He could tell that Ronnie didn't think it was a good idea, but she was all done with arguing. "Just get him back in time for taekwondo," she said, and hung up. Fine. He didn't need her approval any more. He didn't need anything, except for his son to look at him like he used to. He wanted to go back to the days when Danny used to look at him like he was a goddamn hero, a guy with all the answers. He didn't want his son to realize that life was all questions and no answers. Not yet. Just one more year, he thought.
And son of a bitch, it worked. The actors, the trained reindeer, even the snow cooperated. For one moment, his son was that sweet, big-eyed toddler again, the kid who just wanted to make sure his dad was there to see how fucking amazing the world is.
And yeah, come January he'd be on the hook for about $12,000, but that was January.