by Joyce Magnin
I paused near the snack table and plucked a raspberry cookie from a tray with a white paper doily.
“All I know is that ever since that Hezekiah came to town things have been going from bad to worse around here,” Frank said. “And you got to admit that—”
I had heard enough and found my seat next to Studebaker Kowalski. Stu was wearing one of his better leisure suits—a pale blue one with a white and yellow striped shirt. “Now don’t you worry about a thing, Griselda, this is going to turn out just fine.”
“I’m sure it will, Stu.”
Boris reached his hand around Stu. I took it in a handshake. “Don’t you fret,” he said. “I won’t let Agnes down.”
Jasper York and Harriett had front row seats along with Tohilda Best, Sheila Spiney, and most of the ladies from the Society of Angelic Philanthropy. It wasn’t often they went to town meetings as a group. Most of the time they sat with their husbands or children.
Dot Handy, still in her crisp waitress uniform, appeared at the front and sat at the table with her trusty steno pad and pencils. She nodded to Boris.
Boris stood and approached the table. Ordinarily, the other council members would be on his left and his right but he ran the show solo that night. He banged his gavel and someone in the back flicked the lights off and on a couple of times. The crowd quieted down in record time.
Jasper York stood, in spite of the fact that Harriett was trying to keep him in his seat. “General, sir,” he said, “there is a spy in our midst, a double agent.” Then he looked straight at me and sat down. Folks snickered but it didn’t last long.
“Now we all know that a terrible tragedy has befallen our community,” Boris said.
“Because of that Agnes Sparrow,” shouted Janeen Sturgis. I would recognize her voice anywhere. “She invited that—that monster into our town, into our very lives and hearts.”
“That's right, that's right,” others shouted. “It's Agnes Sparrow's fault that Vidalia Whitaker was killed.”
I heard a few sobs and boo hoos from some of the ladies. Hazel even waved her hanky. “Poor, poor, Vidalia.” Then she blew her nose.
Boris brought the meeting to order. “Settle down. I won’t have any ruckus tonight. We’ll follow our ordinary rules of order. Those of you with something to say will raise your hands and wait until the chair recognizes you.”
“Recognize.” Jasper said, “I—I don’t recognize none of these soldiers, General. I seem to have lost my platoon.”
Harriett whispered in his ear, and he calmed down. But then she raised her hand and Boris indicated that she had the floor.
“One thing still confuses me. How come they burned her body to ashes and put it all into that little jar like it was nothing more than dust? The Bible says God is going to resurrect the dead first. I can’t see no ashes meeting Jesus in the air.”
“Jesus is here?” Jasper said. “Is he in a pie this time?”
“No, no, Jasper, Jesus in the air. In the air,” Boris said. He banged his gavel.
“Jesus is not here,” Harriet said. “Not tonight and there is no Jesus pie.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, General, I thought I heard someone mention Jesus pie.”
That was when Zeb made his way down the side of the hall and stood near me, his back against the wall while he chewed on fudge.
Sheila fielded Harriett's concern. “Don’t fret about how Jesus will resurrect bodies, dearie. God can certainly put all the ashes back in their proper order. I’m sure he's got them all numbered.”
Harriett looked incredulous. “I don’t see how. So much has gone up in smoke, sheer smoke. And I was so looking forward to being in glory with Vidalia. She was my best friend.”
Never had such a lie as that been floated during a town hall meeting. Harriett was never a big fan of Vidalia's. She could never get past the notion of having a black woman in town.
Stu stood and raised his hand like a schoolboy. “We are not here to discuss whether or not God can resurrect ashes or who was Vidalia's best friend. There are more pressing issues to tend too.”
Boris recognized Frank Sturgis.
“I demand we take that sign down,” Frank said. “We don’t need no more drifters coming to town looking for the powerful Agnes Sparrow.”
“Hear, hear,” echoed some others.
Boris stood and pulled the original sign petition out of his jacket pocket. “You all signed this. You all trusted Agnes. How can you let one mishap turn you against her?”
“Mishap,” shouted Dot Handy, even though she was not usually supposed to have an opinion. “That wasn’t no mishap. That was murder, and people who commit murder should be dealt with severely.”
By that time my blood boiled and started to run right out my ears. I stood and turned so I could face them.
“Agnes did not kill Vidalia,” I said, my voice shaking like an aspen tree. “Agnes didn’t know what Hezekiah Branch was capable of, and you have no right to say such things.”
Studebaker applauded along with a few others.
“Now take the sign down, if you want,” I said. “Agnes never wanted that sign to begin with. Now stop blaming her.”
“It could have been any of us,” Hazel shouted. “Or any of our children. As far as I’m concerned Agnes is as guilty as Hezekiah Branch.”
Whistles and applause went out over the crowd. I felt tears pool in my eyes and swiped them away. I willed myself not to break down and cry even though every cell in my body wanted to.
“What do you propose we do?” I said. “Put her in jail?”
“Can’t do that,” I heard a small, shrill voice in the back utter. “Ain’t no jail cell big enough.” Laughter drifted through the hall.
I could hardly believe what I was hearing. It seemed the clock had turned, and I was sitting among children again, the same children who taunted and teased Agnes nearly her whole childhood, right through her teen years, and beyond. These people had not changed.
Studebaker rose and shouted. “Hey! Agnes is our hero. Think about all the good she did. She saved my life and Cora's life—at least for a little longer and … and … “He looked out over the crowd. “I could point to just about every single person in this room, and you could tell me something that Agnes prayed for that touched your life for the good.”
“She healed my bleeding ulcer,” Ruth said. “It never came back.”
“And my car is still running strong.” I had to search the crowd to figure out who said that. It was a voice I didn’t recognize until my eyes rested on Sheila Spiney's brother, Rueben. He wasn’t quite right in the mind but harmless enough. Reuben only drove his beat-up old Rambler back and forth to his job at the meat-packing plant in Shoops.
“Please don’t do nothin’ to Agnes,” he said. “Or my car might not start in the morning.”
That was when the door swung open and Eugene Shrapnel made his entrance, dressed in black from his hat to his shoes.
“Look, Eugene's here,” someone shouted, and all heads turned to the back, to the miserable little corner were Eugene stood.
“Eugene was right. Agnes is a devil,” someone shouted.
A self-satisfied smile smeared across Eugene's disgusting face as he leaned on his cane. “I told you the sky was going to fall. I told you. I told you all.”
From where I stood it looked like his ugly nose had gotten even larger. He thrust his cane toward the ceiling. “Repent! Repent now, all of you. Resist the devil and she will flee.”
Eugene slinked down the side aisle as every eye watched. When he finally got to the front of the room, he stopped near me and spat on the floor. “Agnes Sparrow brought evil to this town just like I said she would.”
“Hey,” Dot Handy said. “You can’t go spitting on the town hall floor. Someone has to clean that up.”
Boris banged his gavel six times until the room quieted down.
Eugene continued to shake his cane over us like he was trying to dispel evil spirits. “Repent! Repent!”<
br />
Then Jasper York stood. I could see his legs wobble as Harriett took hold of his elbow.
“I got no more repenting to do. A man my age ain’t capable of too much more sinning, not like in my glory days on the front lines. But I will say this much. Agnes is not to blame. We all took a shine to that boy and none of us was able to see him for what he was.”
“Hear, hear,” Studebaker said.
Jasper sat down with a thud and a rock of his chair. For a second I thought he might topple back into Hazel Flatbush's lap.
Boris raised his hands and shushed everyone. “Now, before we move on to deciding exactly what we are going to do in light of this terrible tragedy, this severe problem, I got to ask if anyone else would like to speak.”
Tohilda Best moved to the front of the room and stood by Boris. She wore a pressed and tidy pink dress with white lace trim and a sweet spring hat for the occasion. “Now I can’t say for sure that Agnes Sparrow brought evil to this town. All I know is the man she befriended, the man she prayed for, killed our dear friend and neighbor, Vidalia Whitaker.”
She paused until more shouts and applause quieted down. Then she continued. “And to think that the Society of Angelic Philanthropy bought that man new shoes and socks. Well, that just fries my cookies. But we ladies of The Society took our own vote and decided that Agnes Sparrow should not be held accountable, although her reputation as a miracle worker should be expunged from any public record and no longer be tolerated.”
“Preach it, sister,” Jasper shouted.
“So we hereby agree that the Agnes Sparrow welcome sign should be removed—posthaste.”
I swallowed and looked at Tohilda. She didn’t look at me, and I had the nasty little thought never to let her have meetings in my library again.
Another hour slipped by as folks shouted and spoke about why or why not Agnes should be held accountable. By the end of the evening, after all the goodies had been eaten, the coffee pot drained to the last drop, and the older folks gone home to bed, it was decided that the sign would be taken down and replaced with the old one.
“Then it's decided,” Boris said. “We will also tell Filby Pruett to stop work immediately on the statue.”
“He’ll need to crush it,” Janeen said. “Turn it to dust—” She heaved a sigh. “—just like our dear, sweet Vidalia.”
Hazel cried into her hanky.
Zeb took my hand. “This will blow over one day.”
“I don’t care one single iota about the sign, Zeb. It's what they think about Agnes that has me so worried. She’ll die if people stop coming to her for prayer.”
Boris slammed his trusty gavel three more times and brought the meeting to a close. Folks filed out, still slinging complaints and barbs dipped in fear and venom at Agnes.
I walked back to Vidalia's with Ruth and Ivy. Ivy didn’t know I’d left Agnes.
“It's just for a little while,” I said. “I needed some peace and quiet to think on a few things.”
“What things?” she asked. “You ain’t thinking about siding with Eugene and the rest of them loudmouths?”
“No, no. It's not that.” I glanced at Ruth who was biting her tongue so hard I thought it would bleed. “I’ll go back—soon,” I said.
“I’ve been checking in on her,” Ruth said. “But Griselda is going to have a nurse see to Agnes if she stays away much longer.”
“I’ll be glad to help,” Ivy said.
“Thank you, Ivy,” I said. “If you could even stop in tonight, I’d appreciate it.”
Ruth said something I didn’t catch. “What did you say?”
“Oh, all right. I think you should go tell Agnes what happened at the meeting, that's all.”
Ivy grabbed Ruth's hand. “Let's both go. Griselda knows what she needs to do.”
I watched as they headed off together toward my house, and a thick sadness settled into my chest like a fog off the mountains. I should be the one going home. But I felt like a torn-up rag inside, and I was much too afraid of my own feelings to handle Agnes's.
When I got back to Vidalia's I tried to carry on as usual, but my thoughts continually turned to Agnes. Finally, I gave in. I packed my small bag, tucked Arthur under my arm, and headed home—on foot.
Along the way I paused now and again and let the fresh, spring air wrap around me. Studebaker was sitting on his porch swing, smoking a cigar. The smell mixed with the dewy air and tickled my nose.
“Griselda,” he called with a wave. “Come on up here.” I carted my stuff up on the porch.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am for what happened tonight. It's like a slap in the face, a slap in the face.”
I waved the acrid smoke away. He smiled. “Sorry, Griselda, but sometimes there just ain’t nothing like a fine cigar.”
“It's okay. I’m just not used to it.”
“Yeah, and I will never get used to people being so mean-spirited.”
“Fear makes people act in odd ways, Stu. They’re just afraid of another Hezekiah coming to town.”
“Oh, I can see that.” He blew a perfect smoke ring. “I can see that, but they still got no right to shun Agnes the way they have. It's like they forgot all the good she did. Like it doesn’t count anymore.”
I rubbed Arthur's neck. He kept his nose tilted toward the sky enjoying the crisp air.
“It counts Stu, it will always count.”
Stu stubbed the cigar out in a glass ashtray. “Where are you headed? I just noticed your bag.”
“I’m going home, Stu. I’ve left Agnes alone long enough.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. How come you left to begin with? I was thinking maybe you were feeling like the rest of the folks in town.”
There was no point in telling him about Clarence.
“I just needed a break.”
Stu nodded. I said good night and went home.
Arthur leapt from my arms and made a beeline for the backyard. He had his own business to tend to.
I pushed open the door. Ruth and Ivy were still with her.
“Griselda,” Ruth said, “I thought you were staying at Vidalia's again tonight. But I got to say I’m glad you came home.”
Ivy, who was standing as far from Agnes as she could without being too rude, looked daggers at me. “It's good you came back. Agnes needs you.”
“No, no,” Agnes said. “Don’t be mad at Griselda. She had a right to leave.”
Ivy took a step closer. “What right? What right does a sister have for leaving another sister in such—such obvious distress.”
“I am not in distress,” Agnes said. “I’ve just had a bit of trouble getting around and sometimes it's just easier to stay in bed.”
Ruth took hold of Ivy's hand. “Griselda's leaving has nothing to do with what happened to Vidalia—well, not directly anyway.”
I took off my coat and dropped my bag. “How are you, Agnes?”
She looked at me with those tiny eyes of hers that seemed to have gotten even smaller. “I’m glad you’re back. You are back?”
“I better get you changed and get some fresh sheets. Are you hungry?”
“Well, sure. Ruth and Ivy already told me about that Donnybrook Fair of a town meeting. I don’t care a lick about the sign, Griselda, and nothing they say or do will ever make me stop praying, so it's like nothing ever happened. They don’t know what they’re doing.”
I understood what she was trying to say, but the words still made me angry. Plenty had happened.
After Ruth and Ivy left, I helped Agnes out of bed and changed her sheets and the mattress pad. Then I gave her a sponge bath and got her into fresh underwear and a nice clean nightgown.
“Thank you, Griselda. I feel so much better.”
I nodded. “Are you hungry?”
Agnes and I ate cereal and some old ice cream.
“It isn’t terrible,” she said. “A little freezer burn, but chocolate is chocolate no matter what.”
“I’ll run to the Piggl
y Wiggly in the morning.”
30
Morning came quickly. I awoke to the sounds of Agnes coughing and gasping for air. I tossed my blanket off and hurried downstairs to her side. She was in the throes of another asthma attack.
“Agnes. Use your inhaler. Did you use your inhaler?”
She shook her head no.
“Here, use it. I’ll call Doc.”
She gave me no argument; Agnes was in real distress. She gasped and wheezed like an old train desperately trying to make it up a steep hill. Her hand shook as she lifted the tiny inhaler to her mouth and squeezed the canister. She took one sharp, deep inhale and let the vaporous drug remain in her mouth and lungs, and then she took another. I could almost see the medicine race to her bronchial passages as her breaths started to come more in wheezes than gasps. Perspiration dripped down her blushed cheeks.
I heard Doc's car land on the front lawn. He raced through the door lickety-split, still in his robe and slippers with his stethoscope swinging around his neck.
“Okay, Agnes, I’m here,” he called from the entryway. He dashed into the viewing room. “You both look in a panic. Now you know that's the worst thing for asthma.” He prepared an injection and shot it into her upper arm.
“Dang blubber, Agnes, it's gonna kill you.”
“Doc, bedside manner, remember?” I said.
“No time for that, Griselda.” He patted Agnes's hand and then listened with his stethoscope.
He fired up the nebulizer. “Too much stress. Too much. Between that sign and Vidalia and the dang fool town meeting, not to mention all that weight on your organs, Agnes, it just isn’t good. Just isn’t good for your heart or your lungs, not to mention what it's doing to your joints.”
Agnes's face went from fear to frustration. She shook her head with the plastic mask, covering her nose and mouth.
“Doc, take it easy,” I said.
He poked the ends of the stethoscope into his ears and listened to her chest. He closed his eyes and listened more deeply.
That was when he signaled that he wanted to speak with me on the side. We didn’t go far from Agnes, and both Doc and I kept one eye on her as we talked.
