Free Prayers of Agnes Sparrow by Joyce Magnin Page A

“I’ll see my own way out.”
    Hezekiah stood at the end of Agnes's bed and reached out his open hand. “I found these odd looking things in the basement. You got a whole box full of them. Look like some kind of weird screws.”
    “Eye caps.” She laughed. “They hold the deceased's eyes closed. Wouldn’t want them popping open during the viewing. That would scare the bejeebers out of a few mourners, don’t you think?”
    Hezekiah went white. “Makes me happy my daddy worked in the sewers. Least that's what my Mama said he did. I never knew for sure since my old man run—” He stopped talking and pocketed the eye caps. “So what's the hubbub with old Studebaker?”
    “Oh, he's talking about having that artist fellow make a statue of Agnes and put in front of the town hall.”
    “No kidding,” he said. “That's a little silly, don’t you think?”
    Agnes took a hard, raspy breath. “More than silly. Plain ridiculous.”
    Hezekiah reached his hands into his back pockets and looked out the window a second. “But you know, Agnes, you are the most important citizen here in Bright's Pond. Don’t all towns have statues of their most important citizens?”
    “But this is different.” I wanted to pull Hezekiah away and give him a piece of my mind, but I knew that would upset Agnes.
    “I’m not so important,” Agnes said in a whisper, “far from it, in fact.” She closed her eyes and settled back on her pillows. “How about a bowl of soup? Chicken noodle if you got it, Griselda, and a piece of that Full Moon pie.”
    “I could use a slice of that pie myself,” Hezekiah said following me into the kitchen. “Nothing like lemon meringue to take your mind off of eye caps and statues.”
    He stood by the cellar door. “I noticed you got a major problem brewing down there. Think you better take a look.”
    My brows wrinkled. “Problem? What are you talking about?”
    Hezekiah started down the steps. “Come on, and I’ll show you.”
    “I’ll just be a minute,” I called to Agnes. “Hezekiah wants to show me something in the basement.”
    “Near as I can figure,” he said, “it's under Agnes's bathroom.”
    “What is?”
    “That.” Hezekiah craned his neck back and pointed to the cellar ceiling which was not much more than large wide boards and pipes and electric lines. “She's sagging quite a bit. Probably from years and years of all that weight up there. It's a wonder her toilet ain’t crashed through by now.”
    I looked where Hezekiah pointed and noticed the sag right away. “It's dangerous then?”
    Hezekiah let go a chuckle. “You might say that, Griselda. That poor old floor has been supporting a lot of weight for a lot of years.”
    “Oh, my. I’m so glad you discovered it.”
    “And there's a crack along one of the joists.”
    “Joists?”
    “This thick beam here.”
    I sighed deeply. “Okay, what can we do?”
    “I’ll need help; probably Studebaker and Fred Haskell will volunteer. We’ll have to set lolly jacks and maybe sister them joists to make them hold better.”
    “Sister?”
    “That's right. Add extra wood to each side of the beam for support.”
    I smiled at the quaint and appropriate term.

7
    I sat in my truck with the engine running for a full hour that afternoon listening to the Rassie Harper talk radio show. If I parked Old Bess on top of Hector Street, facing west with the windshield wipers going, I could tune in to WQRT out of Jack Frost. Never did figure out what the wipers had to do with the price of jellybeans in Japan, but for some odd reason the talk station came in louder when I had them on low.
    While Rassie spouted on about Vietnam and President Nixon and how much he hated both of them, all I could think about was a huge billboard with my sister's fat face lighting up the road to Bright's Pond and a giant stone statue in front of the town hall. The thought gave me the willies.
    I never gave a lick for politics and had actually tuned in to catch Vera