The Unfinished Gift (16 page)

Then he got an idea.

Quietly he opened his bedroom door. The hallway was dark, except for a dull light coming up the stairway. He stepped out, listening for any sound. Mrs. Fortini must have gone home, he decided. She would certainly be talking if she were there. He stood still, waiting. Finally, he heard pots clanging in the kitchen, placing his grandfather at a safe distance. He didn’t need much time; he knew right where the soldier was.

He tiptoed across the hall and turned the attic doorknob slowly until it clicked. He waited another moment then opened the door and entered the attic stairwell. Fear instantly took hold.

Darkness. Nothing but deep, black darkness. A stairway leading to nowhere, he thought. Who knew if it still even went to the attic? Anything could be up there, just waiting for a little boy to come up without an adult. Or maybe everything was fine, and he would be perfectly safe. That’s the problem with darkness, you never knew until it was too late.

How many times had he and his mother talked about his fear of the dark? It was all his imagination, she’d said. There really wasn’t anything to be afraid of. God sees in the darkness, just as easily as the light.

But God wouldn’t help him with what he was about to do now.

The switch was just at the top of the stairway, he reminded himself. Just a few more steps to go.

Finally he made it, almost out of breath, and hit the switch. The attic was still there. Everything was the same. He looked to the right, by the soldier’s uniform. There it was. He started to hurry but became aware of the sound of his footsteps. He quietly snatched the wooden soldier, then made his way back downstairs after flipping the light switch. He never looked back as he gently closed the door.

Once inside his bedroom, he was glad to find the soldier did fit snugly in the suitcase, just like he thought. This could work. Something like this soldier was meant to be enjoyed, not shoved up in the corner of an old dark attic. Someday when he was older he would finish carving the bottom, maybe even paint it. His dad could help him. He was about to close the lid when he looked up at his parents’ picture. He couldn’t look at their picture straight on and quickly turned away. He started toward the door but paused as he reached for the knob. He could almost feel his mother’s disapproving gaze.

“But it was just sitting up there,” he whispered, still facing the door. “He doesn’t even care about it. He’d never let me have it; he’s way too mean.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she would have said. “And you know it. The point is—it’s not yours. It’s stealing. You’re breaking one of the Ten Commandments.”

He turned to face her, his heart sick with disappointment. “But if I ask, he’ll never give it to me.” He walked over and lifted the suitcase lid. He sighed as he pulled the soldier out, the bayonet catching the corner of his gray sweater. He sat on the edge of the bed, holding it in front of him. He knew what he had to do.

He looked into his mother’s eyes, straight on, and said, “I’m sorry.”

He walked to the door and opened it quietly. All kinds of sounds were still going on downstairs. He could put it back before his grandfather ever knew what happened. He walked across the dark hallway when a new idea suddenly came to him. He stopped for a moment as it sunk in, then turned toward the stairway.

It could work, he thought. And it wasn’t a sin. He’d never know unless he tried.

Collins took another sip of whiskey as he stirred a simmering pot of vegetable soup. He hoped Ida couldn’t see him from heaven like this, the looks she’d be giving him. But he needed something to put distance between him and his emotions. He could feel them pressing in, just waiting for a weak moment to burst through again. He had to keep it together. Couldn’t let the boy see. Couldn’t let the boy know his father was probably dead. No, stop that, he thought. Don’t go there. The telegram said missing. Hold on to that. No, don’t hold on to that. Don’t even think about the whole stinking mess.

Think about vegetable soup.

He looked at the bottle of whiskey sitting on the counter to his right, emptier now. He’d brought it in from the living room. He was sure he had another bottle somewhere. Couldn’t go out and fetch a new one tonight, not in this storm. He looked back at the pantry, then down at the broken bottle of cooking oil. He’d forgotten to clean up the spill. Probably going to leave a terrible stain, he thought, forever sealing the memory of this night.

He had known no good would come of bringing a little seven-year-old boy to this house. He had dreaded it the instant he’d said yes to that Townsend woman.

Just doing his duty, he thought.

Look what it got his boy Shawn.

Twenty-Six

Katherine pushed her tiny dinette table two feet closer to the radiator. She was still wearing her gloves and heavy sweater. Not only was her apartment cold, the light wasn’t very good, either. She bent down and picked her pen off the floor; it had a nasty habit of rolling off the table due to the sag in the floor. For the last hour, she’d been working on her report, developing the reasons why Patrick should be removed from his grandfather’s custody as soon as possible. First thing in the morning she would head into the office and type it up.

Presently, the words were not flowing from her pen. It had been easy to write about Collins’s unworthiness to be the parental custodian, to detail his nasty disposition, his inability to offer Patrick any comfort or affection, his total inexperience with small children, and now, add to all that, the telegram and Collins’s drunken condition.

The problem was convincing the agency that Patrick should be allowed to live with her.

She looked up from her paper and surveyed the room, imagining what might be said about her accommodations. Her government check afforded her a chilly, one-bedroom, third-floor tenement. Yellowing doilies covered the armrests on the couch and chair hiding the stuffing that stuck out here and there. Her radio didn’t work; she hadn’t had the time or money to get it repaired. She laughed as she looked at her ridiculous excuse for a Christmas tree standing on a cardboard box in the corner. She had no lights. It was half dead from lack of water. No presents underneath.

Merry Christmas, she thought. God bless us, everyone.

They would never approve of her place, any more than they’d approve of her. She was a single woman. But whatever happened to love? she thought. Doesn’t love matter? Her mind began to assemble paragraphs that would express what had been developing in her heart since the moment she’d laid eyes on Patrick.

But instantly she knew such a tack would never work. If anything, her report would have to play down any emotional attachments. She needed logic, not emotion. Somehow she’d have to make Patrick living with her as the most logical choice of all the possible options.

She got up from her chair and grabbed a small blanket from the back of the sofa, wrapped it around her feet, and stared back down at her report.

Logical thoughts were the farthest thing from her mind.

Patrick sat on the top step, clutching the wooden soldier tightly. For the last few minutes, he’d been working up the nerve to ask his grandfather if he could buy it.

That was the new idea, the great master plan.

He had saved over five dollars doing odd jobs back home, like running telephone messages from the grocer to people without phones and shoveling snow from sidewalks. He had been saving to buy his mother a hat for Christmas, one she’d admired every time they walked past Mitchell’s Haberdashery.

He quickly shut the memory down before it went any further.

So, five dollars should be more than enough for something somebody just left sitting in their attic. Two dollars was probably enough, but Patrick had decided to offer the entire five. Just to make sure.

There were no longer any sounds coming from the kitchen. His grandfather had been fixing something for dinner judging by the smell. I better go now, Patrick thought, before he starts coming up to call me. If he sees this in my hand before I get to make my offer—

He hurried down the stairs, rounded the banister, almost tripping over that big box that had been delivered the other day. He’d forgotten all about it. He centered the wooden soldier on the coffee table, then stood blocking its view from the dining room. Waiting.

He reached in his pocket, fingering the dollar bills, just to make sure he could pull them out quickly.

The soup was ready. The table set. He had poured a fresh shot of whiskey for himself, cold milk for the boy. Had only managed to burn himself once on the stew pot. Hardly felt a thing. He was just bringing out the salt and pepper when he noticed a glimmer of light on the floor, reflecting off a spot of cooking oil he must have missed when he’d cleaned up the spill. Better at least get a rag and soak it up, he thought. He’d mop the whole thing in the morning if he wasn’t too hung over.

He turned back to the kitchen to get the rag when he saw the boy standing in the living room, as though at attention. “There you are. Saved me the trouble. Just going to yell up for you. You wash your hands?”

Patrick didn’t reply.

“Did you wash your hands? You hear me talking to you?”

“I washed them.”

“All right, then. Take your seat, and I’ll dish out the soup. Watch out for that puddle of oil.”

“Okay . . . Grandfather. But there’s something I’d like to ask you about first.”

Collins stood there, waiting for him to go on. “Well?”

“Remember the other day when I was in the attic?”

Collins nodded, unable to hide the impatience on his face.

“I know my father will be coming home soon. I saw Miss Townsend’s car driving away.”

Collins felt the next swallow inch down his throat like a jagged rock.

“So that doesn’t give me much time. I saw something up there that I kinda want real bad. But I know you didn’t want me to play with it just then—”

“What are you going on about?” he asked, the edge returning as he anticipated what was coming next. There was only one thing the boy had been messing with in the attic, as he recalled.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. My friend Billy said people put stuff in the attic because they can’t sell it or don’t want to. I’m not sure which one this is, but—”

“Would you just say what you’re trying to say, and get it over with?” He took a step in Patrick’s direction. Patrick backed up in response, his legs now right up against the coffee table.

“I’ve got five dollars saved up.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a handful of dollars. Some coins bounced on the rug. One began to roll on its side toward Collins. “I’ll get it.”

The boy bent over in pursuit. Collins couldn’t believe his eyes. Centered on the coffee table behind him was the handcarved soldier he’d made for Shawn. “You’ve been back up in the attic,” he snapped. “Haven’t you?”

Patrick stood up straight. “Yes, sir, I have. But I wanted to—”

Collins’s rage needed no help to find its way to the surface. He lunged toward Patrick and grabbed him by the shoulders. “I told you to leave that soldier alone, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but—”

“You went up in the attic without even asking permission. At nighttime, no less. And you deliberately took the very thing I told you to never touch again. Didn’t you?” Collins was too drunk to see the terror in Patrick’s face. “Didn’t you!” he screamed.