The Unfinished Gift Read Online Free PDF Page B

characters lying on top and inside, some wrapped in tissue paper. There were at least a dozen ceramic figurines: snowmen, carolers, Santas, and elves.
    “I’ve got to go back down and see the father for a few minutes. Can I trust you alone up here?”
    Patrick nodded.
    “Take a good look inside this box before you touch anything. When you leave this house, I want everything put back just the way you see it here. You hear? You can leave any tree decorations alone. We’re not setting up any tree. I expect your daddy to be home in a few days. Plenty of time to get you a tree. Just pick out a few things to put around the living room or your bedroom. You understand?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “All right, then. I’m headed back down. Mind yourself coming back down the stairs. Don’t bother with the light switch. I’ll come back and turn it off later when you’re through.” Collins stood up and made his way back to the attic stairs.
    Patrick didn’t move until he heard him get all the way down. When the attic door closed, the room was suddenly alive again. He looked inside the Christmas box. It shouldn’t be too hard remembering where things went. All the ornaments were in boxes stacked along the sides. He carefully lifted out the big golden star and looked for a safe place to lay it down.
    That’s when he first saw it.
    On the far side of the room, just beside the army uniform . . . it was leaning up against an oval mirror. This big wooden soldier. Years later, Patrick would still remember the first moment he laid eyes on it. Everything else in the room had suddenly gone out of focus. There was only the wooden soldier. It was hand carved, maybe eighteen inches tall. Unpainted, made of some light-colored wood, and finely detailed. It looked like a soldier from World War I, wearing one of those old pie-panned helmets. The expression on his face was stern, like he was yelling something at the top of his lungs. His rifle was fixed upward, as though storming a hill, his bayonet pointing at some invisible enemy.
    For a few moments, Patrick stood frozen in place. A warning began to form about what his grandfather would say if he got distracted from his main goal. But the warning was quickly overcome by the power of curiosity and desire. He stepped carefully through the maze of boxes and narrow aisles, his eyes fixed on the soldier. He couldn’t imagine the awful consequences if he knocked anything over along the way.
    Finally, a clear path opened. He picked it up gently, glad to find it was sturdy and well made. He noticed the bottom was unfinished, the legs blending into a block of wood. Who could have taken an ordinary block of wood and turned it into such a thing of wonder?
    He held it at arms’ length and instantly decided that he had never wanted anything so much as this wooden soldier. The look on its face was so fierce, so intense; he could feel the soldier’s courage, see the bravery etched in every line. Patrick had seen newsreels about World War I and wondered what it must be like to face such danger, bombs going off to the left and right, machine guns rattling all around you. Yet still you run out of the trench to face it all. In the films you could never see the soldiers’ faces.
    But now he could.
    And it was the most remarkable thing he had ever seen.

Eight
    After securing the boy in the attic, Collins spent some time in the bathroom, taking a bit longer than usual. He thought about staying upstairs even longer, maybe ten minutes more. If the priest stayed, Collins could just say the box had been difficult to find. Or Father O’Malley might get antsy and have to leave. Then came an image of Ida, like a fierce look from heaven for treating a holy man so poorly. He washed his hands and headed back down the stairs.
    For the next fifteen minutes, the father asked a lot of questions about Shawn. How could Collins tell the father he hadn’t talked to Shawn since before the boy was born? What new avalanche of words