The Unfinished Gift (6 page)

He didn’t know how long he had cried, but Patrick reached a point where he knew he was done. He felt a strange comforting feeling come over him just then. He sat up and looked into his mother’s smiling face in the picture. In his mind he could hear her talking to him again, strong and clear. “It’s okay, Patrick. You’re not alone.”

Patrick wanted to argue the point, but he didn’t want the feeling of her nearness to leave. “But I feel like I am alone,” he whispered. “You’re in heaven; Daddy’s at the war. And this man hates me, and I don’t even know why. Nothing I do is right.” He started breathing heavily, like he was about to cry again.

Through his mother’s eyes a thought seemed to surface. She wasn’t speaking it, but it was almost as strong. He remembered a bedtime story she’d read him one night during a terrible thunderstorm, about a time when the disciples were out on a boat. The wind had started to howl, and the waves began tossing the boat every which way. A storm much worse than this one, she had said. They had all began to fear the boat would capsize, and they would all drown.

The most amazing thing was that Jesus was sound asleep in the back of the boat. “Can you imagine that,” his mother had said. “Being sound asleep when everyone else was afraid for their lives?”

Patrick remembered the disciples had woken Jesus up, saying something like, “Lord, don’t you care if we die?” His mother had said sometimes we feel like we’re all alone when we’re afraid or in danger, but really we’re not, not if the Lord is with us. Jesus woke up, walked to the edge of the boat, and ordered the wind and the seas to be calm and still. Instantly, they obeyed.

His mother had finished the story by saying that Jesus could sleep easily, even during a scary time like that, because he knew his heavenly Father had everything under control, and that he had authority even over things as powerful as the wind and the sea.

Patrick felt that same calm come over him just now. His grandfather was scary all right, but he wasn’t more powerful than the wind and the sea. When Patrick’s mind drifted back to the present, he was still staring at his mother’s beautiful face. Then he heard the doorbell ring downstairs.

Collins didn’t hear the doorbell ring the first time. It was normally loud enough to reach the rafters but not louder than his thoughts. This attic had always proved to be a place of conflicting emotions for him. Everywhere he turned he collided with memories, mostly painful ones.

Everything having to do with Ida just reminded him of how lonely he’d become since her passing. Everything to do with Shawn reminded him of either the pain of the last seven years or of the good times they had before the rift, times they could never have again.

Collins held the wooden soldier in the light and remembered the day it began as a block of wood from a pile behind the garage. It had been an overcast day late in the fall, before Shawn had ever met that woman he married. He had just headed back to college after yet another difficult visit back home. Collins decided to carve the soldier for Shawn as a peace offering. Shawn’s room was filled with things Collins had carved for him throughout his childhood. He knew Shawn had recently developed an interest in World War I, so Collins modeled the soldier after Alvin York, a famous World War I hero.

As it turned out, his peace offering brought no peace between them.

At first, when Shawn came home, it seemed to work its magic once more. But by the end of the weekend, they were in conflict again and Shawn left in a huff. He stopped coming home on weekends after that.

The doorbell rang again.

Collins sighed as he set the soldier back in its assigned spot. “I’m coming,” he yelled. What now? he thought. Before the boy came, he might enjoy a week to ten days without hearing that stupid bell. Now it rang twice in the same morning.

He made his way down the two flights of stairs and peeked out the curtains. A delivery truck of some kind, he thought. Now what’s this all about? He put on his coat and opened the door. The cold hit him like a slap in the face. “What do you want?” he yelled through the vestibule door. A middle aged man, bundled like a dog sled driver, stood there next to a large box.

“You Ian Collins?”

“Yes.”

“This is for you, then.”

“I haven’t ordered anything.”

The man looked down at his papers. “Says here it comes from Clark Street. From the landlord of an apartment building.”

“I don’t know anyone on Clark Street.”

“Look, sir, you’re Ian Collins, right? So I ain’t at the wrong house. C’mon, it’s freezing out here.”

“I gotta pay for this?”

“No. The note says here it contains the belongings of one Elizabeth Collins, deceased. You even got the same last name. Guess the landlord had to rent the apartment out, needed to clear out her things.”

“Well, I don’t want it, why bring it here?”

The man looked down at his papers again. “It was authorized by someone named Townsend from Child Services. Look, do you mind? My nose is about to fall off out here. You don’t want this, I can find someplace to dump it, but you still gotta sign for it.”

“No, I better take it. Come in.” He opened the outer door, then backed into the living room and out of the way. The man hauled it in on a wheel cart, dripping wet clumps of ice and snow all over the throw rug. “Right there will be fine,” Collins said.

“Sign here, please.”

Collins signed the form. The man stood there for a minute, apparently expecting a tip. “You think I’m going to tip you for something I never asked for?” Collins walked over toward the front door. The man shook his head in disgust and went out the way he came.

Collins closed the door. “What am I going to do with this?” he moaned. He heard a noise on the stair, looked up and saw the boy’s face peeking out from behind the stair rails.

“What have you got me into now?” he said, surprising the boy.

Patrick ran back up the stairs. Collins heard his bedroom door close. He walked over and tried lifting the box, but it was too heavy. Maybe he should have just let the man throw it out like he said.

He was sure it was nothing but a boxful of trouble.

Ten

Captain Shawn Collins had flown seventeen bombing missions so far, but he’d never been this terrified before.

The 91st Bomb Group had already lost six planes to Nazi fighters on the way in to the target: a munitions factory in Bremen, Germany. Then as quickly as they came, the fighters disappeared. But then came a more terrifying adversary, for which the bombers had no defenses. Dozens of German antiaircraft gunners shot thousands of exploding canisters into the air disguised as harmless puffs of black smoke, each one unleashing jagged shards of molten metal in every direction. The boys nicknamed it “flak.”

A direct hit from a single flak gun could instantly turn a bomber into a fireball of flaming debris. An indirect hit could knock out engines or flight controls, kill or maim anyone caught in the shrapnel’s path.

Shawn, piloting a B-17 Flying Fortress nicknamed “Mama’s Kitchen,” tried to sound calm as he took in a damage report over the interphone from Nick Manzini, their starboard waist gunner.

“Hastings bought it, sir,” Manzini said. “Took a big piece of metal in the neck. It ain’t pretty. Looks like he went quick, though. Anderson is alive. Took some metal in the leg. Got a tourniquet around it. The bleeding has slowed a little, but he’s in a state of shock. I can’t even get him to talk to me.”

Shawn forced his emotions to stay intact. The entire crew looked to him for stability. But these men were more than just gunners under his command; they’d trained together for months, had flown every mission together, so far without a single mishap.

“And Captain,” Manzini continued, “that last flak burst open a brand-new window back here. Can’t take too many more hits like that.”

“Your guns operational?” Shawn asked.

“Let me check.”

Shawn heard the sound of both machine guns being test fired.

“They’re fine.”

“Okay, get back to your station. You’re gonna have to man both guns on the way home. Once out of Bremen, the fighters will hit us again. Make sure Anderson gets covered up, stays warm. Maybe he’ll snap out of it in awhile and give you some help.”

“Got it,” said Manzini.

For several minutes, no one said a word. Only the droning engines and muffled explosions of flak bursts could be heard over their pounding hearts. The plane jumped and shuddered with each one. The crew didn’t even react when another bomber just ahead fell out of formation and spun out of control, its left wing half shot off. No chutes were seen before it dropped out of sight.

Shawn tried to keep the plane steady, trying to keep his mind off the possibilities. With each new flak burst, he fought the temptation to steer the plane out of its path. The fact was, there were no safe paths; no amount of evasive action mattered. Survival seemed entirely a matter of fate or chance.

Some, like Shawn, believed it a matter of Providence and prayed every prayer they knew. Others superstitiously clung to their rabbits’ feet, lucky coins, saints’ medals, or some other homemade talisman.

Every few moments, Shawn looked down at a photo of Patrick and Elizabeth. She’d sent it two months ago. Patrick was holding the baseball Shawn had caught at a Phillies game two seasons ago. Elizabeth . . . he still found it hard to believe he’d won the heart of such a beautiful woman. She could have been a cover girl from a fashion magazine, with her shoulder-length blonde hair, all natural, lightly curled, parted slightly to the right. Her lips were plump and soft, almost set in a pout, immanently kissable. The hardest part being married to her had been holding back the urge to deck guys who couldn’t keep their eyes to themselves.

He thought about the first time they’d met. For him, it was love at first sight. For her, love came later. Her faith made her cautious. But that was okay. He had it bad enough for the both of them. She was sitting all alone at a table in the Penn State library. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. His stares had finally gotten her attention. At first, she turned away, pretending she hadn’t noticed. Then came that first smile. It happened on her third look up. He could still remember how it made him feel.

“It’s time, Captain,” said MacReady, the copilot.

“What?”

“Gotta turn the ship over to Davis.”

“Oh, right,” Shawn said. He reached down and flipped on the autopilot. “Okay, Nick. You’ve got the plane from here on. Make it count.”

“Roger, Captain.” The flak stayed heavy for ten more minutes. Every so often he heard a bang or a ping, as a stray piece of metal smacked into the fuselage. The plane seemed to be straining on the left side. Shawn feared one of the engines might have swallowed some shrapnel. Still, they held their place in the formation. He heard the bomb bay doors open.

Nick Davis simply announced “Bombs away” and closed the doors.

“How’d it look, Nick?” Shawn asked.

“A little hazy down there, but I think we nailed ’em.”

Shawn braced himself. Once they cleared Bremen, the fighters would return.

The crawling speed of the bombers had always been a source of frustration for Shawn. On every mission he’d watch the enemy fighters dart in and around them at will, picking them off one at a time. And every time a bomber fell from the sky, ten men went down with it. Some to their deaths, the lucky ones to prison.

Shawn looked down at Elizabeth’s picture again. “God, just let me get out of this alive.” His thoughts were interrupted by Manzini yelling, “Here they come!” into the interphone.

The fighters.

Man, they were coming in fast. Shawn heard a loud explosion, followed by piercing screams.

A moment later, it felt like he was losing control of the plane.

Eleven

Patrick decided that this had officially become the second worst day of his life. It began being terrorized by his grandfather about the wooden soldier, then digressed into total, absolute boredom. After the scolding, Patrick hid in his room until lunch. He didn’t plan on coming down, but his grandfather yelled “lunchtime” from the stairway like a troll growling from under the bridge.

It wasn’t a suggestion.

Over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and milk, they sat together in silence.

After lunch he politely excused himself and headed back to his room again. Just before going upstairs, he noticed the large brown box at the foot of the stairs. What could be inside, he wondered? Maybe his father had sent him something from England. Maybe Christmas presents. He looked back and saw his grandfather staring at him from the dining room table. He couldn’t read the look so he made his way up the stairs, straight to his room.

He stayed there until dinner, playing with his toys on the bed, but didn’t really have any fun. Dinner had gone much the same as lunch. After picking through a plate of dry meat loaf, corn, and potatoes, Patrick went back upstairs all alone. During the next two hours, he heard some of his favorite shows playing downstairs on the radio but couldn’t work up enough nerve to go down.

He decided his grandfather must still be sore at him for touching the wooden soldier. Why else had he ignored Patrick so completely? As he lay back on his pillow, he wasn’t sure what had hurt the most: getting yelled at, being alone for another day, missing his mom and dad, or the thought of never being able to play with the wooden soldier again.