Rafael Yglesias - Fearless

She wanted to say yes but she was frightened at the idea of leaving the car. The mall was crowded with Christmas shoppers.

“Remember,” Max said. “We’re ghosts. They can’t do anything to us.”

“You’re crazy,” she said to him, scared by his idea. She felt comfortable telling him. “You’re really crazy, you know that?”

He smiled with his lips shut; the double curves at his mouth’s corners undulated. The sun came across his face through the windshield; his white skin seemed to glow whiter, as if he were made of packed snow.

“I should talk,” she said. “Okay.” She took a breath and opened the car door. He came around to her side. He put his arm through hers. He was wearing a navy-blue wool jacket, a thin jacket that hugged his upper torso and left the rest of him exposed. “Aren’t you cold?” she asked, shivering inside her goose down.

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe I should buy a coat in the mall.” They walked across a covered bridge from the parking lot and entered the mall.

It was beautiful, Carla thought. They had come in on the third floor and she could see down through the open central area to the two lower floors. Everywhere there were Christmas decorations and scenes. Sculptures of reindeer were paused beside plastic pine trees and brilliant poinsettias, all arranged on soft white cloth that looked like snow. There were lights strung along the glass panels at the ceilings and also along the railings of each level so that white, red and green lights blinked everywhere — pretty stars in a small universe.

And the people! Carla had forgotten what crowds of people look like. Haggard mothers shouted after their running children. Harassed fathers stood before store windows filled with goods, their heads bowed, defeated by choices. Giggling teenage girls flounced past, packed together, shoulder-to-shoulder, hair bouncing and trailing them like wedding trains. Solemn boastful teenage boys paraded after the girls; like sullen peacocks, their legs stretched ahead of their torsos with suspicious grace, eyes watching the girls with contempt and mastery.

Max guided Carla among them. She noticed a fat mother with pink beefy arms carrying a newborn. Every other second the mother kissed her baby’s bald head softly — a reflex while she studied the mall stores. She wasn’t even really in the throes of loving her baby; the constant kissing was routine. Carla didn’t hate her, didn’t pity her, didn’t envy her. She wondered about her life, if she had always been fat, what her husband was like, and if the baby was her first child. She stopped beside them and stared at the newborn’s head while the mother paused to look at the shoe store’s display window. Carla brought her face within inches of the baby and the mother; neither seemed to notice her. Maybe she was a ghost.

Max tugged at her to continue. She felt they were gliding soundlessly to the rhythm of the piped Christmas music, passing unseen by the mob of shoppers: gangs of men, women and children bustling with packages, eyes red and exhausted yet shining with appetite. They weren’t gangs, Carla reminded herself. They were families, spinning out and then back to each other, like planets in orbit, loose and yet never free.

“I don’t have a family anymore,” Carla said to Max. They were at the crossroads of the mall where it divided in four directions above a large central courtyard. She leaned against a railing that barred her from dropping two floors down to the big open area. Down there a man in a Santa suit in a mock sleigh was being photographed with babies and toddlers. She noticed the long line of children and parents waiting their turn with him. She looked up from that hurtful sight at Max. She felt faint. “I don’t have a family,” she repeated in a weak voice.

“What do you miss?” Max asked. Against the lights and bright decorations he was as pale as a ghost.

“I was going to buy him toys,” she said and sobbed. She tried to stop and then sobbed more. She was embarrassed; she was no longer invisible. She turned away from the startled faces of the mall shoppers and bent out over the banister, shutting her eyes and fighting the pain inside. But the happy music kept on wounding her; and even though she had her lids shut and her eyes were swimming with tears, she could still see the Santa below with awed children on his knee, watched by smiling, satisfied parents, and that hurt so much she wished she could scream herself to death — disintegrate in a single explosion of grief.

“Let’s buy them,” Max said. He leaned down and looked at the Santa. Max seemed to be floating in the mall’s air, glowing from its clear panels. He looked so different from everyone else, although his clothes were no better and he wasn’t bigger or stronger or handsomer. He was at ease, unfazed by her sobs and upset. “Let’s buy him the toys. What did he like? How about a sword? My son used to love swords. He still does but he’s too old to admit it.”

She didn’t understand him. Or didn’t believe she had understood. “Your son…?” she mumbled wiping her wet cheeks.

“How about it? What would your son like for Christmas? Does he play with Legos? No, he’s too young. How about the big ones? Or Bristle Blocks? Does he have Bristle Blocks? They’re great. They can really use them and they don’t get bored by them for years.”

Carla still wasn’t sure she understood. “You want me to buy presents for Bubble?”

“Bubble?” Max said.

“My son, Leonardo.” She understood now; he was crazy. “You want me to buy presents for him. That’s sick.”

“Why?” he asked innocently.

“Because he’s dead. It’s only going to make me feel bad to pretend he’s not.”

“Of course he’s — what did you call him?”

Carla lowered her eyes. She felt ashamed. She didn’t know of what. “Bubble,” she mumbled.

“Bubble,” Max said as if he were tasting it. “Of course Bubble is dead. But your wish to give him presents isn’t dead. I like giving presents too. So let’s do it.”

“What? Are you serious? You wouldn’t do this yourself.” She wasn’t angry, but she didn’t believe in him suddenly. “You gonna buy a present for your father?”

“My father,” Max said thoughtfully, again as if he were tasting the word. “I’ve never bought anything for my father,” he said wonderingly.

He sagged against the railing, no longer afloat. Carla felt she had hurt him and it was just like hurting a child — he looked crumpled and defenseless. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s not a good idea. That’s all I meant.”

But he wasn’t hurt. Max’s pale blue eyes focused on her, curious and energetic. “I made him something in school. I carved his name in wood. You know, a nameplate to put on his desk. But I never had a chance to buy him a real present.” He moved close, filling her vision, blocking the pretty stars and talking louder than the happy music. “Let’s do it! Let’s buy presents for the dead.”

She wasn’t angry anymore or appalled either, but she couldn’t accept his idea. She backed against the railing to get some distance from his eager face. “I can’t.”

“Why?”

“What’ll we do with them?” she demanded, exasperated and confused.

“Do with them?” Max shook his head of white and black curls. The sparkling Christmas lights in the ceiling shined through his halo of hair.

“Who do we give them to!” Carla almost shouted. His suggestion made goose bumps up and down her back. She was scared of buying things for the dead. Vaguely, she feared it was sacrilegious.

“I don’t know,” he said, undeterred. “We’ll figure that out later. Come on,” he took her arm and tugged. “I know just what my dad would want.”