I stood up too.
I didn’t know what I was going to say. I just knew I couldn’t sit down anymore.
“I got a Barbie Dreamhouse,” I said. “In 1989.”
My voice was shaking so badly I could barely get the words out.
“I’d wanted it so much. Mom said we couldn’t afford it. She said Santa might not be able to fit it in his sack. And then he knocked on our door and he had it. The whole thing. With the elevator. He said, ‘This one’s too big for the sack, so I carried it special.'”
I put my hand over my mouth.
“And then I looked up the stairs, and I said, ‘I wish Dad could see this.’ And Santa…”
I couldn’t finish.
Walt finished it for me.
“And Santa said, ‘He sees it, sweetheart. Dads always see.'”
I stared at him.
“Ray told me about it,” Walt said quietly. “In the truck. Afterward. He couldn’t stop crying. He said you looked right at him and said you wished your dad was there. He said it was the worst moment of his whole life and the best one too.”
I sat back down in the pew. Hard. Greg caught me.
Father Kowalczyk had been standing quietly by the altar the whole time. He’s seventy-two. He’d known my father since 1980. He baptized me. He buried Tommy.
He stepped forward now.
“Walter,” he said gently. “Is there more? Did Ray want you to say anything else?”
Walt nodded.
He reached back into the inside pocket of the Santa coat. And he pulled out a second piece of paper. A newer one. Folded once. White printer paper.
“He wrote this in March,” Walt said. “In the hospice. At Angela Hospice in Livonia. He made me promise to read it right here. Right now. In the suit.”
He unfolded it.
“He said, ‘Walt, if you chicken out, I’ll haunt you. I’ll come back and tangle all your fishing line.'”
The whole church laughed. A big, wet, broken laugh.
Walt put his reading glasses back on.
Laura Bennett writes about complicated family dynamics, difficult conversations, and the quiet moments that change everything. Her stories focus on real-life tensions — inheritance disputes, strained marriages, loyalty tests — and the strength people find when they finally speak up. She believes the smallest decisions often carry the biggest consequences.