Hurts' Christmas Present (Part 4)

Driving west up Market Street, the first place they stopped was at police headquarters. Parked in the parking lot, Hurts told Amanda to remain in the car, telling her that he would be back in a few minutes. Ten minutes later, he returned, carrying two walkie-talkies, the type that have extended microphones that can be attached to the lapel of a coat or shirt. He set them down on the seat between Amanda and him.

“What are those for, Mr. Hurts?” Amanda said.

“You’ll see,” he replied, starting the car.

Amanda picked up one of the microphones and brought it to her tiny lips. She made static noises and then spoke into the microphone. “Mr. Claus, I don’t like one of my Christmas presents. It’s—“
    
Looking down at her, Hurts said: “Do you still believe in...were you speaking to Santa Claus?”

“Nooooo,” Amanda replied. “I was just pretending, Mr. Hurts. I’m eleven-years-old.”

“Oh,” Hurts replied and shifted the car into Drive.

The second place they stopped was at the grocery store that they had shopped at the day before. In the parking lot, Hurts turned to Amanda and said: “Now listen to me, Amanda. We’re not going to have time tonight to cook or anything like that. So if you won’t eat a hamburger, we’ll have to have something fast like a can of soup. What do you want, a hamburger or soup?”

“Soup,” she replied.

“OK, then,” Hurts said. “Now, here’s the other thing. When we go in there, we’re buying only what I want to buy—nothing else. OK?”

“OK, Mr. Hurts,” she replied, but then said: “May I have a banana, Mr. Hurts?—and an apple?”

“Yes, you can have a banana and an apple—but that’s all.”

Hurts went straight to the Dairy section of the grocery store. Placing them one at a time into the cart, Hurts removed three one-gallon plastic milk containers from the cold glass doors of the shelf that contained the milk.

“I can’t drink all of that milk, Mr. Hurts,” Amanda said, hanging onto the cart. “It will sour.”

“We’ll see,” Hurts replied. “C’mon,” he then said: “Let’s get that other stuff and get out of here.”

Hurts set the two walkie-talkies in the back seat and then set the two bags of groceries in the front seat between Amanda and him. With the door on Hurts’ side still opened, Hurts removed one of the milk containers from the bag, cracked off the lid, brought it to his left side, leaned it out of the car and began pouring it out onto the asphalt pavement of the parking lot.

“Hey!” Amanda shouted. “What are you doing? That’s my milk.”

“Your milk?” Hurts replied. “I didn’t see you pay for it.”

“Why are you doing that, Mr. Hurts?”

“You’ll see,” he replied.

“Are you doing that with all the milk, Mr. Hurts?” Amanda asked.

“You got it,” he said.

Amanda removed another one of the milk containers from one of the bags. She placed the container on her lap. She had some difficulty unscrewing the plastic lid, but she finally got it off.
 
“What are you doing?” Hurts asked, looking down at her.

“Well, if you’re going to throw it all away,” she said, “I’m going to drink as much of it as I can.”

Holding the container in both of her hands, she unsteadily raised it to her lips, tilted her head back and began gulping down the milk fast and furious. She didn’t drink all that much of it before she dropped the milk container back to her lap. Panting and out of breath, she stared straight ahead. Her face became as white as the milk itself, and suddenly her whole body went stiff. Then she let out this thunderous belch that was three times her size.

“Good Lord,” Hurts said, waiving his hand in front of his face.

“Excuse me,” Amanda said, bringing a gloved hand up to her mouth.

Hurts took the milk container from her. As he began pouring it out onto the asphalt, he said, laughing: “You’re going to be so much fun on a date when you grow up.”

The last place they went before returning to Hurts’ office was St. Martin’s Church, which was four blocks northeast from his office. Parked in front of the cracking, cement steps that rose to the ornate, wooden door of the entrance to the church, Hurts said: “Grab one of those milk jugs for me, and let’s go.”

As they ascended the steps of the church, Amanda said: “What are we doing here, Mr. Hurts?”

“You’ll see,” he replied.

The inside of the church was warm and inviting. Hurts now held both of the milk containers in his left hand by their handles, and then dipped the fingers of his right hand in the holy water bowel and the made the sign of the cross. Amanda removed her glove and did the same.  

Following the rows of pews down on both sides, the altar lay straight ahead of them, at the opposite end of the building. Suspended from the vaulted ceiling, directly above the altar, was a man-size cross with a statue of a crucified Jesus nailed to it. To Hurts’ right was a metal stand that held row after row of votive candles in small green-glass containers. Hurts looked to his left and spotted what he wanted. There in the southeast corner of the church stood a green, metal container with an arched top and a cross on it. The container was about three feet tall and three feet wide. Towards the bottom of it was a spigot. Hurts knew that it contained holy water. Turning to his left, Hurts said: “Follow me.”

At the holy water container, Hurts squatted down, with an “ooooooooh” escaping from his lips. Screwing the lid off of one of the milk containers, Hurts told Amanda to take the lids off of the other two milk containers. He set the milk container under the spigot and then pulled the small handle on it towards him. Holy water came streaming out of it into the milk container.

“What are you going to do with the holy water, Mr. Hurts?” Amanda asked.

“You’ll see,” Hurts replied.

When Hurts had finished filling the last milk container, he replaced the lid and then stood back up, with another “ooooooooh” escaping from his lips. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Mr. Hurts,” Amanda said, “you took an awful lot of holy water. Don’t you think you should leave some money?”

“What?!” Hurts cried. “Do you see a sign anywhere that says: ‘THY SHALL NOT TAKE THE HOLY WATER’?” He paused for a minute, and then said: “All right. Aggravating,” he mumbled, throwing back one side of his topcoat and reaching in his back pants’ pocket for his wallet. “Just aggravating. You’re the most aggravating little girl that I have….”

****

Carrying the crumpled-up bag of groceries in his right hand, and holding on to the top of the railing with his left hand, Hurts and Amanda ascended the stairs to his office. When they reached the third step, Hurts suddenly stopped. He looked down at the thin, black spindles of the railing. He set the bag down, turned around and went back down the stairs. He walked to the other side of the railing and grabbed two of the spindles at the top in his hands. With one mighty backward jerk of his arms and hands, Hurts broke the spindles from the railing.

“What are you doing?!” Amanda cried. “That’s against the law,” she continued, pointing to the spindles. “That’s vandalism.”

Removing the bottom of the spindles from their holes in the steps, Hurts said: “Some laws just beg to be broken.”

Once inside of his office, Hurts walked over to the dinning-room table and set the two spindles down on it. He sat down and then fished around in the pockets of his topcoat until he found his pocketknife. He opened it and set it down on the table, next to the spindles. Hurts took one of the spindles in his hands, lowered it beneath the table, brought up his right leg and snapped the spindle in half across his knee. He then began willowing the spindle at one end with the blade of the knife, making long, curly, shavings of wood.

“What are you doing, Mr. Hurts?” Amanda said, standing at the table near Hurts—her coat, stocking cap, earmuffs, scarf and gloves now tossed on the couch.

“Making a weapon,” Hurts replied.

She thought for a minute, and then said: “Oh, I understand.”

“Want some milk?” Hurts said, teasing her.

“That’s not funny, Mr. Hurts,” she said, the pupils of her dark-brown eyes beaming with anger through the lens of her black-framed glasses.

“I want to tell you everything that Williams told me,” Hurts said to her, “and then I want to give you a heads-up on what will be going down tonight. After this is all over, Amanda,” Hurts continued, “you are not to speak of vampires to anyone, not even with your mother. It’s too dangerous. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Mr. Hurts,” she replied, playing with the shavings of wood.

“Your mother had nothing to do with any of….”

****

At six-fifteen, with the motor running and the lights on, Hurts and Amanda sat in Hurts’ car, parked in front of the two eight-foot tall chain-link gates of the chain-link fence that surrounded the perimeter of a two-story, dilapidated, old factory made of red-brick and small-paned windows.

“What is this place, Mr. Hurts?” Amanda asked.

“It’s a factory that sells tubes of grease and motor oil,” Hurts replied. “The owner is a buddy of mine. During the summer months, kids sometimes climb the fence and trash the place. Sometimes I guard the place at night.” Hurts turned off the motor. After removing the key from the ignition switch, he removed a key from the key ring and handed it to Amanda. “You unlock the gates and then open them,” Hurts said. “I’ll drive through, and then you get back in the car.”

“OK, Mr. Hurts,” Amanda said and got out of the car.
 
When Amanda got back in, Hurts drove to the back of the building. As Hurts drove, he told Amanda that this was probably the only place left in all of the city of St. Louis that still got water from a well. He stopped the car in front of a silver-colored, metal tank. The tank was about seven feet long, six feet high and about four feet wide.
 
“Is that the well, Mr. Hurts?” Amanda said, pointing to the tank.

“No,” Hurts replied. “Wells are underground. That’s a tank that holds the water and pumps it into the building’s water system. C’mon, let’s go,” Hurts said, getting out of the car. Hurts opened the back door on his side and removed two of the milk containers filled with holy water from the back seat. He set them down on the asphalt and then got the third one.
 
“I’ll carry one of them, Mr. Hurts,” Amanda said, picking up one of the milk containers.

Hurts walked to the north end of the tank and then set the two milk containers down. Amanda did the same. “I’ll be right back,” Hurts said and began walking back to his car. A few seconds later, Amanda heard the back hatch of Hurts’ car open. She then heard it being closed. When Hurts returned, he was holding in his hands the largest wretch that Amanda had ever seen before. On top of the tank at that end was a lid with a large bolt in the middle of it. Hurts placed the head of the wretch around that bolt. He tightened the head of the wretch around the bolt and then began pulling on the handle of the wretch. The lid squeaked a rusty, metal sound and then came loose. He removed the lid and then began pouring the holy water into the tank.

After he had finished pouring the last of the containers, Hurts said: “C’mon, let’s get in the car. It’s getting cold tonight.”

****

Back at the front of the building, before they got out of the car, Hurts clipped on one of the microphones of the walkie-talkie to the right side lapel of Amanda’s puffy, beige coat. He turned it on and then stuffed the walkie-talkie into one of her pockets. He clipped the other walkie-talkie to the black belt of his pants, turned it on, and then clipped the microphone to the lapel of his topcoat.

Hurts had Amanda hold the long, blue, hooded raincoat that Hurts had brought with him from the office, and the box of latex gloves that he had purchased from a drugstore before they arrived there, while he unlocked and opened a door to the side of the building. Hurts took the raincoat and box of latex gloves from Amanda and they walked inside of the building. He flipped on the lights.

The main room of the factory was cavernous. At the south side of the building was a wooden staircase that rose to the second floor of the building. The smell of oil and grease was overwhelming. Huge machines were positioned here and there, and the floor of the factory was made of cement. It was cold. Black rubber mats with wire-mesh in them lined the floor here and there. They were about two inches thick and three feet wide and ran in strips of eight feet long.
 
“What are these for, Mr. Hurts?” Amanda said, pointing down to the mats as they walked upon them.

“Well, this is a grease factory,” Hurts said. “It gets slippery in here.”

At the far end of the west wall was a wooden door. Hurts said: “C’mon.” Hurts opened the door and flipped on the lights. The room was filled from floor to ceiling with boxes of grease and oil. At the northwest corner in that room was a wooden table. On it was a plank of plywood about a foot long and a foot wide. On the cement floor at the south end of the table was a sewage drain with a lid covering it. “This will do just fine,” Hurts said, setting down the raincoat and the box of latex. He stepped back outside of the room, bent over,--with an “ooooooh” escaping from his lips,--and grabbed one end of the strips of mats. He dragged it to the sewage drain and dropped the mat over the drain. “C’mon, it’s getting late. Let’s go upstairs.”

When they reached the top step to the second floor, they began walking down a long, narrow, tiled-floor hallway. They passed the office on the left side; they passed the small room that was used for a lunchroom and they passed the restroom. At the end of the hallway was a narrow, wooden door, when they came to it, they stopped. Hurts opened the door. The room was closet-size small. In the southeast corner of the room was a black pipe that ran from floor to ceiling. Towards the bottom of it was a valve, the handle of it was round. “This is the valve I told you about,” Hurts said to Amanda. “Do you think you can turn it?”

“Sure I can, Mr. Hurts,” she replied.

“Why don’t you step in and touch it,” Hurts said. “Get a feel for it.” Amanda did as she was told. “Now, remember,” Hurts said. “When I tell you to, turn it on all the way as fast as you can.”

“OK, Mr. Hurts,” she said.

“Amanda,” Hurts said, looking down at her.

“What, Mr. Hurts?” she replied, looking up at him.

“Fun and games are over, Amanda,” he said. He handed her his cell-phone. “Put that in your other pocket.” She did. “Because I knew you would fight me on this, I waited until this moment to tell you. After I give you the word and you open that valve, you are to run straight out of this building. You get into my car and lock the doors. If Mr. Williams and I are not out in fifteen minutes, you call the police, tell them you’re in trouble and have them come and get you.”

“But, Mr. Hurts,” Amanda said. “I can’t—“

“No, buts, Amanda,” Hurts barked at her. “This is the real world, and the real world is mean. You’re only eleven-years-old, and you can’t stay out on these streets anymore. It’s too dangerous. Now, you will do what I tell you to do. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Sir,” she replied, lowering her head.

Hurts pushed back the right sleeves of his topcoat and suit-coat and gazed down at the face of his cheap Timex watch. “It’s almost seven. I got to get back downstairs.” Hurts turned around and began walking out of the room but stopped and turned back around. He looked back down at Amanda. She was looking up at him. She’s so tiny, Hurts said to himself. She’s just so tiny. “Are you scared, Amanda?” he asked.

“No,” she replied.

“It’s OK to be scared,” he said. “It’s normal to be scared.”

“Are you scared, Mr. Hurts?” Amanda asked.

“Me?!”  Hurts cried. “No, I’m not scared,” he said, “but I’m not normal. I live for this stuff.” Hurts turned back around and began to leave when Amanda said: “Mr. Hurts.”

Hurts turned back around and said: “What?”

“Nothing, Mr. Hurts,” she replied.

Hurts turned back around again and was about to leave again when Amanda said again: “Mr. Hurts.”
 
“What now, Amanda?” he said after turning back around again.

“I’m going to pray for you, Mr. Hurts,” she said. “I’m going to pray real hard for you.”

“You do that, Kid,” Hurts said, shooting her with his index-finger and thumb. “You pray for me real hard.” As he walked away, Hurts mumbled: “Aggravating. Just plain aggravating.”

Back downstairs in the room, Hurts set the raincoat and the box of latex gloves down on the table. He turned around, leaned his aching back against the edge of the table and waited for Mr. Williams to come. At exactly seven p.m., Mr. Williams appeared at the door of the room, dressed in a black topcoat, a black pair of dress-pants and a yellow dress-shirt.
 
“Hello, Williams,” Hurts said, cheerfully. “Do you call those clothes, clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty? They look like Brooks Brothers.” Turning his body a bit, Hurts picked up the hooded raincoat and said: “Come over here, William, and try this on for size.”
 
As Mr. Williams was removing his topcoat, Hurts told him his plan.

****
 
Donned in Hurts’ raincoat and wearing at pair of the latex gloves, Mr. Williams stood on the rubber mat. Hurts stood to his left, leaning his back up against the table. At eight o’clock on the dot, Mr. Williams’ body went stiff. He raised his head a bit, and said: “They’re here.”

Within seconds, they walked through the door. Mr. Campball led the way, followed by two other men. Hurts recognized the other two men from the picture in Mr. Williams’ office. They were Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Graves. All of them were wearing expensive clothes—topcoats and suits. They stopped just beyond inside of the door.

“What is he doing here, Theodore?” Mr. Campball said, referring to Hurts, “and why are you wearing that raincoat?”
 
“Well, now, boys,” Hurts said. “If you’re going to battle, you need a referee. I’m Williams’ manager. I don’t have a robe, so the raincoat will have to do. It has a sign on the back of it that reads: ‘CAMPBALL SUCKS DICK.’”

Zoom. Mr. Campball was on top of Hurts. He was holding Hurts tight by the lapels of his topcoat. He hissed and roared in Hurts’ face, and Hurts said: “You got bad breath.”

Through fanged teeth, Mr. Campball said: “You haven’t any business being here. I permitted you to live last night because I couldn’t find it within myself to kill the little girl. By choosing to be here, you must die.” He pushed Hurts hard back against the table.

Hurts had trouble standing and threw his arms and hands upon the table to support himself. Mr. Campball tilted his head back high in the air. The fingers of Hurts’ left hand fell on the plank of plywood. Like a bird of prey coming in for the kill, Mr. Campball brought his head down fast to the right side of Hurts’ neck. Hurts grabbed the plank of plywood and shot it up to the right side of his neck. Mr. Campball’s fangs snapped the plywood into splinters.

Hurts shifted to his left side, brought his right hand up and hit the button on the microphone and shouted into it: “Now, Amanda! Now!” Out of the corner of his eye, Hurts saw Mr. Williams throw the hood of the raincoat over his head and then dropped down on his hands and knees on the rubber mat. Before Hurts had finished shouting the last “Now!” the sprinklers burst on, showering the entire room in continuous misty sprays of water mixed with holy water.

Instantly, all three of them turned into vampires. They hissed and roared and screamed in pain. Sparks of white flames bounced off their bodies. Hurts pushed Mr. Campball back, reached into the right side of his topcoat and withdrew a spindle-turned-stake from it.

He raised the stake in his hand high in the air and plunged it deep into Mr. Campball’s heart. Mr. Campball’s body plummeted to the ground. Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Graves burst into flames. Mr. Graves moved mindlessly about the room. He kept scratching himself all over, as if he had poison ivy. Hurts saw Mr. Kennedy making his move to zoom on Hurts. Hurts knew he didn’t have enough time to reach for another stake. Damn, Hurts cursed silently. Zoom. Hurts knew he had lost. Hurts would later tell himself that it was Amanda’s prayers that saved him.

Mr. Kennedy tripped on the end of the rubber mat. This gave Hurts just enough time to remove another stake from his topcoat and raise his hand high in the air. In flames, Mr. Kennedy sprang to his feet and stopped in front of Hurts, who plunged the stake deep into Mr. Kennedy’s heart. Mr. Kennedy’s body fell on top of Mr. Campball’s.

Besides his back writhing with pain, Hurts felt a tightening in his chest. He couldn’t breathe. He turned around, bent over and placed his hands on the table. He lowered his head and took deep breaths. He needed only a moment, he told himself.

Then, he heard Amanda shout: “Behind you, Mr. Hurts! Behind you!!!” Hurts shot his head to the right side. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mr. Graves almost on top of him. In flames, and with his hands outstretched, as if he were going to grasp Hurts in a bear-hug.

Not even turning around, Hurts leaned on the table, brought up his right leg and kicked Mr. Graves away. Removing another stake from his topcoat, Hurts spun around and thrust it into his heart. “Ballgame, you son-of-a-bitch,” Hurts said. “We won.” He then pushed him down to the cement floor.

Learning forward, out of breath, in pain and dripping wet from head to toe, Hurts looked towards the door and saw Amanda standing there. “Shut it off, Amanda,” he said. Amanda did as she was told.

When Amanda returned to the room, she found Hurts leaning against the south end of the table, helping Mr. Williams out of the raincoat. She came abreast of them, and Hurts gave it to her good. “What did I tell you to do, Amanda?” he said. “Did I tell you to poke your head into this room and see what was going on? No, that’s not what I told you to do,” he continued. Amanda lowered her head. “I told you to go straight to the car. When are you going to learn to obey orders, Amanda? When?!”

Amanda raised her head slowly. When her eyes met Hurts’, she said: “Some orders just beg to be broken.”

“Are you sassing me?” Hurts barked. “Don’t you ever sass me. I’m the adult here. You will do what I tell you to do. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Sir,” Amanda replied, lowering her head again.

Turning to Mr. Williams, Hurts said: “Kids. What are you going to do with them?”

“I would like to shake your hand and embrace you, Mr. Hurts,” Mr. Williams said. “Since you are wet with—well, I’ll merely say thank you for saving my life.” He turned and walked up to Amanda. Squatting down so that he could be almost eye-level with Amanda, Mr. Williams took Amanda’s chin in his hand and lifted up her face. He said: “I trust, Amanda, that you shall keep my secret.” Amanda shook her head that she would. “I have informed Mr. Hurts, and now I shall inform you,” he said to her. “Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock I’m having a press conference. In it, I shall reveal your Mother’s innocence and demand that she be released from jail immediately.”
 
What Hurts saw next shocked him—utterly, utterly shocked him. Amanda had her arms wrapped around Mr. Williams’ neck, and she was balling her eyes out. Hurts couldn’t believe it. It made him angry seeing her crying like that. It made him boiling mad. It angered him because he had to admit something to himself that he always knew about Amanda, but for some reason he just didn’t want to admit it. He had to admit to himself what Amanda actually was—that she was nothing more than an eleven-year-old little girl. An eleven-year-old little girl who for the past week had had an insurmountable burden placed upon her tiny shoulders that even no adult should have had to endure.

“There, there, you precious child,” Mr. Williams said to her, patting her lightly on the back. “By tomorrow, this shall all be over. I promise. There, there, you most precious….”

****
 
The next morning, Hurts was awakened as he had been two days earlier, with Amanda pushing at his shoulder and saying: “Mr. Hurts, Mr. Hurts, Mr. Hurts…”

“What, Amanda?” he said, wiping the sleep from his eyes with his right hand.

Wearing the same clothes she had on the first day he had met her,--a red pullover shirt and black pants—she said: “It’s eight-thirty, Mr. Hurts. You don’t want to miss Mr. Williams’ press conference, do you?”

“All right,” Hurts said, sitting up on the couch. “I’m up.”

“There’s your cigarettes, lighter and ashtray, Mr. Hurts,” she said, pointing to the floor near his black-socked feet. “I have breakfast on the table. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

***

At nine a.m., dressed in his charcoal-grey suit, white dress-shirt and black tie, Hurts sat on the edge of the couch, tensely watching Williams’ press conference on the TV. Amanda sat beside him. Both of them were anxious and nervous.

In a conference room on the twentieth floor of Mr. Williams’ office, Mr. Williams stood at a podium stating that the crime that had been perpetrated against this organization had been done by three of his fellow board-members. He named them—Mr. Campball, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Graves—and stated that they, apparently, had fled the country.

“C’mon, Williams,” Hurts stated, anxiously, “get to it. Get to it.”

“… Mrs. Warner had no role in this…” Williams said.

“This is it, Amanda,” Hurts said, bursting with excitement. “This is it. C’mon, Williams. Say it. Say it.”

“… and I demand the immediate release of Mrs. Warner.”

“We did it, Amanda!” Hurts shouted, jumping up off of the couch. “We did it!”

“Woo-who!” Amanda shouted, jumping up and down on the floor.

“Go turn on that crap Christmas music and let’s dance,” Hurts said. Amanda did as she was told. With the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” playing on the radio, Hurts motioned for Amanda to get on top of his tattered, old, black dress-shoes. “We make one hell-heck of a good team, don’t we, Amanda?” Hurts said as they danced in place.
 
“We sure do, Mr. Hurts,” Amanda replied, holding on to Hurts and looking up at him.

They danced until Hurts was exhausted, which didn’t take all that much time for Hurts to become exhausted. A few minutes after sitting on the couch, Hurts turned to Amanda and said: “C’mon, Kid. Pack up your stuff. Let’s go get your mom.”

“Woo-who!” Amanda shouted, raising her arms and hands above her head.

****

Because Hurts’ topcoat was still wet, he wore only his suit. They arrived at police headquarters at five minutes to eleven o’clock. Being Saturday, Mr. Williams had to pressure the mayor to pressure a judge to come to the courthouse. By the time that was done and all the paperwork was completed, Mrs. Warner wasn’t released until four p.m. When Amanda was finally permitted to go to her mother, she ran to her, clung to her and never let go of her.
“C’mon,” Hurts said to Mrs. Warner, “I’ll drive you home.”

****

With Mrs. Warner in the front seat and Amanda holding on to her from behind the seat, Hurts pulled the car up in front of a modest, red-brick home with a two-step, cement porch with a roof. In the south front window, Hurts saw a Christmas tree filling up the parted drapes of that window.

“Thank you for all that you have done for Amanda and me, Mr. Hurts,” Mrs. Warner said. “It’s Christmas Eve, Mr. Hurts,” Mrs. Warner continued. “If you don’t have any plans, would you like to have supper with Amanda and me?”

“Oh, please, Mr. Hurts!” Amanda shouted, jumping up and down. “Please!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Warner,” Hurts replied. “You and Amanda have been through so much, I think you need some quiet time together.”

“Oooooh,” Amanda moaned.

“Send me your bill, Mr. Hurts,” Mrs. Warner then said. “That is one bill that I’m happy to pay.”

“There’s no charge,” Hurts replied. “Williams is taking care of that. Consider it my Christmas present to you and Amanda.”

“Christmas present!” Amanda shouted. “C’mon, Mom,” she shouted again, getting out of the car. She threw open the front door and began pulling at her mother’s hand. “C’mon, Mom,” she said as Amanda’s mother hurriedly unbuckled the seat belt. “Let’s get in the house.”

Before she left, Amanda pointed a gloved index-finger at Hurts and said: “Stay here, Mr. Hurts. Don’t leave until I come back.” She shut the door and Hurts watched as they raced up the steps of the porch hand-in-hand. Mrs. Warner removed keys from her purse, unlocked the front door, opened it and they disappeared inside.

Four minutes later, Amanda came running out of the house, carrying a package in both arms. The package was about two feet long and two feet wide. It was wrapped in blue paper with small Christmas trees on it. It had a red bow in the middle of it.

After Amanda got back into the car, she held out her arms and hands and said: “Merry Christmas, Mr. Hurts. This is for you.” Hurts took the package from her. “I had to tell Mom that I peeked at my Christmas presents again,” Amanda said. “Mom said that you wouldn’t like it, Mr. Hurts, and I know that you won’t. My hope is that whenever you look at it you will think of me.”

Standing up on the seat, Amanda rushed to Hurts. With the song “Silent Night” playing on the radio, she threw her arms and hands around his neck and kissed him on the right side of his face. “I love you, Mr. Hurts,” she whispered in his ear. “I’ll never forget you.” She turned around and bolted from the car, shutting the door behind her. Hurts stared straight ahead, seeing and hearing nothing.

It took Hurts a few minutes before he regained his composure. When he did, he set the present down and then looked back towards the house again. Amanda was standing on the porch. Mrs. Warner had her left arm and hand around the front of Amanda’s body. They waved goodbye to Hurts. He waved goodbye back at them. He shifted the car into Drive and drove away.

If Hurts had thought that he had had trouble keeping his composure parked in front of Amanda’s home, he lost it when he saw Amanda’s present back at the office. Standing in front of Tom’s desk, with the lights of the Christmas tree on, and with Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas” on the radio, Hurts picked up his pocketknife off of Tom’s desk and opened it. He inserted the tip of the blade at the top of the present and slit it down the middle to the opposite end. After he ripped the package opened and glazed inside of it, he laughed, hard. He laughed so hard that tears welled up in his eyes and then rolled down his aged cheeks.

“Oh, Amanda,” he said. “You were so right. What was your mother thinking? You would never like this. Not my Amanda. What was she thinking?”

Wearing a white-and-red dress, smiling from ear to ear, Amanda’s third present had been a large Raggedy-Ann doll. Yes, it had been Amanda’s third Christmas present, and now it was Hurts’ Christmas present. He would cherish it for the rest of his life.