Prayers of Agnes Sparrow

by Joyce Magnin

  “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.

  Morning 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.

  He used to say that preparing a body for burial was religious, but he could always hear God's voice a little clearer, a little louder, on the pond.

  I breathed deeply and closed my eyes for a second and sailed a silent, shaky prayer that God would grant us a good day and that the sign situation would get resolved. I prayed that Boris would understand, even though I knew Agnes had probably already prayed. The odd thing about living with an apparent miracle worker was the way it diminished my own prayers.

  Agnes was eager to get to the bathroom. Our father had a powder room for funeral guests installed off the back of the viewing room. It has since gone through some major reconstruction, including the addition of wide pocket doors and a reinforced toilet and toilet seat. Most of the time Agnes could make the short trip on her own, but in the mornings she often complained of feeling stiffer than an ironing board and she got winded easily.

  “Hurry, Griselda,” she said. “I got to go something fierce. Been holding it in for over an hour.”

  “You should have called me.”

  “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  I helped Agnes off her bed and twisted some of the material of her nightgown into a handle and led Agnes to the bathroom. Then I waited and counted to eighty-seven after I heard the toilet flush because that's how long it took Agnes to adjust herself.

  “How ’bout if you take me to the couch this morning?” she asked. “I need to get off that mattress.”

  “For a bit. I still need to open the library even though the weather will probably keep folks away until past noon. So I’ll need to get you back in bed before I leave.”

  “The plows came down an hour ago. Woke me up with all that scraping and grinding.”

  “I think I’ll walk today. Don’t feel much like digging out the truck. Sun's supposed to come out and warm it up a little … melt some of it.”

  “Coffee sounds good,” Agnes said. She dug herself into the sofa.

  “I’ll put a pot on and fix us some oatmeal.”

  “And a Danish. I love those cherry buns.”

  A few minutes later the smell of brewing coffee filled the house. That morning it reminded me of our mother. She always had coffee on, all day long, just in case.

  “You never know when someone will come by in need of Daddy's services,” she used to say. “Quite often they appreciate a cup of coffee, especially if they’re coming from a long night at Greenbrier.”

  Greenbrier was the nursing home not far from Bright's Pond. I often thought that one day Agnes would end up as a patient there when her breathing became too difficult and she needed constant oxygen, or when her heart would start to wear itself out. Doctor Flaherty said the day was coming. He did his best a few years ago to find a way for Agnes to lose all that weight, but nothing helped. No diet or exercise routine seemed to put a dent in the situation. I think Agnes liked her fatness, in spite of the pain it caused her.

  I stirred the oatmeal, and then I fed Arthur. He mewled a few times and circled my ankles in appreciation. He sauntered to the back door, arched his back, yawned, and telepathically ordered me to open the back door.

  “Not today, old man. The snow's deeper than you. You’ll just have to stay inside.”

  Agnes and I ate our breakfast as we always did, watching the morning news and jabbering about the day.

  “Ivy Slocum said she’d be coming by,” I said.

  “Her bursitis must be acting up.”

  “And I’ll go see Boris around lunch time. Figure he’ll be
at the Full Moon then.”

  “I hope they stop this silliness. Can’t I get a lawyer or something?”

  “Boris is the best lawyer in town.”

  “Maybe we can make them wait until I’m dead and buried.”

  “I’m sure Boris knows all the legal ins and outs. Let's try the other thing first, you know, about the crowds?”

  “Been thinking about that. Those men will probably just say it's good for business. Put Bright's Pond on the map, or some such nonsense.”

  I felt the wind blow right out of my sails. I hadn’t thought of that. I saw dollar signs light up above their mostly bald heads.

  “Well, it isn’t right,” I said. “If a woman doesn’t want a sign, she shouldn’t be forced to have a sign—no matter how much revenue it brings in.”

  Agnes kept eating her oatmeal that I had topped with brown sugar and raisins. I poured her a second cup of coffee to which she added cream. The skin that hung from her arms looked like freshly risen bread dough. It jiggled as she stirred, the spoon nearly lost in her fat hand. She tapped the side of the cup and took a breath. I could hear the wheeze in her chest clear over from where I sat across from her.

  “Maybe I should get the doc to take a listen,” I said.

  “I’m fine. Nothing he can or will do.”

  “Don’t let me leave without making sure you have a full inhaler.”

  “Worrywart.”

  “I’m not a worrywart, but someone has to look after you, Agnes.”

  “I got the good Lord looking after me.”

  I helped Agnes get settled in bed.

  “Don’t forget to open the curtains, Griselda. And would you hand me my notebook and pens?”

  It was the same routine every morning. “I know, Agnes.”

  “Don’t get snippy, Griselda. I was just asking.”

  “I’m not getting snippy. But do you really think I would forget to open the curtains and get you your notebook? Only been doing it every morning for how many years now?”

  “There was that one time,” she whined. “I sat here in the dark all day.”

  “You could have turned on a lamp.”

  I handed her a green spiral notebook. “Add anyone new, or still praying for the same people?”

  “I pray for them all, Griselda. You know that. Some prayers just take a little longer asking time. I don’t give up on noooooobody.” She pulled the word “no” like it was a piece of gum and somehow that made her commitment to the people all the more ironclad.

  “But Agnes—”

  “No buts, Griselda. I have my work to do. The Lord's work. The work he gave me.”

  Agnes traced a cross with her fat, sausage index finger over the book's cover. “All these folks in here depend on me.”

  I pulled the cord and opened the heavy green drapes that had been hanging in our window for more than a decade. They had faded at the top and looked something like the bad side of a watermelon. The sky was the color of an aluminum pot with a copper bottom as the sun rose. High, stringy clouds made their way across the eastern sky like pieces of torn lace caught on the wind.

  “Look at all that snow,” I said. “Must be seven inches out there.”

  Agnes handed me her breakfast tray. “Six inches. I heard the weather repor—”

  She tried to adjust her legs, and I saw the pain shoot from her toes to her eyes. I had gotten used to Agnes's pained expressions but could do precious little to alleviate the cause. Most of the time all I did was stand by and watch until she was able to arrange her massive body into a configuration that resembled comfortable—an ordeal that often left her breathless and reaching for her oxygen mask.

  “Help me.” She patted her left leg. “See if you can get this leg to bend.”

  I pushed up on her shin and heard her knee crack like it always did.

  “Now, scratch behind there just a bit, will you, Griselda?”

  My fingers sank into the thick folds of skin. I winced as a wave of nausea rippled through my body when I felt her sweat. “I got to go, Agnes.” I wiped my fingers on my jeans.

  “Don’t go saying I shouldn’t be praying.” She smiled at her rhyme. “You just remember who it was that prayed for Studebaker Kowalski and Jack Cooper and they got healed. Griselda, you remember that?”

  “Yes, Agnes, I remember. You prayed and Jack stopped running around town all naked and chasing dogs. Your prayers made him sane.”

  I grabbed my boots and sat on the sofa. “You might not have any visitations this morning. Folks will probably wait until after it melts a little.”

  “That's fine, Griselda. I got plenty in my books to—” She stopped talking.

  “What is it?” I asked. “You okay?”

  “Who is that?”

  “Who?”

  “Outside, rooting around in our trash cans.”

  I looked out the window and saw a strange man I had never seen in town. He was wearing a heavy, dark-blue pea coat and a woolen cap over his ears.

  “Never saw him before. Must be some drifter.” I pushed my glasses up on my nose.

  “Don’t get many of them.” Agnes craned her neck to get a better look. “He looks sad.”

  How she could tell that I didn’t know. “Well, if that sign goes up and word gets out about you, there’ll be plenty of drifters.”

  “I’ll pray for him.”

  “Suit yourself. Now I really got to get going and open the library.”

  I pulled on a boot and felt my foot sink into something soft and squishy.

  “Mouse.” I sighed. “Arthur left me another gift.”

  “He loves you.”

  I pulled it out by the tail. Arthur's gifts have included mice, moles, birds, and one time a pheasant's claw. I kept it on the mantle.

  I buttoned my coat and wrapped a long yellow and green scarf I knitted myself around my neck and pulled a red cap onto my head and headed out. The stranger was still standing near our cans. He flicked a cigarette butt into the street.

  “Hi,” he said as I walked closer.

  All of my instincts said to ignore him. “Hello.” I ignored the instincts instead.

  “Can you spare a quarter for a cup of Joe?”

  I reached into my pocket and happened to find a few coins.

  “There's a café on Filbert.”

  “Much obliged.” He looked at me through tired, yet piercing eyes. “I was looking for Agnes Sparrow. Do you know her?”

  4

  Now you might think I’m going to say something like I thought I got hit by a Mack truck when he mentioned Agnes, but I didn’t. As far as I can recollect, it's a bit of a blur. I stood there for a good ten or eleven seconds staring at him like he had just sprouted petunias out the top of his head. It didn’t immediately register that this stranger could have known my sister.

  I had to think fast and, in the time it takes to blink, I filtered through all the permutations of possible answers. My first thought was to lie and say no and then hurry away. But that wouldn’t have made him go away. Surely someone in town would tell him.

  “Agnes? How do you know Agnes?”

  The stranger replaced the lid on my trash can. “I heard she performs miracles.” He said it like he was talking about any old subject.

  My heart raced, and I smashed my glasses into the bridge of my nose, as was my habit when I felt uncomfortable. My sister's reputation was spreading.

  “How did you hear about Agnes? You’re not from Bright's Pond, are you?”

  He shoved his bare hands under his armpits. “No. I … I heard some folks talking down at the Piggy Wiggly Market, you know the big one in Shoops.” He tried to suppress a shiver. If looks meant anything, he didn’t look all that sinister. He was tall with what I thought must be either extremely short hair or a bald head. I couldn’t see a stray strand sneaking out of his cap anywhere. He had a long, ski-slope nose and a strong chin with two or three days worth of stubble.

  My curiosity heightened. Agnes's renown had spread bey
ond the borders of Bright's Pond. “Yeah, I know the one.”

  “Well, anyway—” the stranger pulled another cigarette butt from his coat pocket “—got a match?”

  “No.”

  He smiled like maybe he didn’t believe me. “No bother. I’ll save it for later.”

  My patience had run out. “Look, I need to get to work.”

  “Please. I need to see her.”

  “Agnes isn’t taking visitors today. Maybe you should head into Shoop's Borough. I think they have a Salvation Army there. You can get a bed and a meal.”

  He smirked and spit tobacco-stained spit on the white snow. “That's where I come from. Terrible place. Roaches as big as my index finger.” He raised one finger and wiggled it slightly. “Rather wander the streets than go back.”

  “Suit yourself.” I stepped onto the plowed street.

  “Wait a second … please.” He took a few steps toward me. “I really need to see her.”

  I turned around and waved. “Sorry, I can’t help you.”

  “But ain’t this the old Sparrow Funeral Home?”

  I stopped. My heart leapt into my throat, and I took a few steps back toward him.

  “How would you know that?”

  He found a match in another pocket and lit his cigarette by striking the tip with his thumbnail. He blew the gray smoke past my head.

  “I heard the folks at the market, remember? One of them said he thought it was weird that Agnes still lived at the funeral home, and you got to admit, this house sure looks like it's had more than a few bodies lying around. Creepy old place.”

  I had lost the battle. “Okay, listen. Just leave my sister alone this morning. You can come back tonight—after supper. I’ll see if she’ll talk to you then. Agnes isn’t a sideshow freak for people to gawk at, and she isn’t a vending machine handing out miracles to every drifter who happens by.”

  “I got nothing but respect for her, Ma’am. Nothing but respect if the stories I heard are true. It's just that I’m in need of some powerful prayers—powerful prayers.” He started to bounce up and down to shake off the cold. “When I heard those men talking about her I knew I had to see her. I knew that God Almighty put me in that market at that time and He sent me to find her, to find your sister, to claim my miracle.”