Grace in Autumn

by Lori Copeland

  Georgie felt a warm flush steal over him as he closed the door and walked into the open space that served as Zuriel’s kitchen, workroom, and living room. Z sat at his potter’s wheel, his hands shiny and gray with water and mud. A large mound of wet clay sat on the spinning circular wheel, but Zuriel had not yet begun to pull it. His hands moved slowly over the mound, smoothing and patting.

  Georgie tucked his hands into his pockets, trying to keep them still and out of sight. There were lots of breakable things in Zuriel’s workshop. Bowls and vases and teapots crowded together on the shelves along the walls, and he knew the pieces of pottery would eventually be sold in his parents’ gallery. Georgie didn’t know much about pottery, but he knew enough about numbers to understand that Zuriel’s pieces helped his mom and dad make a living.

  Georgie stared at the clay lump. “Gonna make something today?”

  “Maybe.” Zuriel’s hands never stopped moving over the clay. “I have to see if this clay is ready to be pulled. I need to discover what kind of mood it’s in.”

  Georgie grunted as he sat on a stool near the wheel. “My mom’s in a mood—a bad one. Miss Olympia got mad at me and Tallulah for playing ball near the tomato patch. And then Mom got mad. But I think she’s really mad at the bills. She keeps groaning and mumbling in the kitchen.”

  Zuriel made a soft sound of understanding, then picked up his sponge with one hand and dipped it into a bucket of clean water. As he squeezed it and dribbled water over the spinning clay, he asked, “Do you think she’s worried?”

  Georgie shrugged. “I don’t know. But I know she doesn’t need to be. I gave her a painting of puffins, the bestest painting I ever did painted. When it sells, she’ll have money. And then she can stop making faces at the bills.”

  Zuriel looked up, and for an instant his hands stopped moving. “You painted something for her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why, Georgie.” A slow, shining smile blossomed out of Zuriel’s shaggy brown beard. “I think that’s quite gallant. Some nice gesture. I’m proud of you.”

  The warm rush returned, and Georgie shifted awkwardly under the weight of praise. “It hasn’t sold, though,” he said, looking down at the floor. “Nobody comes to the shop in the winter. So I don’t know how God is going to answer my prayer.”

  “You asked the Lord for help with this?”

  Georgie looked up. “I asked God to sell my painting.”

  Zuriel cocked a brow. “Prayers uttered in simple faith are always answered, Georgie. But sometimes the heavenly Father takes time to work his will. You must be patient.”

  “I’ll try.” Georgie tightened his hands into fists and resisted the urge to put his own palms on the wet clay. Zuriel made the work look easy, but his mother said Z had a special gift and they should thank God he had agreed to exchange pottery for his room and board.

  “Georgie!” His mother’s voice echoed from the house. “Get back in here!”

  Georgie looked up at Zuriel. “Uh-oh.”

  The potter smiled. “Busted?”

  “I gotta go.” Georgie slid from the stool and moved toward the door, then took a moment to run his finger over the shiny smooth surface of a teapot on a shelf. The piece was new, he thought—at least he’d never seen another like it. It looked like a little blowfish, with a spouty nose and a handle where the tail fins should be. It would sell. The people who visited his parents’ shop loved to buy things that looked like puffins and fish and lobsters.

  “Cool,” he said, safely returning his hand to his side.

  “Thanks,” Zuriel called just before Georgie closed the door.

  After the boy had gone, Zuriel sat in silence, his hands applying even, consistent pressure to the clay as his thoughts centered around Babette and Charles Graham.

  When the Grahams moved to the island years ago, he had been delighted to discover that his latest charges planned to open an art gallery. Along with the qualities of emotion, intelligence, knowledge, and will belonging to all angels, Zuriel possessed a particular passion for the beauty of the creative arts. He had rejoiced to discover that God would allow him to use his gifts to aid humans with a similar mind-set.

  Charles possessed a sensitive soul and a discerning eye, and while Babette had not been gifted with artistic ability, she had been given organizational skills and a sharp intellect. She ran the business and took care of Georgie while Charles carted his paints and easel all over the island in summer. In the winter, Charles typed.

  Zuriel sighed as the leathery clay began to soften under his fingertips. Charles’s gift did not extend to the written word, but the man had not yet discovered that painful truth. Zuriel bit his lip. His task was to do whatever God commanded, but he sincerely hoped the Lord’s plan did not include a situation where he would have to burst Charles Graham’s bubble.

  Young Georgie, on the other hand, never failed to delight. Living in youthful innocence and sweet faith, the boy was still as tender as he had been on the day he entered the world. But he was five years old, and nearly capable of understanding that his home, this island, and this world were but a part of creation. He was almost mature enough to choose or reject the One who had created him.

  Flipping the switch at the side of the table, Zuriel stopped the spinning wheel and pressed a fingertip into the clay. This lump finally felt right—ready for working. Unlike most professional potters, Zuriel did not use prepared de-aired clay. He took clay from the ground where God had placed it, mixing gummy clays with tough clays as necessary in order to get the best clay body for throwing on his wheel. This clay, dark with the impurities that would give it strength and color, would soon become a solid piece of stoneware.

  He flipped the power switch again and leaned forward, his hands pushing firmly against the clay, centering the lump as it took on the shape of the space between his fingers. As he centered the piece, he moved his hands slowly and smoothly, remoistened them in the bucket, then lowered his hands onto the clay again. As always, he was surprised by how much pressure the clay required in order to center itself—just as God often had to use pressure to keep his people in the center of his will.

  Zuriel closed his eyes, blocking out the sights and sounds of the ticking cuckoo clock, the humming refrigerator against the side wall, the sweet strains of Sinatra on the radio. He felt nothing but the clay, centering it and himself in one motion, moving his hands gradually up and down, feeling himself perfectly in the center of the will of God.

  When the clay was perfectly centered, he lifted his hands entirely and looked down at the clay. The dark lump spun easily in the midpoint of the wheel, without wobbling, a perfect beehive ready to be shaped.

  If only his humans were as malleable.

  After firmly returning Georgie to his room with a sandwich and a juice box, Babette returned to the kitchen and wearily regarded the bucket of melted snow behind her chair. Too bad she couldn’t bottle it and sell it on the Internet—maybe a few folks in Florida could be persuaded to buy genuine melted Maine snow … or maybe not. That moneymaking idea seemed about as reasonable as all the others she’d dredged up in the past hour.

  She heard a creak from her front porch—the wind lifting the rusty lid of the mailbox. She hadn’t yet checked the mail.

  In no hurry for bad news, Babette trudged through the foyer, then stepped out into the cold. The aged mailbox (which she kept because now it was considered shabby chic) contained a letter from Handyman Roofing, three solicitations for new and improved credit cards (which she’d have to hide from Charles), and one Victoria’s Secret catalog (which she’d have to hide from Georgie).

  She grimaced as she tucked the Victoria’s Secret catalog under her arm. Though she tried her best to keep her son safe and sheltered, the child was all boy. Last year they’d taken him to the Fogg Art Museum in Boston, and Georgie had all but gaped at the paintings of nudes. She’d breathed a sigh of relief when they sat in an open courtyard to have lunch, but Georgie wandered over to the fountain, w
here she found him studying an anatomically correct statue of Venus, goddess of love.

  The art world was rife with child-rearing hazards.

  She tore open the letter as soon as she reentered the house. This bid, bless Handyman’s heart, was lower than all the others. For only $9,900.00, Handyman would give them a new roof and a five-year guarantee.

  Sinking onto the deacon’s bench beside the door, she considered the letter in the harsh light of reality. She finally had a low bid—but she still had an empty savings account. She felt empty, too. Worry, budgets, and penny-pinching had left her feeling drained. She couldn’t go on without help.

  Click, click, clickity-clack.

  She lifted her gaze toward the stairs. Why was she carrying this burden alone? Wasn’t the husband supposed to be the leader and supporter of the family? Stuffing the letter from Handyman back into the torn envelope, she straightened her shoulders and stood. The time had come for Charles to lift the burden from her back.

  With her chin held high, she climbed the stairs. Charles sat before the typewriter in the spare bedroom, scowling at the printed page. As the floor creaked at her approach, he bent lower, as if to shield his precious paper from prying eyes.

  “Charles,” she began, not caring about his penchant for privacy, “we need to talk about the roof.”

  He pecked out another string of letters. “What roof?”

  “The roof on this house. The one that leaks.”

  Charles hesitated, his fingers frozen over the keys, then swiveled his head to look at her. “You got bids, didn’t you?”

  “Ayuh.”

  His mouth pursed up in a small rosette, then unpuckered enough to ask, “And?”

  “Fifteen thousand, twelve thousand, and ninety-nine hundred.”

  He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight in what appeared to be a colossal effort, then lifted his lids. “So what’s the problem? Take the lowest bid.”

  Babette threw him a black look, but Charles had already turned back to his manuscript and placed his fingers on the keys.

  “The problem,” she said, taking pains to keep her voice low, “is that we don’t have ninety-nine hundred dollars. We don’t have one hundred extra dollars. With the high cost of gas this year, we’ll be lucky if we can make it through the winter without maxxing out the credit card.”

  Charles’s fingers kept hovering over the keys, but his head turned toward her again. “I’m not worried, honey. My book’s still out there, and it’s going to sell any day now.”

  She forced the words out. “And if it doesn’t?”

  Charles’s shoulder lifted in a half-shrug. “You’ll think of something. You always do.”

  Click, clack, clickity clack. His fingers moved over the keyboard. Already he had shut her out.

  Babette swallowed hard and wrapped her arms about herself, feeling suddenly chilly. She had no answers, not this time. With winter approaching and the ferry running only three times a day, very few off-islanders even visited Heavenly Daze. The few who came might want to enjoy the bed-and-breakfast or sample saltwater taffy from the mercantile, but with Christmas approaching, nobody would have money to spend on big-ticket art items from the Graham Gallery. They might sell a few pieces of Z’s pottery, but those would barely cover the expense of heating the large showroom.

  Gripping the Handyman Roofing envelope in her fist, Babette turned and left Charles alone, then walked slowly down the stairs. She wondered if anyone on the island knew about their money problems—after all, the Graham Gallery did not sell knickknacks or tourist trinkets. Their living-room-turned-showroom was well-stocked with paintings worth thousands. Even some of Zuriel’s pottery pieces sold for over one hundred dollars. But most people didn’t know that everything but Z’s pottery and Charles’s paintings were being sold on a consignment basis. When and if they were purchased, 60 percent of the money went directly to the artist. The remaining 40 percent went into the Graham Gallery business account to pay Babette’s meager salary and provide a roof over their heads.

  A roof that leaked.

  Sighing, she dropped the letter from Handyman atop the stack of bills on her kitchen desk. Apart from taking out a loan—which she doubted they could get, much less pay off—she could do nothing but wait for spring and the few tourists who’d return and spend their discretionary income on a piece of art that would remind them of the idyllic weekend they’d spent on a Maine island.

  She sank into her chair and stared out the window. The snow had stopped, and the steady plinking sound of the water had slowed. But she dared not move the bucket. If temperatures warmed, it could rain in an instant. Weather on the island could be fickle.

  Crossing her arms, she leaned her head against the back of her tall chair and groaned. They could, of course, move to Portland or Boston. In an urban location they could turn the gallery into a twelve-month business and make money year round … but Georgie would have to live in the city. And the quality she appreciated most about Heavenly Daze was the small town sense of community. Here, Georgie was growing up among people who prized and petted him. As far as she knew there were no guns on Heavenly Daze, no violence, and no crime apart from the occasional trouble that came over with the tourists. This island was as near as she’d come to finding heaven on earth, and she didn’t want to take Georgie away.

  It’d be easier to buy more buckets.

  Charles stopped typing nonsense and waited for the familiar sound of Babette groaning at her desk, then breathed a sigh of relief. Babette was a good woman and a great wife, but when she got in a mood …

  He shook his head and stared at the confused page before him. He’d been in the middle of a scene when she interrupted, and now he couldn’t think of anything but the leaky roof. What did she expect him to do about it? He knew nothing about roofing and would probably break his neck if he climbed up on the eaves and started ripping off shingles. His father had never been much of a handyman, and on the few occasions Charles had picked up a hammer, he’d routinely hit his thumb or injured some other part of his body.

  Babette knew he wasn’t handy, and she knew he didn’t care a thing about accounting. Early on they’d agreed that she’d keep the books, and in the ten years of their marriage, she’d done a marvelous job of keeping their family and business solvent.

  So why was she coming to him about their finances now? Sometimes he felt as though she wanted him to suddenly become the family executive, lawyer, and banker all rolled into one, but when she married him she knew he was none of those things. He was an artist, a dreamer, and a painter … and at the moment a very frustrated wordsmith.

  He reread the first paragraph on the page:

  “Devon,” she whispered softly, her heart thudding like the bass drum that used to hurt her ears in high school band class, “I wanted to see you.”

  Devon stared at her, his mouth going dry and his palms in need of a good swipe of antiperspirant. Wowsers, she was beautiful. She was passion and flowers and music and moonlight and magic and magnolias all rolled into a great big sticky gumball of loveliness. He needed her. He wanted her. But she must never know it.

  “So see me,” he answered dryly, his voice grating like nails over a chalkboard. “I’m here. I’ve always been here.”

  Akgyueiotywieotiutlgkshg

  Charles blew out his cheeks, then ripped the page out of the typewriter, wadded it, and tossed it over his shoulder. Even with the gobbledygook he’d typed when Babette came in, he knew it wasn’t working.

  “Not compelling,” he muttered. “Plodding. Tired and full of purple prose.” Those words had become a jingle that echoed in his brain, a singsong chorus he couldn’t wipe from his consciousness. The rejection slips he had received from his first book all contained some variation of those lyrics.

  From a New York agent: “Not compelling. Keep your day job.”

  From Harbor House, home of bestselling author Stellar Cross: “Plodding and ill-paced. Needs revision.”

  From The Writer�
��s Ink, a manuscript evaluation service: “Tired and redundant, but shows signs of promise. For $999, we’ll make suggestions for improvement.”

  From Oprah’s Book Club: no response.

  But he had not given up hope, hadn’t given in to the temptation to quit, hadn’t moped or moaned or pouted. He’d merely outlined his second novel and begun to write again, holding out hope that those who still had his first manuscript would recognize fledgling genius when they saw it. Until they did, he would remain hard at work, polishing and perfecting and persevering at his task.

  Let the roof leak. Someday, when he had made the New York Times bestseller list, he’d tell the story of how he suffered in his writing room … and laugh.

  Later that afternoon, Birdie looked up from her accounting and saw that Abner was preparing to close the bakery. The devoted employee finished his baking by late morning, and early afternoon business usually slowed to a trickle—nothing Birdie couldn’t handle if anyone happened to stop by for a cookie or an after-dinner dessert.

  “If there’s nothing else, Birdie, I’ll be going.” Abner appeared in the doorway, bundled up for the brief walk to the carriage house at the back of Birdie’s lot. Though it would have been far simpler—and warmer—for him to walk through the house, he insisted that Bea and Birdie deserved their privacy. Also, he once confessed, the exercise did him good. (The poor man had developed a noticeable paunch—the result of sampling too many of his own delicious concoctions.)

  Birdie often wondered what he did with his free time. She knew the carriage house was warm and comfortable. She’d furnished it herself with a soft bed, a small black-and-white television, a table, chair, and lamp. During summer months, when everyone on the island raised their windows to catch the sea breeze, she often heard him laughing at reruns of Happy Days and Little House on the Prairie . Six days a week his lights were out by 9 PM, and he was back in the bakery by 4 AM, baking again. By six o’clock, the first of the hot doughnuts, thick with shiny glaze, lay on cooling racks. Elezar and Zuriel would arrive, their noses red from the brisk, early morning walk, and the three men would sit around a table to enjoy cups of steaming coffee and fresh, just-baked doughnuts.