I met someone who lost her mom when she was six like me. I never met someone else who had a mom die from cancer before. She was really nice. Her name is Sadie. Well, she has two names: Sadie and Gretchen. She’s the reason I have two names now: Birdie and Muffuleta. Anyway, Sadie was Marmaduke’s dog trainer. She taught him to sit and other stuff in German. Oh and she saved his life, too. I thought maybe you had answered my wish for a special friend when she first came. But then Sadie disappeared. I don’t know what happened. Daddy just said she wasn’t coming anymore. He said he didn’t know why. But he acted weird when I asked him about it. I think maybe it was my fault that she left. Maybe I made her sad because I lost my mom. Maybe it reminded her about hers? I wish I knew why Sadie left without saying goodbye. Why does everyone leave me?

Anyway, I don’t know if you can find Sadie and tell her that I’m sorry.

Thanks, Santa.

Love, Birdie

(AKA Muffuleta)

I ended up having to leave work early that day. Even though I’d wanted to hit the liquor store, I knew I likely wouldn’t have been able to know when to stop drowning my sorrows. I went straight home instead.

It didn’t matter how many times I reread that letter, the answer of what I needed to do next was now abundantly clear.

Sebastian had paid me for my services via a new PayPal account I’d set up before he realized the truth. So I had his email address associated with that payment.

Before I could change my mind, I opened my laptop, generated a new email from my real account, and started typing.

Dear Mr. Maxwell,

I opted to send you this email instead of trying for an in-person meeting, because I doubted you would agree to see me. I urge you to please read this and save your judgment until you’ve gotten to the end. I promise it will fully explain why I was at your doorstep that first day.

My name is Sadie Bisset. I’m twenty-nine years old and, like your daughter, I lost my mother to cancer when I was six (and a half). As part of my job, I answer a column where people write in their holiday wishes. The column is normally published during the holiday season, but your daughter, Birdie, first wrote in to us over the summer.

The email to Sebastian was probably one of the longest diatribes ever written. I explained each of the letters I’d received from Birdie, the wishes I’d fulfilled, and also how much I struggled with whether to respond each time. Eventually, I got to the part where I explained how I ended up being the dog trainer.

I’d never intended to show up at your door. I happened to be in the neighborhood and stopped when I realized it was the same address from which your daughter’s letters came. I’d noticed a butterfly barrette lying on the stairs and walked over to pick it up and place it closer to the door so that no one would step on it. That’s when you opened the door and assumed I was Gretchen. I was a little shell-shocked in that moment. Perhaps my judgment was hampered by the fact that, by that time, I felt personally invested in your daughter’s well-being. To you, I was a stranger. But because Birdie had opened up to me, I felt like I not only knew her but that I knew you as well. I made the hasty decision to go along with your assumption. It was clearly the wrong decision and one I deeply regret. Despite that, I spent many hours studying the art of German dog training and truly intended to do the job justice, to perform the duties you thought you were hiring me for. But if I’m being honest, the real reason I stuck around after that first day was to see with my own eyes that Birdie was really okay.

That brings me to the reason I decided to write this letter today. Birdie wrote in to “Santa” again. This time, she mentioned the sudden absence of the dog trainer—me. She somehow suspects that something might have gone awry, even though you never told her why I’d stopped coming. (Thank you for that, by the way.) She has good intuition. But she drew a very wrong conclusion: that I left because she did something to make me sad, that perhaps being there reminded me of my own mother’s death. It’s killing me to think that she’s blaming herself for the fact that I disappeared. I’m not really entirely sure how to fix that. I just wanted to make you aware.

I know I made a huge mistake. But I’m human, and please know I would never have done anything to intentionally hurt you or your daughter. I only wish the best for you both.

I want to remind you of something you told me once. You explained your reasoning behind telling Birdie that her mother had sent Marmaduke. You said that you convinced yourself that lying to take away your daughter’s sadness canceled the lie out. My lie might appear to be leaps and bounds away from yours, but the intention was the same. It was pure.

If you’ve gotten to the end of this message, thank you for taking the time to read it.

Best,

Sadie Bisset

CHAPTER 11

SEBASTIAN

Nights like this, I thanked God my daughter was here sleeping. If Birdie wasn’t home, I might have drunk the entire bottle of scotch or made some other reckless decision. The biggest mistake I made tonight was checking my damn email right before bed. Because now there was no chance of getting any sleep.

I must have read Sadie’s message over ten times, but it never got easier to comprehend the fact that my daughter would sooner unload her fears onto a stranger than talk to me. It was a wake-up call. I knew I hadn’t been there for Birdie in the way she needed. As much as I tried my best to make her happy, I’d been emotionally unavailable, and my daughter knew it. That was the way I’d always dealt with Amanda’s passing, by bottling up my pain and keeping busy.

Sadie Bisset.

There had been something about her from the very beginning. She was a knockout, but I’m not referring to her obvious good looks. There was something oddly familiar about her. I could never figure it out. Now that strange air of familiarity made sense. Even though I didn’t know her, in an indirect way, she knew me. And she certainly knew Birdie.

Her pretending to be the dog trainer was asinine, though. There was no doubt about that. But everything else? I still didn’t know what to make of it.

In some ways, what she’d done for my daughter was endearing, and in other ways, a little insane. But the more I processed that email, the more I did believe Sadie meant no ill will, that her intentions had been good. And there was no way she was making this story up, because she simply knew too much. Everything she mentioned that Birdie had said matched up. It was a relief to know that the dog-trainer act hadn’t been malicious. Because of my own anger, I’d given her no chance to explain herself that day. Not knowing who the hell she was and where she’d come from had been haunting me, made worse by the fact that I blamed myself for my poor judgment. Now, at least, everything made sense.

When it hit me, I started to laugh deliriously. The socks.

The fucking socks.

The next morning, I did something I rarely did. I made pancakes. Or I tried to make pancakes. Saturday was Magdalene’s day off, which meant Birdie’s breakfast normally consisted of whatever sugary cereal she’d pull from the closet. Cookie Crisp was her favorite.

But today I vowed to give my daughter a proper breakfast and to have a chat with her when she got up.

Birdie had slept later than usual. She walked into the kitchen rubbing her eyes, her blonde hair a knotted mess.

I flipped the pancake using just the pan to turn it over. “Morning, sunshine.”