Tyler Manning strolled through a coffee shop at the mall and scored a half-filled cup of coffee from a recently vacated bistro table. Still warm and black. He wiped the lipstick off the rim with a napkin and took a sip before adding a packet of sugar.

Being homeless and without a steady job meant he had to be on the lookout for leftovers. The pickings were good today.

It was two weeks before Christmas and shoppers were out in force. Canned Christmas music piped through the sound system, and a giant, eighty-foot Christmas tree was erected under the stained glass dome of the mall. Every arch was festooned with multi-colored strobe lights, and a dazzling amount of golden ornaments and fake snow decorated the windows.

Christmas season. A time of fake cheer and phony laughter. Just another excuse for businesses to bleed people dry. Especially during the worst recession he’d seen since returning from Afghanistan.

Tyler’s hands shook as he tipped the coffee cup to his lips. Here he was, back in a country where people had their heads up their asses, unconcerned and ungrateful to chumps like him who’d believed the rhetoric and put their miserable lives on the line.

Ten years ago, he’d left his hometown a hero, quarterback of his college football team and a draft pick to play pro ball. He’d given it all up for a chance to serve his country, to fight for freedom and protect his homeland. Now? He was a big zero. A head case, hearing roadside bombs and men’s screams in his head, haunted by the internal movie of buddies dead and missions failed.

Tyler wandered among the shoppers, almost tripping over a small boy clutching a toy fire truck as if the sum of all happiness resided in that piece of plastic, made in China. The boy’s mother grabbed her son’s hand and shot Tyler a suspicious glare. Guess letting his hair and beard grow while wearing cast off clothes from a veteran’s charity was too much of a contrast to the upper crust folks at this upscale mall so close to the San Francisco Financial District.

He could walk around here if he wanted to. There was no better place to scrounge food than at an affluent shopping center where women watched their waistlines and picky children limited themselves to a single food group. Since the customers here were accustomed to maids picking up for them, they oftentimes left entire plates of food on the table without throwing their leftovers into the trash or busing their own trays. As long as he didn’t look too much like a bum, he could simply sit down at the table and pretend he’d gone to get a napkin or several packets of ketchup before returning to his meal.

Most people had their noses too far in the air to care, so besotted were they by the imposing architecture, combining an old-world grandeur with futuristic glass and gleam underneath an ostentatious centerpiece dome. The glass panes above were wired with strings of colorful lights for the nightly holiday light show. Whoop-dee-doo.

Underneath, in the large courtyard, a gigantic winter wonderland playground was set up to indoctrinate children into greed and excess at their most impressionable age. People dressed as ornaments, princesses, nutcrackers, elves, candy canes, and wrapped presents posed for pictures with children as they lined up to sit on the lap of an old fake Santa. A twenty dollar sitting fee plus another twenty-five or thirty for the picture. About the price for a lap dance at a seedy strip club.

Tyler wanted to plug his ears as he passed the line of whiny children. “I wanna,” “I wanna,” “I wanna.”

As if the animatronics, light show, and electronic holiday music weren’t enough to send a child into stimulus overload, the amount of sugar harbored by the candy canes, gingerbread snacks, and sugar cookies fueled the ferocity of temper tantrums of children being dragged away from the dazzling array of toy porn displayed prominently in the surrounding store windows.

Tyler quickened his steps and cut behind Santa’s plastic throne.

“I want a papa for Christmas,” a child’s voice warbled from the fat man’s lap.

Good luck with that, Tyler whispered under his breath. The hopeful innocence of the little girl’s voice brought back his nightly prayers, kneeling at his bedside and believing God would bring his father back. Eventually his father had returned—in a body bag.

He couldn’t help but peek at the source of the tiny voice. She was a sweet little girl, dressed in pink, with a mess of silver-blond curls. But what caught his eye was the woman standing behind the line, the girl’s mother. She carried the air of authority and insisted her daughter meant to have a puppy. Her business-like demeanor contrasted to the fierce blush coloring her face, as if she too, had secretly wanted a man, not for a father, but for recreational purposes.

Despite her confident, upper-class aura, her clothes were ordinary: jeans, a pink sweater, and running shoes, unlike the designer outfits sported by the myriads of Christmas shoppers dripping with status symbols—diamond crusted watches and designer handbags. The woman was a looker, although not pretty in the delicate sense. Her warm brown hair was cropped in the efficient manner of a female Army officer in contrast to her elegant, fine-featured face, tiny pink lips, rosy cheeks, and a pert nose. Serious woman though. She marched her daughter away from Santa, probably upset that Jolly Ol’ St. Fake had promised to grant her daughter’s wish.

Didn’t make sense. A woman as beautiful as she should have plenty of well-heeled men volunteering to take the position of stepfather for that sweet little girl.

A rent-a-cop tapped Tyler’s shoulder. “Move along. You’re not here for the Santa line, you have to stay outside the play area.”

Tyler shrugged away from the guard without answering. He browsed by the Holiday Express train. Nope, he definitely wasn’t interested in taking a ride. It reminded him too much of the train set his father used to set up every Christmas before he’d disappeared during the First Gulf War.

Tyler wandered toward the towering Christmas tree, craning his neck to see the star at the top. Whenever his father had been home for Christmas, Tyler had been the one who had sat on his broad shoulders and placed the star on the tip-top branch. He and his mother would have decorated the tree from the bottom up, hanging ornaments and stringing the lights, but they could never reach the top. His mother would take the golden star out of the box and place it on the mantle, waiting for the family to gather around the tree. There’d be popcorn and Christmas carols, and once his father stepped through the door, he’d pick Tyler up and hand him the star. Everyone would clap and cheer as Tyler mounted the star. It had made him feel the same as if he’d scored a game winning touchdown.

They never had another tree after his father disappeared and was later found dead.

“Mister, can you please take a picture of us?” A young woman waved her hand in front of Tyler and gestured to her group of friends.

“Sure, no problem.” He took her phone. “Where’s the shutter button?”

“On screen,” the woman replied. “Tap the target.”

“Sure.” Showed how long he’d been gone. When he was deployed to Afghanistan after 9/11, the phones had push buttons and no camera feature. He shot a few poses for the family and handed the fancy contraption to the woman.

After they gathered their coats and bags from the floor, he noticed they’d left a takeout container. He picked it up and looked around, not spotting them. Not that he tried too hard. He was hungry, and the food smelled delicious. It was Chinese take out, orange chicken and chow mein. A wrapped almond cookie sat in one of the pockets of the container.

His mouth watering, Tyler swiped a fork and napkins from a nearby concession stand and sat on a bench under the massive Christmas tree. He gave thanks and dug in.

“Papa? Can I have a cookie?” a tiny voice squeaked in close vicinity. It was the little girl who’d asked for a father for Christmas.

Tyler glanced around, but didn’t spot the girl’s mother. “Where’s your mother?”

“She’s looking for you, but I found you sitting under the big Christmas tree just like Santa pwo-mised.” The girl beamed expectantly at him.

“Well, it isn’t Christmas yet. Still two more weeks.” Tyler wiped his lips with a napkin. “Let’s see if we can’t find your mother.”

“Okay, Papa.” The girl put her hand in his. “I can’t wait to tell her, Santa got you for my very own.”

Tyler wanted to let her hand go. This wouldn’t look good. He hastily replaced the lid on the takeout container and dangled the almond cookie. “Here, you can have the cookie, but you have to help me find your mother.”

“Yay!” the little girl squealed, snatching the cookie. She ripped the wrapper and took off, running. “Mama, I found him.”

Tyler pitched the rest of the food into the trash and loped after her. She could get lost in this crowd, and he wasn’t sure he spotted her mother anywhere.

Sure enough, the little girl’s glee turned to confusion and then fear as she whipped her head back and forth, crying, “Mama? Mama?”

The cookie dropped to the floor, and her eyes grew big. She paused to take a large breath, the kind children did right before letting out a loud scream.

Tyler reached for her hand. “Honey, don’t be afraid. I’m sure your mother’s looking for you.”

“Mama,” she yelled, screwing her fists into her eye sockets.

Several bystanders glared at him, rocking from one foot to the other, as if deciding whether to intervene or not. A woman whipped out her cell phone and snapped a picture. Great. Just great. He was about to be reported as a child kidnapper. Why couldn’t he have left it to the rent-a-cops? Except who knew whether they had criminal backgrounds?

“Papa!” The girl launched herself at him, hugging him around his legs. “Mama got lost. We need to put up posters. Offer a reward.”

The bystanders who had been watching Tyler smiled and shrugged with relief, apparently convinced the child was in no danger.

Tyler had no choice but to play along. The number one rule, whether in a war zone in Afghanistan or homeless in the good ol’ US of A was to not draw attention. Walk as if you belonged and blend in with the background.

“Where shall we start, missy?” Tyler swung his arm alongside the girl. “What’s your name, by the way?”

The girl giggled. “Didn’t Mama tell you? Or Santa?”

“Uh, I must not have been paying attention.”

“It’s Bwee, and I’m four.” She held up four fingers.

“Okay, Miss Bwee.” He couldn’t help smiling. “Where did you lose Mama? Was it near Santa’s Throne?”

“No, Mr. Candy Man.” Bwee who was probably Bree crossed her arms and tilted her jaw with a bossy pout. “I want red and green candy cane.”

“So your mother was paying for the candy cane and disappeared?” Tyler led her toward the direction of the Christmas candy display. “Which one?”

“That big one, red and green. Please, Papa? Can you buy it?”

Big blue eyes peered at him as if he were a hero. How could he say no? Except for the price tag. Five dollars. Tyler dug into his pocket. He had a couple of bills from tips he collected helping elderly people carry their groceries into their apartments. Counting the change carefully, he assembled five dollars and gave it to the candy man.

Again, Bree’s delighted smile wobbled his insides, reminding him of outings with his father—duck hunting, fence repairing, fishing—following his father’s footsteps.

In retrospect, it had all been useless. Ten years in a war zone could not atone for his father’s death or make up for the fact he’d sent him away. If he hadn’t called his father a hero and looked up to him as a warrior, he would have listened to his mother and not re-enlisted.

His father’s last words rang through his mind. “Son, I’m gonna make you proud of me, because I’ll always be your hero.”