing tears with a dish towel. A smear of sauce shining on Uncle Tony’s cheek. A baby’s sock abandoned under the coffee table like a tiny flag.
The smells returned in waves, garlic melting in oil, tomatoes simmering thick on the stove, powdered sugar dusting the air above a tray of cannoli. The clove-prickle of mulled wine. Even the sweetness of chocolate still clung to her tongue, the heavy, satisfying kind that made the whole table hush for a beat.
Her uncles in the hallway, arms loaded with tubs, shouting and laughing as they tried to wedge leftovers into the fridge. Someone sneaking a meatball, grinning when caught, forgiven with a wave of a spoon and a “go on, then.” The scrape of chairs, the clink of forks on plates, the chorus of “Did you try the Nutella Christmas tree?” passing from room to room like a tide.
And her parents, her father balancing a plate while his arm circled her mother’s shoulders. Her mother leaning into him, her face tired but luminous, eyes glowing warmer than the tree. His hand squeezed her shoulder without either of them looking; hers found his wrist and rested there like it had been made to fit. That image burned brightest, the anchor of it all.
Eve closed her eyes and held it, let it fill her until the ache dissolved. Warmth rose in its place, rich and steady, spreading until she felt taller than the seat could hold. She pictured herself next year handing out the gifts, reading the tags without mixing them up, taping the seams straight, sneaking a meatball and getting away with it because now she’d be in on the joke. The thought made her smile.
She opened her eyes to the blur of taillights stretching ahead. The snow drifted thick and slow now, the kind that settles and stays. In the glass, her reflection looked back, familiar, but older, a certainty added around the eyes.
Her mother’s hand reached back between the seats. Eve lifted her mittened fingers and tapped it three times: one, two, three. Their secret code.
The headlights carved a bright tunnel into the night. The car moved forward, steady, carrying them home.
Eve sat upright, her smile steady, the warmth of the night burning quietly inside her.