"No," said Dot. "I don't think you do." She took off her reading glasses and let them drop on their beaded chain. "He stood right where you're standing, Friday morning, in the snow, with doughnuts. And I asked him who it was for, and I told him don't say niece. And he told me."
Gina waited. She could not have spoken if she'd tried.
"He said it was for a girl in a burgundy coat whose daddy used to bring her here every year on the second Saturday. He said her daddy had a rule — win it first, figure out who needs it later. And he said she'd let go of the last one, for him, on account of being embarrassed, and he saw her face when the announcement came on, and she said she was fine and she wasn't." Dot's voice was gruff. "He said he didn't want it. He said he wanted you to have it so you could finish the hunt. So you could be the one who finds the kid. So you could ring the doorbell and run." She shook her head. "Thirty-one years I've been on that floor. I've seen men buy toys for a lot of reasons. Guilt, mostly. That's a first."
The snow came down between them in the alley. Somewhere out on State Street, the bell ringer on the corner was ringing, steady and patient, like a heartbeat.
"He was going to give it to me," Gina said. "On Christmas Eve. So that I could give it to her."
"Sounds like."
"And I called him a — I said—" She put her gloved hands over her face. "Oh, God. Oh, Dot. I said terrible things. I left my grandmother's ornaments on his floor."
Dot put a hand on her shoulder. It was a heavy, practical, comforting hand, a hand that had stocked forty thousand shelves.