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Aleksander pulled his scarf and jacket tighter around himself, bracing against the cold and snow. He severely disliked this time of year. It was Christmas Eve, and he, like usual, had waited until the last minute to buy his gifts. Not that he had much to buy. Every year, he only bought something for his mother and his assistant, Nina. He wasn’t close enough to anyone else to buy them gifts. So he quickly ducked into a busy boutique, wanting to get this over with.
He wandered the store, occasionally bumping into the other patrons due to how packed it was. He watched as things quickly disappeared from the shelves. He picked up a jeweled trinket box, inspecting it as a possible gift for his mom. After a moment, he placed it back down, thinking he may have gotten her something like this before. He finally settled on a warm throw blanket (she was always cold), and a little red bird trinket for Nina’s desk.
He approached the checkout line, groaning internally at the ridiculously long line. He kept checking his watch, the minutes ticking by. Not that he had anywhere to be, but he was getting impatient. Losing his cool a bit, he let out an audible sigh and rolled his eyes. The woman in front of him turned briefly, her face scrunched in obvious disapproval. When she turned back around, he childishly made a face at her back.
After a couple more minutes, having made very little progress, he looked up at the cashier, getting ready to say something. He was still 4 people away from checkout. However, he stopped short when he saw the little beauty that had just walked up. She wasn’t the conventional type of beautiful that he was used to. She was wearing no makeup, and her clothes were several seasons past being fashionable. Her shoes were old and worn, but her face was bright and youthful, her eyes radiantly shining. Her hair was thrown up in a messy bun, as if she had quickly rushed out of her house with hardly a thought to her appearance.
Aleksander watched as she placed a pair of gaudy shoes on the counter. They were a pair of red kitten heels, decorated with beads of every color. Taking in the girls muted appearance and color palette, these shoes were obviously a gift for someone else. The girl was visibly anxious, shifting her weight from foot to foot. The cashier took her time to ring them up, not seeming to care about the long line of customers.
“$32.10,” the cashier said in a bored tone. The small girl deflated a bit, shoulders drooping. “Um,” she started shyly, “I only have 20.” The cashier gave her an unimpressed look. “Then I guess you need to find something else.” “No, please, I need these shoes. My mom -.” “I don’t have time to listen to your stories,” the cashier cut her off, “and frankly I don’t care. If you don’t have the money, then you need to find something else you can afford, or leave.” The girl flinched, visibly embarrassed. “Come on! It’s only 12 dollars,” the girl pleaded. “You need to leave now, before I call the cops,” the cashier said, pointing angrily at the door. The girl blinked back tears, squared her shoulders, and turned and walked out the door. Aleksander watched the door close with a small chime from the bell, surprisingly irked by the way the cashier had treated her.
When he finally made it to the checkout counter a couple minutes later, he saw the shoes she had tried to buy. They had been carelessly tossed to the side when she had left the shop. He studied them intensely, remembering the look of devastation on her face, and wondered what it was about them that was so special to her. He wasn’t sure what made him do it, but before the cashier provided his total, he pointed at them. “Add those, too,” he said.
As he finished up his purchase, he quickly rushed out the door, hoping to catch the girl. He looked around, not seeing where she had gone. Finally, he glimpsed her behind the wheel of an extremely old, nearly broken down car, struggling to get it to start. He started to walk her way, but at that moment, the engine caught and the car sputtered to life. She sighed in relief, then started to pull away.
Aleksander quickly rushed to his car, not wanting her to get too far away. Something was telling him that he needed to get these shoes to her, no matter what it took. He hopped in, tossing his bags in the passenger seat, and hurriedly started the car, pulling out with a flurry of snow behind his tires. He turned down the street she had left on, luckily glimpsing her car turning onto another street. He sped up, reaching the second street in seconds and continued his chase.
After several minutes of following her, he started to second-guess his actions. “What the hell am I doing?” he muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair, damp from the melted snow. He was just about to stop, to turn around and go home, when her car slowed, pulling into the driveway of a very small, very old house. He stopped his car a few houses away, slightly worried that maybe she had noticed him following her. However, he dismissed the idea when she angrily got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind her, stomping her way to the entryway with not so much as a glance his way.
As she approached her front door, she slipped slightly on the stairs, grabbing the handle to keep from falling. She pulled herself to her feet, but leaned her forehead against the door. He could tell that she was crying from the way her body shook from the sobs. She stayed there for a few moments, obviously trying to compose herself. Then she straightened, wiped the tears from her face, and opened the door, disappearing inside.
Aleksander sat frozen for several minutes, staring at the door. Part of him said he needed to turn his car around and leave. Another part said he needed to get out of the car and knock on the door. He looked at the shoes in his passenger seat and rubbed his hand down his face, letting out a long, deep exhale. What was he even doing here? What was it about this girl, these shoes, that had him acting so out of character? He didn’t care about strangers and what they went through. Ask any of the very few people close to him and they would say he hardly cared about them . So what was it? He looked back up at the house and realized that there was only one way to find out.
Taking a deep breath, he quickly grabbed the bag with the shoes and got out of the car before he could change his mind. For some reason, his heart was pounding in his chest, growing more rapid with each step toward the house. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at the faded red door. Swallowing his hesitation, he stepped up and knocked on the door.
He waited several seconds, then decided he made a mistake. He turned to leave, but before he could take more than two steps, he heard the door open behind him. “Can I help you?” came her small voice, wary but polite. He spun around quickly, almost losing his footing in the process. “Hi, um - I’m -” he stumbled over his words, something that never happened to him. He stopped, took another deep breath, and tried again. “Hi. My name is Aleksander. I know this is probably weird and extremely inappropriate, but I saw you at the store earlier and followed you. I -” “You followed me?” the girl asked, voice raising slightly with her nervousness. “Yes, well, I did, but it’s not - I’m not a stalker or anything, I promise. I just, well, I saw what happened to you, and, well, I wanted to help.” At that, Aleksander pulled the shoes from the bag and handed them to her.
The girl let out a small gasp, the tears immediately returning to her eyes. She reached a hand out hesitantly, almost as if she couldn’t believe they were real. “The shoes,” she whispered, taking them in her hands. She ran a finger over the beading, then hugged them to her chest. She took a moment, gathering her composure, then opened her mouth to say more. At that moment, someone from inside the house called out to her. “Ms. Starkov, you may want to hurry back. I don’t think we have much time left.”
Her face crumpled, and she turned abruptly, fleeing into the house without another word. She left the door open, and Aleksander let his curiosity get the best of him. He quickly followed her inside. The house was so small that Aleksander felt that he took up the whole room. But it was clean and tidy, a bright, welcoming home, as opposed to the stark sterility of his own furnishings. He followed the sounds of activity through a door leading to the back of the house, then stopped short at the sight before him.
The girl was at the foot of a hospital bed, a slight, feeble woman attached to several machines engulfed in its sheets. Even through the gauntness of the woman’s features, the similarity to the girl was striking. “Mama,” the girl said, trying to hide the anguish from her voice, “Mama, look what is here for you.” The woman opened her eyes, taking a moment to focus on her daughter and the gift held in her hands. “Oh!” the woman beamed, her face lighting up with her smile despite the tears that sprang to her eyes. “Oh, the shoes! How did you get them?” the woman asked. “Through the kindness of a stranger,” the girl said, voice cracking with emotion. She looked at him briefly before turning back to her mother, pulling the sheets up off the woman’s feet so she could slip the shoes on. “They’re perfect,” the mother said, looking from the shoes to her daughter's face, love shining brightly on her features.
Aleksander stepped back, wanting to give them some privacy. As he did so, he heard the other person, presumably the doctor, whisper to the girl, “She’s fading. It won’t be long now.” There were muffled, whispered conversations between the girl and her mother, then nothing but the slow beeping of the heart monitor. After several more moments, the sound of the flatline alarmed before being quickly shut off. There was a moment of pure silence, soon replaced with the sobs of the girl. He shook his head, trying to not let his emotions get to him, and quickly stepped out of the house.
He didn’t feel right just leaving, so he waited outside, leaning against the girl’s car. A little while later, a coroner’s van arrived, several men pushing a gurney inside. After incalculable minutes, the men with the gurney reappeared, topped with the tell-tale black bag confirming the sad event that just took place. The doctor stepped out a few minutes later, escorted by the girl. He said several more words to her, then gave a reassuring squeeze to her arm before turning and leaving. The girl spotted him at her car and came to join him, leaning back against the car next to him. “Thank you for staying,” she said with a sniffle. “I’m Alina.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Aleksander said, eyes on the snow at his feet, “I know that probably sounds so cliche, but I really am.” She nodded, needing a moment to find her voice again. “Thank you,” Alina said back, tears streaking a path down her cheeks. “Not just for your comment, but for the shoes. You have no idea how much that meant to her, how much it means to me.” He looked over to her and saw so much emotion in her eyes. The truth of her words showed there, her appreciation clear, but it was mixed with the grief and loneliness of her mothers’ passing. She reached her small hands up, wiping the tears from her face.
“It’s just been me and my mom for so long. My father passed away when I was a young teen. They were so in love, it was almost sickening.” She huffed out a small laugh at that before continuing. “We never had much, but mama did everything she could to make things good. She would give up so much so that I always had what I needed and some of the things that I wanted that weren’t necessary.” She paused another moment, overcome at the memories.
“Before she got sick, we were window shopping together at that boutique when she saw those shoes. She said they were just like a pair that my father had gotten for her back when they were dating. She loved those shoes, and wore them so much, especially after he died, that they ended up wearing completely out. I could tell it hurt her, even though she would try to hide it. I told her she should get them, but she said no, that there were more important things for us to spend our money on. ‘She didn’t need the shoes,’ she said, ‘because she had the memories, and she had me.’ Then today, when the doctor told me that she didn’t have much time, something came over me and I felt that I had to get those shoes for her.”
He listened intently, not able to take his eyes off of her. She continued, “When I put those shoes on her tonight, she was so happy. She told me that she was going to see my father, and that she couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when she showed up wearing those shoes.” At that, her composure broke, and she sobbed into her hands. He fought with himself on whether to try to comfort her, but in reality, he was a complete stranger to her, and he was afraid that it would do more harm than good. She quickly made the decision for him when she wiped her face and stood up off the car.
Listening to her talk about her mother and the way she loved Alina’s father, it struck something in him. He had never had that type of relationship before, had never even seen that kind of relationship. And the way that this family had been happy even with so little, it made Aleksander ashamed of the way he had been living.
He took a deep breath, gathering courage to do what he wanted to do next. “Listen, if you don’t want to be alone tomorrow, you are more than welcome to come join me. It won’t be anything big or fancy. Just me and my mother.” He paused for a moment, head cocked to one side in reflection. “On second thought, it’s usually pretty miserable, so maybe that’s not the best idea.” Alina let out a small giggle. “Thank you for the offer,” she said, “but I think it’s best that I just spend the day at home by myself tomorrow.” Aleksander nodded his understanding and looked away, “Right, of course,” but part of him was slightly disappointed. Alina placed a hand gently on his arm, causing him to look back at her. “However,” she started, shyly pulling her hand back with a warm blush spreading across her face, “perhaps we could get coffee on New Year’s Eve?” A small smile graced his lips at the invitation. “I would like that very much,” he said.