Ron Benrey - Grits And Glory

“Sure thing—and a stroll down the hallway if you feel up to it. There’s a bathrobe hanging behind the bathroom door and paper slippers in the closet. But don’t get dressed yet. The doc wants to give you a final check before we discharge you.”

Sean quickly got the hang of walking in paper slippers. Ten minutes later, he’d made it to the end of the corridor outside his room and reached a glassed-in balcony that overlooked downtown Glory. He tried to gauge the damage Gilda had caused. All of the windows he could see were intact, but roof shingles were missing here and there. Soon after Sean maneuvered past the heavy glass door and stepped onto the balcony, a tall, official-looking man introduced himself.

“I’m Rafe Neilson. I’m glad to see you up and about. You looked awfully shaky last night, and they wouldn’t let me speak to you.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“The fatal accident at the church.”

“The fellow who took care of the church’s generator?”

Rafe nodded. “Richard Squires. I sang in the church choir with him. We’d become good friends during the five years I’ve lived in Glory.”

“That’s the one thing I hate about hurricanes—they kill people. No one told me that he was dead, but I guessed as much when I heard Ann Trask shouting.”

“I understand that you tried to start the church’s generator.”

“Ann asked me to.”

“Why do you suppose she did that?”

Sean shrugged. “I’d told her that we have a generator in our broadcast van. I guess she assumed I’d know how to work the church’s backup system. I showed her where the manual start button was, and things were fine for a few seconds. I gave up as soon as I saw the fuel system warning light blinking red. I had a broadcast coming up and didn’t have time to work on the engine. That’s when I told Ann to call Richard Squires.”

“How did you know about Richard?”

“A note tacked to the wall said to contact him if the generator didn’t work.” Sean felt a twinge of concern. The surprisingly formal tone of Rafe’s questions had put him on edge. “You’re beginning to sound like a policeman, Rafe.”

“Can’t help it,” he said with a grin. “I’m Glory’s deputy police chief. We don’t have many fatal accidents in our little town. I’m trying to understand everything that happened in Glory Community’s parking lot last night.”

“A gust of wind at the height of the hurricane tore the steeple down—a gust with a velocity of upwards of ninety miles per hour. The wreckage fell on Richard Squires and our broadcast van. What more is there to understand?”

Rafe shook his head. “Probably nothing. Take care of yourself. Don’t overdo.”

Before Sean could reply, Rafe pivoted on his heels and began to walk away.

“Hey, Mr. Deputy Police Chief. I have a question for you. How badly did Glory get hit last night?”

“Not badly at all,” Rafe said over his shoulder. “A handful of large trees are down, a few windows broken here and there, several dozen roofs were damaged, and the streets nearest the Albemarle Sound were flooded, including part of Front Street. We got off lucky except for Richard’s death and the fallen steeple. Other than you and your colleague, there were no injuries requiring hospitalization.”

Rafe departed, leaving Sean to speculate what had prompted the string of odd questions. He returned to his room and sat down on the visitor’s chair in front of his bed. A short time later a nurse’s aide arrived with his breakfast tray and placed it on a wheeled table next to the chair.

“I’m not usually a grits person but these look good,” Sean said as he grabbed a spoon to dig in.

The door squeaked open and Sharon propelled Carlo, sitting regally in a wheelchair, into the room. Sean noted that Carlo’s forehead and left eye were both bandaged, the dressing on his eye smaller than the bandage Sean remembered from the night before.

“Here you go, Mr. Vaughn,” she said. “This is your room. Can you manage to climb into bed, or do you need me to help you?”

“I wouldn’t dream of saying no to anything you offer, Sharon,” Carlo said, punctuating his smarmy reply with an utterly sincere gaze. “Please, please, please call me Carlo.”

Sharon seemed to tolerate Carlo’s obvious flirtation, although Sean could barely avoid throwing a spoonful of grits at him.

“Good morning, amigo,” Sean said. “You look much better than you did last night. What did the doctors tell you?”

Carlo gestured toward his bandaged eye. “This is the worrisome injury. A glass splinter scratched my cornea and lifted a small flap of tissue. It should heal cleanly—but there’s always a risk of infection.” He touched his forehead. “I also have a concussion,” Carlo said. “Worse than yours, but I’ll probably survive. The MRI didn’t show any long-term damage.”

Sean bit back a snicker. They’d looked inside Carlo’s head and found nothing.

“Glad to hear it. So far so good.”

“The docs want me to stay in the hospital two or three more days.”

“The nursing staff requested a whole week,” Sharon said, winking at Sean, “but Carlo’s insurance company wouldn’t agree to cover more than three days.” She helped him climb into bed. “Would you like breakfast?”

“No thanks. My stomach feels too wonky to eat.” Carlo’s voice oozed angst and made known the enormity of his self-sacrifice. Sharon smiled as she left the room.

Carlo pointed at Sean’s tray. “I see that you’re able to eat breakfast.”

“Eagerly, in fact.”

“Good. I’d hate unnecessary guilt to put you off your feed.”

“Why would I feel the least bit guilty?”

“You chose the parking place last night, not me.”

Sean ate more grits. There was no point arguing with Carlo when he got hold of a loony idea.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Sean said.

The door opened, revealing Ann Trask. Sean realized that Ann was petite—five foot three and a hundred pounds, at the most. But the strength that radiated from her blue eyes made her seem a foot taller.

“Hello, gentlemen,” Ann said.

“It’s Mizz Ann Trask,” Carlo said, “come to visit the halt and the lame. A very churchy thing to do.”

It was rare for Carlo to offer a verbal joke, so Sean kept it going. “We’re both a tad halt today, Ann, but no more lame than usual.”

He expected Ann to react, but she didn’t even crack a smile. She probably didn’t feel like laughing so soon after Richard Squires’s death. But he saw another emotion in her somber expression. Something beyond grief that looked like worry.

Carlo must have also registered Ann’s mood. He offered a high-voltage smile and said, “I haven’t forgotten my promise to put you on the Storm Channel. What’s your schedule like during the next day or two?”

She responded with a small smile of her own. “Let’s wait until your bandages are off. If I’m going to debut on television with Carlo Vaughn, I insist on the unadorned original.”

“You shall have him, although a black eye patch can be an intriguing fashion accessory. I may adopt the buccaneer look. What do you think?”

Sean felt like retching, but Carlo’s cornball patter had amplified Ann’s smile and chased the worry—if that’s what he had seen—from her face.

“You’d make a great swashbuckling buccaneer,” she said, making Sean wish that he had the skill to say magic words that could alter a woman’s frame of mind.

Even more to the point, he wished that Ann smiled at him the way she smiled at Carlo.

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