The Unfinished Gift (17 page)

“But I didn’t take it, I was—”

“You didn’t take it? Did it walk down here all by itself?”

“That’s not what I meant. I . . . I—”

“You don’t listen, do you? Got no respect at all, do you? Do whatever you darn well please.” He was shaking Patrick with each phrase.

“You’re hurting me,” Patrick cried.

“Hurting you? I ought to hurt you but good.” With that, he tossed Patrick toward the living room. He landed with a thump, half on the throw rug, half on the wooden floor. “Now you put that thing back up there where you found it, you hear? And don’t you ever, ever touch it again.” His index finger was stabbing the air like a dagger. “And while you’re up there, you can just stay up there. No soup for little boys that got no respect.”

“Yes, sir,” Patrick said through his tears.

Collins waited for one long, tense moment, then said, “Well, go on . . . get!”

Patrick picked himself off the floor, quickly turning away from his grandfather’s angry glare. Tears were pouring down his face. But these weren’t just sad tears; angry tears were mixed in. He didn’t want any of his stupid old soup. The only thing he wanted in this house he couldn’t have. He hated this place. He hated everything about it. He picked up the wooden soldier and walked toward the stairs.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a piece of paper teetering on the ledge of the end table next to his grandfather’s favorite chair, yellow and wrinkled. The only word visible from where he stood was the word “Telegram.” He looked up. His grandfather had already gone back in the kitchen.

Maybe it was a telegram about his father. A ray of hope burst through his grief. He tiptoed to the end table and picked it up.

He began to read. At first it was very confusing, but as he read, he felt terrible feelings starting to form inside.

He couldn’t understand every word he read.

But he understood enough.

Twenty-Seven

Collins shuffled into the living room, almost tripping over the lip of the throw rug. He had just spent the last thirty minutes sitting at the dining room table, trying to eat the soup he’d made. It had grown cold before he’d finally given up. He’d left the spoon sitting in the bowl, the pot sitting on the stove, a mess sitting on the counter.

He hadn’t noticed any of it.

The balance of the whiskey bottle had shaved several degrees from his depression. A soothing numbness had settled over him. He stood at the foot of the stairs, listening for the boy. After several moments of silence, he figured he must have fallen asleep. What nerve, thought Collins. He’d hated sending the boy to bed without supper, but he needed to be taught some respect. It was outright disobedience on the boy’s part, almost defiance. He had half a mind to throw out that stupid wooden soldier. Why had he kept it all these years anyway?

Then he remembered the day he had almost thrown it out. It was the day he’d finally accepted that Shawn and he were through for good. He’d stormed up to his bedroom, grabbed the wooden soldier on the floor beside his dresser, then marched it right past Ida, who was knitting something or another on the sofa.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she had said, her voice sharp as steel.

“To be done with this!” Collins yelled, holding up the soldier. “Once and for all.”

“Think so? You think throwing that soldier out will punish Shawn somehow?”

“I don’t care what Shawn thinks.”

“You never did.”

“What?”

“You never did care what Shawn thinks. That’s half the problem.”

“So you’re taking his side now?”

“No, I’m just telling the truth. There are no sides to the truth. It’s just the way it is. It’s not like I haven’t seen it all and heard it all for myself. I’ve been sitting here watching you these last several years. You can’t get along with—won’t get along with—Shawn, our only son, our only child, and now I’m deprived of his company as well.”

“What do you want me to do, woman? You’ve heard the way he’s talked to me, the things he’s said.”

“Yes, I have, and I’ve heard you too. Which means I’ve heard both sides . . . quite fully, I might add. And you’ve never once asked for my observations or advice.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Do whatever you want to do, Ian. That’s all you’ve ever done. Don’t stop now on my account.” Then she turned back to her knitting, filling the room and Collins’s heart with a guilt so heavy he felt it in his bones.

The guilt of that moment remained alive to this day. It was the reason he had stashed the soldier in the attic instead of the trash. Collins sighed heavily as he sat in his chair. There was no hope now. Shawn was gone. Ida was gone. He had not kept his promise to her, to reconcile with Shawn.

“I am so sorry, Ida. Shawn, I am so sorry.” The room was suddenly a blur.

At that moment, his loneliness and despair were complete. They broke through the barriers of the whiskey, and he was overcome by his grief.

He cried like he had never cried before in his life.

It was so cold.

The wind blew right through his coat, scarf, and hat like they weren’t even there. The snow trickled into his boots with every step, freezing his feet and toes. And it was still coming down. His arms felt like they were going to fall off carrying this suitcase. Good thing he had decided to bring just the small one. Right now, it was his left arm’s turn to drag it behind him in the snow.

He tried not to, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the telegram. He knew what “missing in action” meant.

He had suppressed the urge to scream out what he felt after reading those words back in the living room. But he couldn’t. Instead, he went up the stairs and cried into his pillow. He couldn’t pray. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t even look at the picture of his mom and dad.

All he knew was he couldn’t stay in that house with that old man one minute more.

His father wasn’t coming home to get him any day now. The army didn’t even know where he was. He realized now that the telegram must have been the real reason Miss Townsend had come to his grandfather’s house. In his mind, he had imagined the fight that must have taken place between them. Miss Townsend had driven all that way in the snow to come rescue him, but somehow his grandfather had chased her off. He remembered the card she had given him the first night she had dropped him off, and her words: “Now, you remember, Patrick, I gave you my card. If you need to call me for any reason, you just call. You don’t need your grandfather’s permission.”

That’s what his mission was now, to find a telephone.

He couldn’t use the one at his grandfather’s house; it was in the kitchen, in plain view of his grandfather sitting at the dining room table. He couldn’t go to Mrs. Fortini; she might bring him back to his grandfather. He couldn’t take that risk. He remembered seeing a telephone at Hodgins’s Grocery and was sure he remembered how to get there.

The intersection joining the neighborhood to Clifton Avenue was in sight. If he could just hold out a little longer. He’d call Miss Townsend, and she’d come get him. Tonight he’d be safe and warm with her, with someone who seemed to love him. Her hugs had been the closest to his mom’s of anyone he had met.

When he arrived at the end of the street, he leaned against a mailbox on the corner to catch his breath and hide briefly from the wind. He squatted down and buried his face in his coat, hoping to catch a few minutes warmth for his face. His cheeks stung like the dickens, and his jaw felt like it had frozen in place.

The normally busy street had become so quiet, hardly a single car had passed by. He was the only one walking the snow-covered sidewalk. A gust of wind whistled through the mailbox opening, sounding very much like an angry ghost. It startled Patrick, and he quickly got up and moved away.

He looked across the street, trying to spot Hodgins’s Grocery through the sheets of blinding snow. But something was wrong. It’s just the snow, he thought. It was blocking his view to the other side. He didn’t see any lights from the many businesses that lined the street. Even the Christmas lights were off. Only the streetlights were lit, and they seemed to blink on and off in the swirling snowfall.

Patrick looked both ways. A lone city bus pulled away from the curb, leaving an empty bench behind. He began his trek across the street, dragging his suitcase as before. As he reached the curb, he realized . . . the lights didn’t just seem like they were off across the street—they were off! Every business was closed. He sighed and tried to fight back the tears.

What would he do now?

He turned at the sound of the bus driver forcing the gearshift into place and watched as the bus also faded into the darkness.

But this gave him an idea.

He could take a bus downtown, where Miss Townsend worked. He could show her business card to the next bus driver that came along and ask the driver to take him to where she worked. His spirits momentarily lifted, Patrick reached back and picked up his suitcase, making double time to the bus stop bench. He wiped off the several inches of fresh snow and sat down, huddling in the corner, wondering how long he’d have to wait before the next bus came along.

Patrick could not have known that the Philadelphia Transit Authority had, just one hour before, cancelled all remaining routes for that evening due to the fierce snowstorm.

Moments ago, Patrick had witnessed the departure of the last bus of the night.

Back at home, safely snug in a drunken stupor, Collins had moved to his chair after putting on a sweater to ward off the chill. About the only thing the whiskey seemed able to warm was his throat and stomach. He took another drink, deciding to keep a steady flow until it put him to sleep.

The house was quiet at least, the boy upstairs where he belonged. He was not a noisy lad, Collins thought. At least there was that. And he did clean up after himself right well, even better than Shawn did at that age, if he could recall. Shawn. Why did he have to recall Shawn to mind? His eyes fixed on the big cardboard box lying in the corner by the stairway.

There was no reason to restrain his curiosity any longer. The storm would keep Mrs. Fortini and that Townsend woman from stopping by, and the boy was asleep upstairs. He remembered the little cigar box full of Shawn’s letters to his wife. A new thought was driving him now, a desperate craving. He wanted to know Shawn again, to know the son he had so completely shut out of his life. His only son.

What had Shawn been like in the years since they parted? What kind of man had he become? What had it been like for him over there, up until the end? Collins had to know. The letters could help him find out.

He stumbled as he got out of his chair, but he didn’t care. He crawled to the big box and opened it quickly. He lifted the shoe box carefully from its hold and carried it back to his chair.

“Shawn,” he said aloud, staring at the box. “I have missed you so much.” He lifted the lid and untied the shoestring holding the letters together. “We used to be so close,” he muttered. “I’ve been such an old fool.”

After thumbing through a handful, it was obvious they had been sorted by date, the oldest at the top of the stack. Each letter was a single page, folded in thirds. Collins noticed the word “V-Mail” printed at the bottom and remembered reading something about this in the newspaper. In order to conserve cargo space, the military microfilmed the GIs’ original letters, then reduced them in size before reprinting them. Centered at the heading of each letter was a square with Shawn’s Philadelphia address on Clark Street.