Prayers of Agnes Sparrow (3 page)

“I’ll take good care of your children,” she said and sat down.

The chair reluctantly recognized Eugene Shrapnel, who tapped his cane on the floor.

“You got to do somethin’ about that mangy beast that's been tramping around town going on four years now,” he whined.

He was talking about Ivy's pooch. He made the same speech every meeting.

“That hideous hound keeps doing his smelly business in my rose garden.”

Boris shook his head. “We told you, Eugene, put a fence around your roses.” He turned his attention to Ivy. “And you keep that dog on a leash.”

“A leash?” Ivy took a breath. “I just couldn’t.”

“Then you got to fence him,” said Bill Tompkins from the committee. “It's the only way. You can’t let him loose all the time, Ivy.”

Boris banged his gavel. “I could get a court order, Ivy. Just save us all the trouble and keep your dog off the streets.”

“I’ll poison that stinking mutt,” Eugene said.

Ivy choked on her cider. “Do and I’ll poison you, you bloated old windbag.”

Boris brought the meeting to order before it went any further awry.

“Go see the police chief, Eugene. Get an order for the fence.”

The chief of police was new to Bright's Pond that year. She might have been all of twenty-five years old. Her name was Mildred Blessing, and for most of the men in town she was exactly that. Even in uniform it was easy to see that Mildred had truly been blessed in a Jane Russell sort of way—beauty, breasts, feminine brawn. She was one of my regulars at the
library, checking out hard-boiled detective stories and psychological thrillers. Mildred hoped for a real crime in Bright's Pond, but the most she got was dog poop and drunken teenagers.

An hour later we finally got to the real reason there was a record turnout for the meeting on such a snowy night. Studebaker Kowalski stood up.

“Mr. Chairman, members of the council, distinguished people of Bright's Pond.” Stu turned around and nodded to the crowd. “I move that a vote be taken to have our town sign changed to read: Welcome to Bright's Pond, Home of Agnes Sparrow.”

Spontaneous applause broke out and Boris pounded his gavel several times to bring the meeting back to order.

“Okay, okay, calm down. Now, I know we’re all proud of our Agnes Sparrow but I am obliged to ask if any one would like to present an argument.”

I swear I felt every single eyeball in the building lock on to me. My heart raced. I was never very good at public speaking. My hands went sweaty, and a chill wiggled down my back. But I shook it off and raised my hand.

Boris pointed his gavel at me. “The chair recognizes Griselda Sparrow.”

“My sister doesn’t want a sign with her name or her picture on it, so I move we table this petition. And she most certainly does not want a statue.”

I couldn’t believe the ruckus that broke out. I thought for sure an avalanche started rolling down Jack Frost it was so loud. Boris let the shouting go on for a few minutes during which time I heard more than a few people tell me that I was being selfish, that Agnes was famous and deserved the sign.

“Why, she's done more good than anyone for this town,” Janeen Sturgis said. “Without her prayers Frank and I would have … well we wouldn’t be together, I’ll tell you that.”

“That's right,” Studebaker shouted. “I’d be dead by now.” He turned to me. “Dead.”

“Abomination,” Eugene shouted. “This is an evil generation. They seek a sign; and there shall be no sign given it, but the sign of Jonah, the prophet.”

“But Agnes doesn’t want the sign,” I said as loudly as I could over the din.

“Abomination,” Eugene said.

Ivy Slocum shimmied to her feet. “Oh, hush up, you miserable, old man.”

“You’ll see,” Eugene said. “You’ll all see her for what she really is. One day … one day the sky will fall, mark my words.”

Boris pounded his gavel. “That's enough, Eugene. You said your piece; now sit down and be quiet.”

Eugene pointed his cane toward the door and left the hall.

“I move for a vote,” Stu shouted.

Boris banged his hammer one more time.

“You can’t call for a vote, Studebaker. Now sit down and be patient.”

I raised my hand.

“You got something else to say, Griselda?” Bill Tompkins asked.

“Yes.” I managed a smile even though I knew nothing short of the Rapture would change their minds. “Agnes said she isn’t against you changing the sign but she wants it to say Bright's Pond,
Soli Deo Gloria
.”

A hush, peppered with several words of amusement or confusion, fell over the crowd like a heavy, wet blanket.

“What in jumpin’ blue heck does that mean?” someone shouted.

“Sounds like some witch's spell,” said another.

“Witches? We don’t want no witches in our town.”

“Maybe Eugene is right,” shouted another, “if she's talkin’ in spells, maybe it's a curse.”

“It means,” I said as loudly as I could, “to God alone the glory.”

“I don’t get it,” Studebaker said.

“You saying we don’t believe in God?” shouted Frank Sturgis, Janeen's husband.

“Of course not,” I said. “Agnes doesn’t want the glory. It isn’t hers to have.”

Another three minutes of ruckus broke out as folks spewed nonsense about me not thinking they believed in God and bringing witchcraft to Bright's Pond. The whole thing gave me a headache. Feeling outnumbered I sat down.

Bill Tompkins asked to address the council.

“Maybe we should honor Agnes's wishes,” he said looking directly at me.

“Witches?” said Jasper York who was hard of hearing but would never admit to it. “What's with all the witches?”

“Wishes, Jasper,” I said leaning into him. “Agnes's wishes.”

Jasper rested on his three-footed walking cane. “Oh, in that case, I guess it's all right with me.”

But Bill's endorsement of Agnes's desires did little good as I only heard a few voices ring out in agreement with us.

Finally, after Boris regained control, I again urged we table the petition, but a vote was taken in spite of my protest.

A
gnes and I still lived at the Sparrow Funeral Home. Our parents died in a train wreck when I was seventeen and Agnes had just turned twenty-one. A few days after the funeral, while we were staying with our Aunt Lidy, Boris Lender, Pastor Spahr, and some of the others helped sell off our father's mortuary equipment and dispose of what they could. The women in town did their best to take the funeral parlor look out of our home by recovering chairs and replacing drapes. But, no matter, it still looked like a funeral home and smelled like it at times, especially during high humidity when odors from the embalming room seeped through the floorboards.

It was a large Queen Anne Victorian built in 1891, which meant we had miles of coursers and gingerbread, two turrets, and a wide wraparound porch with three hundred and fifty-one spindles. I counted them when I was seven. The entryway was two wide, dark green doors that opened out to accommodate a coffin. On hot summer days, guests arriving for a viewing would often sit on the porch, where my mother served sweet iced tea and cookies while they discussed the deceased and waited their turn to pay their respects. There
wasn’t any air-conditioning or even a fan inside. My father said a fan oscillating in the corner would have been undignified and could have mussed ladies’ hair.

A bronze sparrow perched on a twig with one leaf served as our doorbell. You turned it and chimes sounded all over the house. We always stopped what we were doing, whether it was mid-stride on the steps or buttoning a shirt, because the chime generally meant there had been a death in town. Now the chime most likely meant that someone with a prayer need had come looking for Agnes.

I stood at the door, shivering against the frosty air and touching the cold little sparrow. I wondered how to tell Agnes about the meeting.

She was still wide-awake when I went inside. I stamped the snow that had been falling all night off my boots and hung my coat on the rack. I shivered. Agnes had managed to change into a sleeveless baby blue nightgown while I was gone. The cold never seemed to bother her as much as me. She claimed it was because she had so much insulation.

“It's cold in here,” I said. I nudged the thermostat past seventy.

Arthur greeted me and wrapped his body around my legs with a loud purr. I reached down and picked him up. He was a former stray that used to come by the library. I started feeding him there, but one day decided to take him home.

“I prayed for the meeting,” Agnes said from her bed. We had moved her bed to the first floor, the old viewing room, because Agnes could no longer climb stairs. She was in a good spot, able to look out a large window and watch the comings and goings of Bright's Pond. We still called it the viewing room.

She not only prayed for the people who made a point to come by and ask for Agnes to deliver their requests to the
Almighty but also for anyone who walked past the house. Most of the time she knew the folks who went up and down our block, but every so often a stranger would wander by, usually a visitor from out of town. She prayed for him or her too.

“Did you tell them?” she called.

I dropped Arthur and sat on the sofa.

“Yes, I told them, but they passed the petition anyway.”

“How could they? I don’t want a sign with my name on it. It ain’t right, Griselda. They don’t know what they’re doing.” I saw a shudder rattle through her body. She took a labored breath as her cheeks turned red. “I told you to keep them from letting this happen.” Agnes reached for her jar of M&M's.

“A few people were in agreement with me and you, but we were outnumbered, if you can count Eugene as people.”

“So, I got no say.” She popped a few of the bright candies into her mouth.

I yawned and rubbed my right eye. “They mean well, Agnes. Most of them think you’re just being humble and once you see the sign—”

“No. You don’t understand.” She took a deep, rattly breath.

“Understand? Understand what?”

Agnes popped more M&Ms. “Look. It's just that, well, it’ll attract attention, Griselda.”

“It sure will. Folks will be coming here looking for you and asking for all sorts of miracles, you know.”

A vision of pilgrims lined up outside—some in wheelchairs, some on crutches, and some carrying children in their arms—flashed in front of me. For a second I saw our yard blanketed in burning candles, flowers, and other gifts for Fat Saint Agnes.

“That's the ticket,” I said. I threw my arms around my sister, “They never thought about the crowds that will come, crowds with all manner of illnesses and broken bones and troubles we can’t even think of making their way to see you. I should have told them that. I should—”

“Oh, Griselda. Do you think that’ll do it?”

“I bet it will. Why would they want all those people clogging up the town?”

“You go see Boris Lender first thing tomorrow.” Agnes's face and neck turned bright red, revealing tiny, white blotches on her skin. “Tell him what you said. I am certainly not a holy icon.” Then she closed her eyes. “Far from it.”

I thought a moment and caught myself biting my lower lip. “If it doesn’t, you could always stop praying.”

Agnes glared at me with her tiny eyes—the only part of her that didn’t grow larger as her body did. They were like two tiny, blue bulbs set in a round, pink face.

“Stop praying?” She used her littlest, little-girl voice. “I could never do that. The people … what about the people? I have to pray, Griselda.”

I hated to see Agnes so upset. She rarely let her emotions get the best of her, but when she did I would kiss her cheek and smile into her eyes and let her know I would be with her, no matter what.

I kissed her cheek. Agnes had a smell about her. For the most part, I had grown used to it. The only way I can describe it is that it reminded me of old marinara sauce. Tiredness had settled into my muscles even though it was only a little past nine-thirty. She grabbed my hand.

“I’ll keep praying for every soul the Lord puts on my heart or walks past my window and I’ll keep praying they forget about that silly old sign.” She labored a breath. “It's all about timing, Griselda. The fullness of time.”

Agnes's words swirled in my over-tired brain. God's timing always seemed out of sync with my own.

“Think I’ll make a cup of tea. Get you one, Agnes?”

“Sounds good.” Arthur curled up on Agnes's huge belly like it was a comfy bed.

I started into the kitchen when I remembered. “Shoot.” I turned around. “Your lemon squares. I forgot your lemon squares and fudge. I had a plate of treats for you, and I left them there.”

“Oh, gee, I was looking forward to Cora's lemon squares. But bring me something, maybe that peach pie. I still have some fudge from Frank's last visit.”

Agnes and I ate peach pie and drank tea while we watched the rest of
Ironside
and half of
The Dean Martin Show
. Then I hauled the trash cans out to the curb and went to bed.

M
orning came—chilly and silent. I looked out my bedroom window. The snow that had started falling the evening before had continued all night, leaving at least seven inches on the ground. Bright's Pond was Christmas-card pretty in her snowy best, particularly while it was untouched. The snow drifted in the night and piled mounds of it against the backyard shed and clumped it around the wrought-iron lawn furniture and tree trunks. There was something pure and sacred about snow that had been blown about by a cold wind.

We had a large yard that reached all the way back to Bright's Pond. My father enjoyed fishing there whenever he could. Sometimes he would catch a trout as long as his arm or a heavy striped bass that my mother would fry over an open fire outside, but mostly he snagged carp and tossed them back in.

I loved to watch him fish. He had a small, green boat that he paddled out to the middle of the water where he would cast his line and wait, demonstrating more patience for the fish than he ever did for me or Agnes or even our mother. Some of my best memories of my father are fishing memories—collecting gargantuan night crawlers with him after a rain, watching as he untangled hooks from his net and tied tiny shots of lead onto his line. Fishing was all the Holy Communion my father ever needed, although he always took the sacrament the first Sunday of every month; but fishing, fishing was when he felt closest to God.