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.
“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.