Here she is again, writing down the name she can’t forget. This time on an elf, no less.

The string lights are on their flashing setting — the worst in Sloane’s opinion — and flicker out the corner of her eye. She picks up the Sharpie she’s been using all morning and pushes away the leftover glitter from the last order — a glass-shaped ornament filled with a fake engagement ring, sand and small, dust-like confetti slapped with an acrylic Our First Christmas. A reindeer statue that wears a wreath lei around its neck stares down at Sloane from the sale counter behind. She can feel its glare, its constant reminder that yes, though it is September, 80 degrees and sunny, the holiday season is upon us, and Sloane must be ready for the rush to come. Personalized ornaments don’t write themselves. She sighs. “Mele Kalikimaka” begins to sing throughout the small boutique sitting happily on Waikiki Beach.

“Is there a problem?” The customer, sunburned with sand in her highlighted hair, and anxious to get her family ornament back, asks. The ornament, a Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus with three small elves on a makeshift beach, holding candy canes and leaning against a palm tree, will be the fifth in this customer’s collection. Her name is Abigail. Sloane reads this fact on Abigail’s order form at the very bottom of the sheet where it asks for feedback. Feedback on the store, not on Abigail’s ornament collection. Sloane didn’t need to read it to know that this was a tradition, as it is for most people who walk through the doors on their family vacation.

Falling in line behind the other reindeer families, Santas playing ukuleles and turtles with baubles stacked on their shells, the ornament won’t be ready for another hour for the ink to seal on the ceramic. Abigail peers over the counter, clears her throat. Great, the reindeer statue has an accomplice in its staring game.

Sloane shakes her head and reads the family names again. A deep belly ache starts, and she hopes it won’t deter her from eating dinner, but she, unfortunately, knows it will. Before she left home for her shift, she put together a hearty white chicken chili with cannellini beans, and diced green chilies, a few quartered golden potatoes thrown in. She imagines her whole apartment is absorbed in the chili powder and broth, but she knows the minute her shoes are off and her bag is away, her hands are washed and the day has caught up to her, she will stow away the soup for another time.

Nowadays, the name doesn’t come up often but when it does, it’s like rolling down a steep hill, and hitting every bump and rock, never quite reaching the soft grass at the bottom. You just keep tumbling until suddenly, it all stops and you can stand again.

Sloane needs to focus. Her hands can’t shake. Not when she has to write Abigail’s name, who is still staring with a line now forming behind her.

“Another hour? We’ll be in our surf lessons then,” Abigail pleads with Sloane to hurry the process.

“You can always come back tomorrow,” Sloane shrugs and looks down to begin her craft. Deep breaths. The apple cinnamon diffuser is on full blast.

Abigail walks outside and Sloane’s manager, Ricky, steps in beside Sloane. “You can take your lunch after this order. Just make sure it’s done before you clock out.”

Ricky has just come from restocking the 2025 ornaments. The ones marked with the year are always the first to sell out. Jumping behind the register, he confirms with the next set of customers that two of the names on their order form are their pets, and wonders if they’d like a paw print to help differentiate between humans and dogs assigned to the festive whales in elf hats. Sloane focuses back to her order. The store playlist changes tracks and customers filter in and out. One may think it’s Christmas Day itself: excitement sprinkles throughout the store when families, honeymooners, dog owners alike find the ornament to represent their year. Their best year yet. This ornament will be with them forever, always.

Joe. Abigail. Leo. Tilly. Dean.

She writes their names, in order, each one assigned a character on the hook. Carefully, she curves the letters, finishes each one with a dot on the top and bottom for a bold effect. Finishing the ornament, Sloane places it on the tray for it to be sealed next and heads to her locker in a daze.

Routine has saved Sloane over the last decade. She awakes before the sun to watch the rest of the world rise as she drinks her hazelnut blend coffee from her favorite Midwest coffee shop. The local news plays as she dresses herself; socks are ankle cut and from Costco, always, pants are capri and worn in, evergreen t-shirt from the Christmas store as part of her uniform. She preps dinner so it’s ready for her arrival after her shift, her errands. Her dishwasher thunks the same rhythm as she walks out the door, and the same stray cat hangs out on the windowsill for a few scratches, a hopeful meal and some water. Sloane refills the cat’s bowl from the hose. She checks the surfing forecast on her phone and for any red flag swim warnings as she waits for the bus to downtown. It’ll determine how busy of a day she’ll have. In her lunch bag is an egg salad sandwich with sweet honey mustard pretzel twists, the same lunch she has five days out of the week. Sticking to the same steps has helped Sloane move forward from the worst heartache of her life. It helps her stay steady, especially when her day turns into reminders of him.

Today is her egg salad sandwich, but it was once his favorite, paired with a ginger ale and sour cream and onion chips.

Today is her job, Abigail’s ornament and family, but he was the one who had an affinity for Christmas and traditions. He was the one Sloane called on her way home, hugged before she walked out the door, and kissed when she returned. Once Sloane’s vows and Christmas wish, her biggest frustration and laughter, her constant light, no matter how dark the day may have been.

He was once Sloane’s everything, and now, if she’s lucky, she’ll see him return on an order form in the middle of paradise.

Before she knows it, she’s outside of the store sitting on the bench, watching all of Waikiki pass by her. The dry heat wraps around Sloane, melts the sunscreen into her weathered skin. She closes her eyes and feels the sun come over her. Though Kalakaua Avenue is busy with tourists bopping in and out of the designer and ABC convenience stores, running through the gardens at the Royal Hawaiian Center, everyone minds their own business. If Sloane wanted to close her eyes and take a quick nap, she could. No one would bother her except maybe, Hugh, the Honolulu police officer who likes to visit the shaved ice shop nearby on his break from the station and check in on Sloane. How is she doing? How many ornaments had she personalized that day? The most bizarre names she’s seen?

“Someone named their new puppy, Ribbit. Their name was Rocks,” she told him once. Hugh laughed so hard, he nearly fell over. He couldn’t wait to hear more.

Today, Sloane sees Abigail is outside. She’s on the phone, and is speaking loudly into it.

“Joe, they said an hour. Start getting the kids in their wet suits now and we’ll be ready to go when I get back,” Abigail huffs into her device, holds a hand up to her forehead, feels the heat. Abigail notices Sloane sitting nearby. “You can do it, everything is set out. I’ll see you soon.”

She hangs up and wanders over to Sloane, takes a seat. Abigail sinks low into the bench.

Across the street, a man stands with two parrots (one Macaw, the other a Cockatoo) on his forearm. He’s outside the convenience store every day starting at lunch time and stays after dusk. He dares everyone with a spare $10 to stop and admire the birds’ feathers, their beaks. He probes the passersby to speak and see if the parrots mimic. Even from where she sits, Sloane finds the small show amusing and without him in her routine, she’d miss him. Miss the birds. Miss when she hears him shout about their special talents, “They sing! They dance! Take a look at Stu! This is McGee!” She would miss the people passing, intrigued, but still too focused to get their souvenirs to stop.

If it wasn’t for this 9–5, she wouldn’t have this. Early to rise, early to open, early to keep the lines moving through the store. If it wasn’t for Abigail and people alike with a desire for labeled decor, she wouldn’t have this job.

And if it weren’t for Dean, she wouldn’t be on this island.

“My husband’s name was Dean,” Sloane says aloud. It feels like an admission, as much as it feels like an exhale. Finally, she can breathe. Reading the name at first threw her off, but now, everything has course corrected and she can move forward again. One step at a time.

Abigail looks down, straightens herself back up. “I’m sorry,” she says, and looks across the street. “Why don’t you tell me about him.” Sloane looks wearily at Abigail, who stares upon the busy street full of Jeeps, Range Rovers, the beach goers carrying their surfboards. She’s concentrating on something farther, something much deeper than the man with the parrots.

“I have an hour,” Abigail peers over to Sloane, gives a small smile.

Where to begin. Sloane can start with their first encounter at an ice cream shop in the upper corner of the Midwest when they were just shy of 18, bonding over a vanilla chocolate twist in a waffle cone, or how they wed only a few short months later on the shores of Lake Michigan with a bouquet of lilies and a single banded diamond ring. Or, she can begin at the day they bought their first and only house, and that in some ways, the house shaped them into the couple their family, their neighborhood, their community knew so well. There are anniversary dinners and birthdays, pipe bursts and weekend getaways, apple pies and Sunday brunches, winks and slow dances in the kitchen, bad days that turned to worst, an adventure to O’ahu that had Sloane and Dean falling in love all over again, acceptance letters, first days of school and new jobs, belly aches from laughing at that same dumb joke, diagnoses and prognoses, family recipes shared on Thanksgiving, and cutting down Christmas trees. Hellos, goodbyes.

Sloane can choose to begin at the very end, the day Dean passed. The day a For Sale sign stood tall on their front lawn. The day Sloane waved goodbye to her kids after she sold all the furniture, hopped on a plane, and returned to the place they longed for when life at home got too complicated, too cold, too dark.

There is the day she strolled past the Christmas store and thought about the first holiday she’d spend without Dean and in that moment, rather than falling apart like she wanted to, rather than letting the waves crash over her, she walked inside and asked if she could help. If there was any chance for Sloane to feel Dean again, it would be here, in this place and on this island.

She tells Abigail, “We could have gone anywhere in the entire world, done anything, spent all our money or none at all, and yet, Dean was the greatest adventure. No matter where he was, or what we were doing, he was the best part of every day,” laughing, she looks at Abigail. “Even when he didn’t take the trash out when I asked.”

Abigail is quiet, and there is a shift in the air. Waikiki slows down.

Palm trees sway in the warm wind, Sloane can hear waves crashing together and shrieks from kids playing in the water. For some, it's their first step in the ocean, their first time experiencing the salty water and grains of sand that stick and fall everywhere like glitter on birthdays.

“We’re on a family vacation, our first one to Hawaii.” Abigail pauses, and stays quiet. “It’s likely our last. Dean has leukemia.”

Abigail lets tears roll down her face, but there’s no sound. A switch that inevitably turns on no matter how hard Abigail fights it. Tenderly, Sloane grabs Abigail’s hand. Abigail allows for Sloane to comfort her.

The pain swallows Abigail, Sloane can see it absorb her so suddenly. “All he should be doing is watching cartoons, and playing outside, and with his Legos. He should be playing soccer and joining little league in the spring,” Abigail takes the napkin Sloane pulled from her lunchbox. “All he wanted to do was see turtles, he loves animals. He’s six. When we get back, he’ll start a whole new round of treatment, but it’s not promising.”

She swallows, sighs. Gulps, lets the waves reach her, but doesn’t allow them to drown her, doesn’t give them permission to take her away. Abigail straightens herself out.

“I don’t want to know what a world is like without him. He’s made it infinitely better. I don’t want Leo and Tilly to forget, they’re so young that they could. I don’t want to forget.”

It’s fascinating, the way two women from different corners of the world can be silently crying on a bench beside each other, outside of a souvenir Christmas store, on the side of Kalakaua, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, grieving, while everything and everyone else keeps moving. Awake, rise, move, caffeinate, eat, breathe, work, fight, sigh, snack, hydrate, step, plead, buy, stress, wonder, dream, move on, get tired, rub your eyes, beg for more hours, sun down, sleep. Repeat.

There’s no space to grieve. It’s why it hurts so much when it arrives, when it's present — our routines, life, doesn’t have any space for it.

After a few moments, Sloane says, “There isn’t anything I can say that will take away your pain, I’ll be the first to tell you that. He’s changed your life for the better, and you don’t want that to go away, ever.”

A small crowd has formed around the man with the parrots. They watch on from the bench, allow the distraction to infiltrate their conversation. Sloane turns to Abigail. Her skin is soft, but blistering from the sun. Mascara runs around her green eyes that are more vibrant now that she’s cried. Her chapped lips quiver, but there is still beauty in the deconstruction of her pain. Only a short time ago, Sloane was thinking Abigail was going to be a sore in her day. Instead, Sloane grabs her hands.

“What I will say is that he’ll find you. You’ll see him in sunsets, in the hummingbirds and butterflies, in the songs that spell out his name. You’ll find him on menus, and in movies, on bike rides and hikes. You’ll find him in the ornaments that capture this season of life. You’ll always think of him. You will always remember.”

Her tears fall slower, her sniffles less fierce. Abigail squeezes Sloane’s hand and thinks how many times her Dean had done the same.

“Dean and I were married for 40 years. It hurts now, and it will hurt more. But one day, when someone mentions his name, or asks for it on a sparkly souvenir, you’ll remember. It will hurt, but you’ll smile. There is no forgetting someone you love.”

The traffic picks up. The crosswalk sign blinks and the middle of the street fills with a crowd. The countdown ticks. People move, step aside, wait for the next time to cross. Cars drive. Tour buses wave. Life keeps moving.

“When you told me this ornament was going to take an hour, I nearly lost it. You probably heard me calling my husband to complain,” Abigail says, laughs. “I think I needed to meet you.”

Sloane squeezes Abigail’s hand, checks her wrist watch and gathers her things. “Your ornament should be ready now.”

Together they walk back into the store. Abigail shows her pick up slip to Ricky, who pulls her green and red polka dot box out from the shelf. Sloane takes her seat at the personalization counter, grabs the pen from Ricky, and reviews the next order. A family of three hula dancers wearing Santa hats and light up leis.

Life keeps moving. Sloane keeps moving. There is no doubt in her mind that Abigail won’t be able to do the same.

They exchange a silent thank you, a quiet parting between the two, because if they speak it aloud, it will feel too much like an ending when this is only the start.

A part of Sloane will always be with Abigail. Sloane now has a permanent spot on Abigail’s family tree, in their Christmas tradition. Abigail imagines the ornament on the tree, front and center, low enough for Dean to read his name in Sloane’s handwriting and admire. She can almost feel the snow falling and the fireplace on, the smell of fresh pine filling their house and gingerbread in the oven. In this 80 degree heat, she’s looking forward to heading home and cozying up for the holidays in just a few weeks. It will be the best one yet. She’s sure of it.

As she walks away and toward her hotel, Abigail knows she won’t forget Sloane, and she knows Sloane won’t forget her.

Together, they will always remember. Natallie Paige lives in Grand Rapids, MI, with her husband and two pups. She grew up in Wisconsin, where she received a degree in journalism. She settled in the Mitten State almost five years ago and thoroughly enjoys trips Up North and along the lake.