Grace in Autumn

by Lori Copeland

  “Ayuh.” Gribbon’s eyes scanned the display counter. Salt Gribbon, retired swordfish boat captain of the Salvatore 2, had long since lost the desire to prove anything to anyone. In his late-sixties, Birdie supposed, he lived alone in the lighthouse and still cut a vibrant figure—vibrant enough to make her hands tremble.

  Abner leaned across the counter. “What can I get you today? The Danish are nice and hot.”

  Gribbon’s eyes lifted and focused squarely on Birdie. “A loaf of rye and two dozen molasses cookies.”

  Excusing herself, Birdie stepped to the end of the display case, out of Abner’s way. Her heart did a silly flutter and she flushed. If a crusty old sea goat could do this to her, she needed to get out more.

  “A loaf of rye and two dozen molasses cookies coming right up.” Abner reached for a bag.

  With his gaze fixed on Birdie—she could feel it across the room—Gribbon inclined his head in her direction. “She can get it.”

  Birdie’s lips firmed when Bea shot her a narrow warning look. Lifting a brow to confirm she wasn’t about to get Salt Gribbon’s rye, she nodded curtly.

  Never mind that her cheeks were burning.

  “No trouble for me to grab the order.” Smiling, Abner sacked twenty-four saucer-size molasses cookies, adding three extra for good measure.

  The old sea captain’s eyes followed Birdie’s movements as she struggled to separate the paper doilies. Heat suffused her neck, and she toyed with the idea of cracking the window to cool things off a bit.

  “I want her to get the bread.”

  Apparently sensing an approaching clash, Vernie crowded closer to the counter. “I’ll take a dozen of those cherry Danish, Abner. And a half-dozen bear claws—they’re fresh, aren’t they?”

  Abner smiled. “All our pastry is fresh, Vernie.”

  Gribbon’s steely voice cut though the conversation. “I want Birdie Wester to get my bread.”

  Every eye swiveled back to the sea captain, who appeared to brace himself for an oncoming gale.

  Gribbon captured Birdie’s irritated gaze.

  “One loaf of rye,” he repeated.

  Silence hung over the room. Though she didn’t dare lower her eyes, Birdie knew Bea and Vernie were exchanging glances and probably wondering if it’d be wise to move toward the nearest exit.

  Gribbon stared at Birdie as if he were determined to win the contest of wills. She could stand here and stare all day, or she could give up and let him move on—

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, dropping the doilies on the tray. “One loaf of rye.” For one stubborn old goat.

  Moving toward the bread case, she removed a brown loaf and wrapped it in plastic, avoiding Bea’s aggravated look. “Anything else, Cap’n?”

  Vernie eyed the old captain with a stringent glance. “There’ve been some complaints about rock throwing from tourists visiting the lighthouse. You know anything about that?”

  Ignoring the question, Gribbon continued to stare at Birdie.

  “You’re going to have to stop throwing rocks, Cap’n.” Vernie picked up her order and dropped her money on the counter. “People will think there’s a bunch of heathens living around here.”

  A muscle moved at Gribbon’s jaw. “People need to stay away from my place.”

  “It’s not your place—it’s a historical monument owned by the city. Your job is to take care of it, not to scare people off.”

  Without so much as a ripple of concern, Gribbon calmly opened his coat buttons and pulled out a book. Melted snow dripped from his white beard as he handed it to Birdie.

  Birdie perused the title. “Curious George?”

  Gribbon nodded. “Bought it at Graham’s yard sale last month. Is it fittin’ reading?”

  “Ayuh. It’s a classic, excellent for children and adults, too.” Birdie thumbed through the pages, refreshing her memory. Curious George was an adorable little monkey, adopted by a man from the city and treated to all sorts of adventures …

  Nodding, Gribbon took the book from her hands and wedged it between his blue flannel shirt and pea coat. “Thought you might know, seeing how you’re a librarian.”

  Birdie felt her cheeks burn in a blush. “That was years ago, Cap’n, before I retired and bought the bakery. I have nothing to do with books anymore other than to enjoy hours of reading.”

  Apparently satisfied with the information, Gribbon picked up his bag of cookies and bread. Before leaving, he looked up, his eyes locking with Birdie’s. “You bake good bread.”

  Birdie clasped her hands to her cheeks in an effort to hide what had to be a pronounced flush. “You go on now, get along.”

  Surprisingly, he obeyed. Buttoning his coat, he turned and nodded. The front door closed behind him a moment later.

  Birdie stepped quickly aside when Bea butted between her and the counter, wielding a spray bottle and paper towels. Bea said nothing but made reproachful clucking sounds as she set about cleaning the counter. Bea had never had a kind word to say about the old skipper and frequently accused him of being a salty craw that gave the town a bad name. But Birdie found him fascinating. There had to be a book in that man’s life, a very interesting book.

  Vernie hustled to the door, opened it, and leaned out to shout, “No more rock throwing! I mean it! We can replace you.”

  “No, we can’t,” Birdie corrected under her breath. “No one wants to live at that Godforsaken point and stare at the sea all day.” Raising her voice, she called, “Shut the door, Vernie, you’re lettin’ all the heat out.”

  Vernie took her leave of the sisters, too, muttering something about selling rye bread on the Internet, and for a moment silence reigned in the bakery.

  But not for long. “I declare, Birdie.” Bea moved to the window and craned her neck. “That man’s got a crush on you.”

  Warmth flooded Birdie’s neck and pooled at the base of her throat. “Bea, you’re getting addled. Go on, now. Get away from the window.”

  Tight-lipped, Bea squirted cleaner on a windowpane, mumbling under her breath. Birdie could have sworn Bea was jealous, but she had no cause to be. Birdie had no designs on that man, none whatsoever. Their relationship, if she could be so bold as to call it that, was based on mutual respect and a sort of grudging admiration.

  “Why do you suppose he had that children’s book?” Bea asked, swiping at the glass. “A man his age, buying Curious George ? Who ever heard of such a thing?” She scrubbed a resistant fingerprint, squeak, squeak against the glass.

  Birdie shrugged. “Maybe he wants to read it.”

  “Read? Ha!” Squeak. “I bet he can’t read.”

  “He can, too!”

  “Can not.”

  “By the way, Bea,” Abner called from the baking area, “there’s another piece of mail waiting for you.”

  Bea rolled her eyes. “I have to go out again?”

  “It’s general delivery.”

  Straightening, Bea absently touched her hair as she moved away from the window. “I declare, there’s no rest for the weary.”

  Abner came forward, wiping his hands on his apron. “Captain Stroble overlooked a piece that must’ve fallen out of a mail tray. He dropped it off when he stopped in for coffee and doughnuts. Said he thought you might want to see to it right away.”

  Birdie had been about to arrange the freshly baked Danish on the display tray, but she glanced up at this news. “Could be important, Bea.”

  “Probably Publishers Clearing House wanting to know where to deliver my million dollars. Thank you, Abner.”

  Setting her cleaning bottle aside, Bea pulled her shawl from the front hook and hurried next door to the post office.

  Grateful for a moment in which to compose her thoughts about Salt Gribbon, Birdie went back to her work.

  A few minutes before noon, Bea wandered back into the bakery and held up a letter. “Would you look at this?”

  Setting aside a large pot she’d just washed, Birdie wiped her hands on her apron.
“Who’s the letter for?”

  A frown hovered between Bea’s brows. “An angel.”

  Birdie laughed. “Around here?”

  From where he was working in the pantry, Abner coughed.

  Bea held up a creased sheet of notebook paper. “Listen to this:

  Dear Angel,

  My name is Lewis, and I visited your island with my mommy and daddy this summer. I liked your houses and the pretty trees and plants that grow there. I like the saltwater taffy, too. It tastes good but pulled my front tooth out, but that’s OK. Mom said I was gonna lose it anyway.

  I can’t write very good yet, Angel, so Mom is writing this letter for me. I am very sick. I have something called leukemia and I have to take medicine that makes me very tired and makes all my hair fall out. I hope I will get better, but Mama says that is up to the Lord. Mama says the Lord is your boss. Could you please ask him to make me well?

  I would like to have a new bicycle for Christmas and if I don’t get well I won’t feel like riding it much. Mama says God can do all things. Is this true? If this is right, please ask God to make me well. I don’t like being tired and sick all the time. And while you’re talking to God, will you tell him I want a red bicycle, not a blue one? I have a blue truck and a blue tractor and a blue ball. I don’t want a blue bicycle.

  Thank you very much, Angel.

  Lewis Anthony Morris, five years old

  “Ah, the poor tyke,” Birdie murmured, her throat aching with regret. “Wonder what makes him think angels are living here?”

  “Heavenly Daze,” Abner supplied. Birdie turned in surprise. He must have come out of the pantry while Bea read the letter. Now his eyes were dark with concern. “The child associates the island with the Father.”

  “That, and the fact that the tour guides get a little carried away when they take people through Frenchman’s Folly—er, Fairest.” Birdie shook her head. “I’ve heard that they’re telling people that Jacques de Cuvier called down continual angelic protection for the town.”

  Bea blanched in astonishment. “Olympia lets them say that?”

  “Olympia,” Birdie lowered her voice, “will let them say anything as long as it makes Jacques de Cuvier look like a saint. Besides, the story adds a touch of color, and that’s what brings the tourists back again and again. You can’t knock local color.”

  Shaking her head, Bea folded the letter and slipped it back into its envelope. “Well, I’d like to answer this letter, but I can’t allow the boy to think an angel is writing to him. What would you do, Birdie?”

  Birdie waved her hand in confusion. “Why, I don’t know. I suppose I’d thank him for writing and tell him that our prayers are with him and his family … but that seems like so little.” She paused and looked at Abner. “I wonder how the post office handles letters sent to Santa Claus?” Birdie slanted a brow in Abner’s direction. “Have any ideas?”

  Abner shook his head and moved toward the counter where he’d been mixing up a batch of sugar cookies. “Considering the island’s name, I’m surprised there haven’t been more letters of the same nature. It doesn’t help that the tourist brochures call this a little bit of heaven on earth.”

  “If they stayed here a week, they’d know that isn’t true,” Bea said. She paused thoughtfully. “I suppose I could write and say I’m an angel assistant …” Frowning, she looked at Birdie, then Abner. “Would that be a lie?”

  Abner smiled as he poured sugar into his mixing bowl. “You are an angel’s assistant, Bea. Haven’t you heard?”

  “Right, and I’m Miss America, too.” Dismissing his lighthearted banter with a smile, Bea turned to Birdie. “I certainly can’t promise the child a red bicycle or good health, but I can promise to speak to the Lord about his problem.”

  Birdie nodded. “That would be nice, Bea. And assure the mother that lots of angel assistants on Heavenly Daze will be praying for her son.”

  Birdie felt a sense of rightness as she turned away and wiped the counter over the display case. In a way, all God’s children were assistants, so Bea’s answer to little Lewis’s letter seemed appropriate.

  Besides, autumn days were long and often uneventful, so praying for five-year-old Lewis Anthony Morris would give Bea something to do.

  What harm could come from it?

  Chapter Two

  Confined to his quarters for the rest of the afternoon, Georgie sat on his bed and bounced the mattress, enjoying the rhythm of the squeaking springs. Everything in their house made noise, especially when the wind blew strong off the ocean. The painted radiators beneath the windows hissed and sometimes clanged when the nights grew cold, and something in the walls moaned like an old man whenever Mom ran the water for his bath. He knew about old men and the sounds they made because he’d heard Mr. Edmund moan several times when he visited Frenchman’s Fairest with Tallulah. His mom didn’t moan, exactly, but she groaned a lot, especially when she sat at the kitchen table paying bills. His dad didn’t moan or groan but tended to grunt almost constantly when he typed on his book.

  Georgie didn’t know how grownups could sit still for as long as they did. He had a terrible hard time sitting still in church, and only a stern glance from his mom or dad could make him keep quiet until Pastor Wickam finished his long sermons.

  Bored with the mattress, he scanned his room for something else to do. His easel sat in the corner, near the window, and a half-finished painting of a puffin hung from the clip. He liked painting puffins. He had seen several of the funny little birds on the far side of the island when he went for a walk with his dad. They were sort of like penguins, but more colorful. Puffins were especially colorful in his paintings.

  The island puffins had black backs and white bellies, orange feet, and white faces. Their beaks were red, yellow, and blue-gray. Best of all, their beaks were flat—not side-to-side flat like a duck’s, but up-and-down flat, like a puffin’s. His dad said the bright colors of the beaks went away after the birds laid their eggs, so Georgie painted his birds with extra bright beaks so the color would never wear off.

  His mom didn’t care much for puffins. She said they were as silly as penguins, and some people were spending too much money trying to save silly birds when their neighbors were facing hard times. But Dad understood the puffins and told Georgie all about them. They weren’t penguins at all, he said, but from the auk family, whatever an auk was. Puffins could swim like a fish and fly like a bird, and they were the only birds who could actually fly underwater and catch fish.

  Best of all, Dad said, puffins had learned the value of community. They traveled together, lived together, and made their nests together, because a single puffin alone could never survive against the sea. But puffin colonies were strong because they had learned how to work as a team.

  Georgie slid off the bed and walked to his easel, then considered his color tray, a mismatched collection of watercolors and leftover oil paints from his father’s box. He could finish the picture … but Mom, who never threw anything away, already had a couple of his puffin paintings in a drawer. She even had one in the gallery.

  He had given it to her one night during the summer, hoping she could sell it and stop groaning about the bills. But she smiled when he suggested that someone might buy it. “Why, Georgie, I wouldn’t want to sell this puffin. It’s special.”

  Georgie looked away, a little baffled by his mother’s answer. “I can make more, Mom. I’m an artist.”

  “Like your father.” He heard a smile in her voice, though her lips had straightened.

  “Yeah.” He slipped his hands into his pockets and stepped back, feeling pleased with himself. “So sell it, and you’ll have money for the bills. Okay?”

  The picture now stood under a plastic sheet with a group of other framed paintings in the gallery. Georgie didn’t worry about it selling because he knew some pictures took time. After all, one of his father’s paintings had hung in the gallery ever since Georgie was a baby. Some paintings, his dad said, waited for years
until just the right person stopped by to buy them.

  But his puffin painting would sell soon, he knew it. After saying his prayers every night with his mom or dad, Georgie whispered a private prayer in the darkness—that God would soon sell his painting so Mom could stop groaning and looking worried.

  A clanging noise rose up from outside, breaking the snow-stillness of the afternoon. Georgie ran to the window and saw Zuriel by the garbage cans beside the house, wiping his hands on his apron.

  Zuriel wouldn’t mind if Georgie paid him a visit. Aside from Georgie’s parents, Zuriel was the best person on the island.

  Carefully creeping down the stairs, Georgie clung to the banister, remembering to avoid the last creaky step. His mom hadn’t actually said he was forbidden to leave his room, but she hadn’t exactly said he could go out to see Zuriel, either.

  Better to not bother her with asking.

  He peeked down the foyer hallway to be certain his mother wasn’t standing at the back door, then heard the slam of the desk drawer. She was still in the kitchen.

  Pulling his jacket from the peg rack by the front door, Georgie slipped his arms into the coat and made a face when his shirt sleeves bunched up at his elbows. He hated bunchy sleeves, but there was no time to start over. Quick as a cat, he escaped out the front door, remembering not to let it slam, then rounded the corner of the house, skirted his mother’s withered flower garden, and sprinted down the path to Zuriel’s place.

  The potter didn’t live in a house, exactly—the building had originally been designed for a horse and carriage. But since only the de Cuviers actually owned a horse and carriage (and they made Blaze live in the barn), most of the little houses behind the town’s big houses were used for apartments. Dr. Marc lived in the carriage house behind Frenchman’s Fairest, and a man called Elezar lived behind the mercantile. Though Georgie liked Elezar a lot, he liked Zuriel especially. The potter never fussed, never got in a hurry, and never, ever told Georgie to be quiet.

  He knocked three times because his mother told him he had to, then pushed the door open a crack. “Z?”

  “Come in, Georgie.”