The City Council: A fictional narrative of rural life in the American West: Episode 174: Tootie’s Quality for Self

She mumbles, “Yep, right on time.”

The faithful of the Congregational Church were receiving their final reminder this Sun-day. 9:45 AM. A magpie sails over the sidewalk ahead, from an ornamental plum to a hazelnut bush. She smiles at its grace.

“I wish I could do that!”

As she walks she works through her Quality Customer Service training program, wondering on its initial results, dispelling doubts. Intellectually she trips over an idea she read that morning, an adage from Lao Tsu, ‘Yield and you need not break.’

Tootie well knows her spirit rises when she perceives an obstacle. She knows this raises fear or hostility in those around her. She is learning to moderate, a skill the successful in politics learn to master, who must learn to modulate vehemence if they have any desire to practice and develop grace.

She walks on, turning from Beech up Utopia Way. She chews on something she read last week from Thomas Merton, in effect he wrote, ‘Do nothing.’ She plays with this, mumbling,

“Know think. No think. Now think.”

She wonders, “Is listening what it’s all about?”

Tootie walks, striding on in power gait. It is not long before she stands at the corner of Ginkgo Avenue and Mount Rushing Highway, a little mystified she had made such good time.

She spots George Ansbach descending from the Plateau and waves. He pulls over and drops the window.

“Good morning, George. How are you doing?”

“Oh, not so well Tootie.”

“Do you want to tell me about it over a coffee? Jane’s Java?”

“I’d like that. Get in.”

He drives. She stares out the window. They keep the silence until he pulls to the curb on Via Valhalla.

She says, “Loss is tough, George. But then, so are you.”

At the back table he shares his morning. Tootie listens. George stares deep into his coffee cup.

“It was as if I just awakened from a noise, startled into alertness. I stood soaking in the shower. I turned to discover Angeline was not there. We always showered together. She had been there the moment before, I was certain. I called for her, but there was no response. Perhaps I misremembered, I thought? Perhaps I had dawdled beneath the soothing hot water and she had slipped out and moved on to chores? I am a daydreamer, you know, and sometimes minutes pass when I am away on some mental reverie. I tuned off the tap and pulled back the shower curtain.

“I toweled off, splashed on aftershave, breathing in the essence of Lilac Vegetal. I applied the stick deodorant and brushed my thinning hair. Back in the bedroom I don my briefs and socks, this stripped work shirt, and finally, the denim bibs. I wonder, “Where is that woman?” I think, “After breakfast I’ll cut brush along the northern fence line.” When I walked into the kitchen there had been no breakfast preparation, no fruit cut, no bowls out, no cereal box on the counter.

“That is when the truth hit me. I just dropped to the kitchen floor and cried like a baby.”

“George, this memory blocking is not abnormal. You’ve got a lot of grieving to do.”

Two weeks to the day, showering with George, Angeline Ansbach had died from a massive ruptured brain aneurysm.