Grace in Autumn Read online

  When Babette met the third roofer, she managed to casually mention that she and her husband had inherited the house—and they were supporting an active five-year-old who would almost certainly need braces in a few years. As he left, she apologized for not offering him a cup of hot tea. She was out of sugar, she had said, and with sugar prices at the mercantile being what they were …

  She frowned at the fellow’s business card. Maybe she had overplayed the sugar thing. Maybe he wouldn’t get back to her at all. Maybe none of her conniving mattered. Even if the last guy came back with a bid of two thousand dollars, that would require two thousand dollars they didn’t have.

  Plink.

  Click, click, click, zing!

  She glanced toward the staircase, then bit her lip. The clicking sounds came from Charles’s manual typewriter, so apparently he had finished priming his creative pump and was ready to continue his work on the Great American Masterpiece II. He had finished his first GAM last winter, and that ponderous tome was still making the rounds of New York publishing houses—or so Charles hoped. Last April he’d sent it out to a dozen publishers, a handful of agents, and his favorite novelist, Stellar Cross. At last count, replies from two publishers, an agent, and Mr. Cross were still pending.

  Babette never asked what the rejection letters said. But from the expression on Charles’s face, she knew the news wasn’t good.

  Plink, plunk!

  Click, click, clickity, click.

  At least the house was musical. Shaking her head, Babette poured hot water into a mug, dropped in a tea bag from the canister, then crossed her arms, letting the fragrant tea steep.

  The house actually seemed quiet at times like these when Georgie was at kindergarten. He attended the Kennebunk Kid Kare Center, run by Dana Klackenbush, and was Dana’s only student in the off-season. Because Dana’s schedule was relaxed, Babette never quite knew when her son would burst through the door and noisily announce his return.

  She moved to the desk with her tea, then picked up her pen and studied the bill at the top of the heap. Coastal Gas wanted $300 this month, and she’d only budgeted $275. That meant she’d have to siphon twenty-five dollars from another account, probably clothing, if they were to make it through the winter. Of course … her gaze fell upon the envelope stamped Heavenly Daze Community Church. Since the beginning of their marriage, she and Charles had made tithing a regular practice, giving the first 10 percent of their income to support their church. She could hold back the tithe check to avoid dipping into her clothing account …

  Plunk, plink!

  … but the church had to pay Coastal Gas, too. And wouldn’t that be like doubting that God would provide? She’d heard too many sermons about God blessing those who obediently gave the first tenth of their income to hedge on tithing now. And in the entire ten years of their marriage, though they’d often been broke, they had never gone without food, clothing, or a roof over their heads. God had been faithful.

  Click, clickity-click, click, click, zing.

  Charles’s typing picked up as Babette pulled out the checkbook. She wished he’d try to write something salable like articles or news features, but he seemed set on toppling Stellar Cross from the bestseller lists. She’d hinted that he should paint in the winter, for his popular seascapes always sold for a nice profit, but Charles insisted that summer was for painting and winter for writing. She’d muttered that he ought to invest as much energy into caring for the house and the business providing a roof over their heads, but he pointed out that organization was her gift, not his, and he produced enough during the tourist season to deserve a break during the winter months.

  She found herself unhappily dissatisfied as she wrote out the gas check. She loved her husband, truly she did, but living with an artistic personality could drive a woman crazy. Charles didn’t exactly howl at the moon, but his occasional fits of melancholy and his live-and-let-live philosophy often forced her to shoulder the burdens of budget and child rearing and … roofing.

  Plink.

  Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip.

  She grimaced at the sound of paper being torn from the typewriter. If she were to climb the stairs and enter the spare bedroom, she knew she’d find Charles surrounded by crumpled wads of typing paper, a few reference books, and at least six Stellar Cross novels, all standing upright with the glossy author photos facing Charles at his typewriter. “For inspiration,” he had told her when she first noticed this odd arrangement. “Stellar and I are kindred spirits. With his help and support, I’m going to make it.”

  Babette had wisely refrained from pointing out that Stellar Cross had never written or spoken to Charles … and she had also bitten her tongue when Charles insisted on sending a copy of his first manuscript to the bestselling novelist.

  “Five pounds of paper wasted,” she muttered, ripping the Coastal Gas check from the checkbook. “Cross won’t read it. He probably won’t even open it.”

  Charles, of course, couldn’t see the impudence in his action. He never minded taking chances in his art—he painted big paintings, he wrote big books, and he dreamed big dreams.

  If only he didn’t want to spend big bucks.

  Just last night he’d been hinting that they could use a computer. “Just think of all we could do with it,” he’d said, bringing a computer magazine to bed—not her idea of romantic bedtime reading. “You could advertise my paintings online. You could set up an auction page for the gallery. And Georgie could use the Internet for research—”

  “Georgie is five years old!”

  “Age doesn’t matter.” Charles propped his elbow on his pillow, then settled his head on his hand as he waved the magazine before her bored gaze. “You can find anything on the Web. Art supplies, books, recipes, information—”

  “If I need the Internet, I can always go down to the mercantile.” Babette crossed her arms and glared at him. “Vernie said I could use her computer anytime, so we don’t need one.”

  “I could write faster on a computer.” Charles’s voice took on a dreamy tone, and his heavily-lashed eyes went soft. “I could write better. I could sell my book more easily, maybe even e-publish it.”

  “I don’t want to hear a list of coulds,” Babette answered, her patience evaporating. “I need to hear wills. I will write faster; I will sell my book. We need to survive the winter, Charles, and we don’t have money to waste on luxury electronics. So unless you can come up with a surefire moneymaker, you can forget the computer.”

  After that pronouncement she had turned over and closed her eyes, a little ashamed of how harshly she’d spoken to him. Charles was a wonderful husband and father— a little too preoccupied sometimes to be practical, but he’d never said a harsh word to her or Georgie.

  She had apologized the next morning but couldn’t resist following up her confession with a warning: “We only cleared enough to make it through the winter, Charles. We can’t be spending money on extras. There is no financial safety cushion this year.”

  Plunk.

  No cushion even for a new roof.

  A sudden clattering at the front porch interrupted Babette’s musings. She rose and hurried through the hallway, then caught a glimpse of Olympia de Cuvier’s mounded hair through the window in the door. Olympia, owner and resident of the town’s stateliest house, Frenchman’s Fairest, stood on the porch, her hand firmly wrapped around Georgie’s upper arm.

  Was the child out of school already?

  Bracing herself for the inevitable, Babette opened the door and forced a smile. “Olympia! I didn’t expect to see you out in the snow—”

  “I wouldn’t be out in the weather if not for this young hooligan,” Olympia interrupted, jabbing a finger into Georgie’s puffy blue jacket. “Caught him about to throw a ball into Annie’s garden. We can’t have that, you know.”

  Olympia’s bony, sharply-angled face wore the remnant of a flush. “Annie would be absolutely devastated if she came home to find her tomatoes injured. The good Lord knows we
’ve had enough troubles with that tomato patch.”

  Babette reached out and pulled her son away from the older woman’s stabbing finger. Everyone on the island knew that Olympia and her niece, Annie, had squabbled on account of Annie’s experimental tomatoes, and the truce they’d declared was fragile at best. No one would have dared harm those spindly plants, for they were the reason Annie came home every weekend to visit Frenchman’s Fairest.

  “I’m sure Georgie didn’t intend to hurt the tomatoes, Olympia.” Babette’s tone strengthened as she looked down at her son. “Did you, Georgie?”

  “No, Mom.” His face was a picture of innocence. “I was playing ball with Tallulah. I threw the ball; she brought it back. I threw it again, and she brought it back. I was about to throw it again—”

  Babette clapped her hand over his mouth. “I get the picture.” Shifting her gaze to her angry neighbor, she softened her tone. Olympia had been cut of stern and sturdy cloth, but it wasn’t like her to fuss openly. The stress of caring for her terminally-ill husband, Edmund, must be getting to her.

  “I can promise this won’t happen again, Olympia,” Babette said, trying her best to be compassionate. “Georgie will not be allowed out to play for the rest of today or tomorrow. And when he can play outside again, I will give him strict instructions never to play near your house.”

  “Mmmmmmmm!”

  Babette smiled, glad her hand muffled Georgie’s protest.

  Some of the anger seemed to leave Olympia’s face. “I don’t know that I’d go that far, Babette,” she said, tugging on the heavy knitted collar at her neck. “We like the boy. Tallulah adores him, and I don’t have much time to play with her these days, with Edmund being so sick and all.”

  Her faint smile held a touch of sadness when she met Babette’s gaze. “Just be sure he minds the tomato patch, okay? Those experimental tomatoes will have a hard enough time with the snow.”

  Babette reached out and squeezed her neighbor’s wrist. “I understand, Olympia. And I’ll take care of Georgie. You take care of yourself, okay?”

  Olympia nodded, then turned and moved down the porch stairs with much less energy, Babette suspected, than she’d expended escorting Georgie from her house.

  After drawing her son inside, Babette closed the door and knelt to take off his heavy jacket.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt the tomatoes, Mom,” he said, his teeth chattering despite the warmth of the clanging radiator beneath the foyer window. “But Tallulah kept leading me that way. First she wanted crullers, and when I didn’t have any, she went under the house and brought out her ball and asked me to throw it, so I did, then she brought it back but told me to go ’round to the front of the house, so I did, and then we went to visit Blaze in the barn, but Caleb said to stay back ’cause old horses might kick a kid, so Tallulah and I went back ’round to the front, where Dr. Marc saw me and said hi and then gave me a lollipop but said ask your mother, but I said my mom didn’t care so I ate the lollipop and gave Tallulah a lick, but she said she liked crullers better.”

  Despite her irritation, Babette laughed when he paused to draw a breath. Though children poured onto Heavenly Daze in the summer tourist season, in the winter months her poor son was the only child on the island. No wonder his best playmates were the local dogs and horses.

  “You.” She tousled his brown hair. “You’re the light of my life and the root of my gray hairs.”

  His face crinkled into a questioning expression. “Whaddya mean, Mom? Your hair’s not gray.”

  “It’s getting there,” she said, standing. “Give it time.” Placing her hands on his shoulders, she turned him toward the stairs. “Up to your room, young man, and no more playing outside today. I’ll be up to talk to you later.”

  Birdie Wester shivered as the back door opened and a gust of chilly wind blew into the room.

  “Mercy!” Bea said, coming in. “I’d swear the wind’s kicking up a line storm if I didn’t know better.” She stomped snow off her feet, then slammed the door, eyeing the steaming teapot on the stove as she stripped off her gloves.

  Smiling, Birdie looked up, knitting needles poised in midair. “It isn’t fit for man or beast out there today. You must be frozen.”

  “Like a popsicle.” Bea took off her coat, then moved into the kitchen.

  “Get the mail delivered?”

  “Ayuh.” Bea lifted a cup from the cabinet, then poured a cup of tea. “Got stuck in that rut on the corner of Main and Ferry. Floyd needs to do something about that hazard before I blow another tire.” After unwinding her scarf, she gravitated toward the fire with a cup of steaming liquid.

  Birdie sighed, settling deeper into the comfy recliner. Thank goodness her job kept her indoors.

  The sisters’ living quarters adjoined the bakery, and their home was considered one of the coziest in Heavenly Daze. After Frank Coughlin’s death, when Bea came to live with Birdie, the sisters had built an addition onto the back of the house, increasing the square footage to nine hundred square feet—more than enough for two little ladies and a small business.

  A Kodiak wood stove kept the rear sitting room as warm as toast. The bedrooms in the center of the building got a little cool during January, but Birdie added another blanket to her bed and made out quite well. And in the early morning, when Abner fired up the big oven on the other side of her bedroom wall, Birdie would stretch out and breathe in the delicious scents of baking bread and pastry … what a glorious way to wake up!

  The kitchen, a tiled space between the sitting room and the bedrooms, was tiny by most standards, but it held everything the sisters needed: a large white Tappan gas range, a wooden table with four chairs, and a dependable Whirlpool refrigerator. Bea brought her microwave when she came, but the sisters didn’t use it for much other than warming leftovers and making popcorn. Birdie liked her coffee perked, her tea steeped, and her meat cooked with real heat. Bea had fussed at first, having developed an unusual dependency on the appliance, but she’d adapted nicely to doing things Birdie’s way. It took just one question—“ What if that radioactive stuff leaked out?”—and Bea had agreed to use the microwave sparingly. One could never be too careful.

  A slant-roofed back porch separated the house from the wild emptiness of the northern end of the island. The sisters’ washer and dryer sat on the covered back porch, along with a fifty pound sack of birdseed, salt for melting ice, and an assortment of muddy boots and galoshes.

  “There’s cream in the refrigerator,” Birdie said. She bit off a piece of thread, then tied it.

  Bea glanced at the empty plate in the center of the kitchen table. Ordinarily, it would have been filled with two of Abner’s finest pastries.

  “Abner running late this morning?” Bea asked.

  “Ayuh.” Birdie got out of the recliner and adjusted the lace draperies in the sitting area. This was her favorite room in the house. Flanked on three sides by six windows, the space featured two La-Z-Boy recliners, a polished cherry end table with a trailing philodendron, and a floor lamp positioned so Bea could read and Birdie could do handiwork. Her current project, knitted dishrags, spilled out of a basket by her chair.

  Across from the chairs stood an entertainment center they’d ordered from Sears and put together themselves— now that was a day to remember. They’d spent the better part of an afternoon down on all fours, trying to figure what went where. All those bolts and screws and instructions— why, it’d take a Harvard graduate to understand them.

  The best thing about their small abode, however, had to be the delicious scents that continually filled the living quarters. Now the aromas of cherry filling and flaky pastry wafted from the front of the building. Bea sniffed the air. “Smells like those cherry Danish are about ready.”

  Straightening a lacy tieback, Birdie turned from the window and proceeded toward the hallway that led to the bakery kitchen. Folks claimed Abner had a gift when it came to baking. Birdie liked to say that the good Lord gave Abner a golden rolling
pin.

  Bea trailed Birdie into the bakery, sniffing with appreciation. The cheerful baker was taking a large pan out of the oven, exchanging small talk over the counter with Vernie Bidderman. The tall, raw-boned owner of Mooseleuk Mercantile, swathed head to foot in a man’s overcoat and green earflap cap, greeted Birdie and Bea with a nod and went on yakking.

  “Did I tell you I got the new Web site up and running? Selling pure Maine maple syrup—got four more orders just this morning.”

  “Is that right?” Abner smiled, transferring Danish onto cooling racks with a steel spatula. “That’s good to hear, Vernie. Selling many candles?”

  “A few—expect sales to pick up any day now with the holidays coming on.”

  “Vernie Bidderman, you should be ashamed of yourself,” Birdie scolded, tying an apron around her trim waist. “Everybody takes the easy way out these days. Internet this, Internet that. Why, if we keep working with computers our children will forget how to use a book. Can’t people buy syrup and candles at the grocery store?”

  “Not if they want pure Maine syrup and Bidderman candles—unless they live around these parts,” Vernie answered, grinning.

  Birdie bit her tongue. Criticism rolled off Vernie like water off a duck’s back. Especially criticism about the Internet. Vernie loved the World Wide Web. Wasn’t a finer sales vehicle around, she was quick to tell anyone who questioned her preoccupation with cyberspace.

  All a waste of good time, Birdie contended. Didn’t people use libraries anymore?

  “I don’t know anything about computers,” Bea began, but her words trailed away when the front door opened and Salt Gribbon blew into the bakery.

  Birdie felt her heart skip a beat when the curmudgeon stamped his feet in the sudden ringing silence. Snow lay in white skiffs on the sea captain’s navy pea coat. Salt, a gaunt man not especially known for cordiality, scowled at Bea and Vernie as he shuffled to the counter. Lowering her gaze, Birdie put her hands to work lining a display tray with paper doilies.

  Abner set the spatula aside. “Morning, Cap’n.”