The congregation were aghast upon learning his wife had left. Imagine! During his Christmas sermon!

She’d gotten the boys dressed and out before the alarm sounded. “Where’s Santa?” they’d asked. “Surprise!” she’d said.

She’d always imagined their escape in black and white, their taxi chased by those terrible French sirens.

Mary J. Breen lives in Peterborough, Ontario, where, among other things, she teaches memoir writing. She is a retired ESL and literacy teacher, and the author of two books about women’s health. Her fiction, articles, and memoir pieces have appeared in national newspapers, essay collections, travel magazines, health journals, and literary magazines.