“What can I get for you?” she asked.

“I’ll go with a London Fog.”

“For here or to go?”

“For here.”

I looked the chairs and tables over.  There were some comfy, neighborly looking chairs sitting by the back door alongside some windows that were letting in capricious sunlight.  I thought about taking one of them, but someone was blogging nearby, and I remembered when I sat in one of those chairs last time, they hadn’t been as comfortable feeling as they looked.

I meandered to the front door; it wasn’t too busy, and there were a couple of spots there that would work.  I thought about the bar.  It faced a blank wall.  There was plenty of room there, but it didn’t feel right.

And then I spied it. 

A high table and chairs in a secluded area, not occupied. 

Except I still don’t know how to get myself slid up to the table on those highchairs, for sure if you are sitting against the wall and another chair is against you on the other side.  But I hopped and skipped it into place, reveling in my spot even if the artwork neighboring my table wasn’t my choice, being more of the abstract kind.

I pulled out this machine, opened it, and about then my London fog arrived, full to the brim in an oversize cup. 

She arrived about then, and took a seat at the next table.  We smiled at each other, and I thought to myself that if Jane Goodall lived in Kansas, this could be her sitting across from me.

Except she was a lot prettier and younger looking.

Five minutes later, he arrived.

They exchanged pleasantries; I took my first sip of my London, and lost focus on everything for a bit; it was that good.

When I came back to, they were talking cooking and he was showing her some pictures of a couple of meals he had recently made. 

She was enthused with it and told him so.

I wasn’t long in catching on that she was his counselor of sorts and they had met here to talk about how he was doing with the divorce he was going through.

She was so kind.

She gently led him through his problems, always with an understanding ear, but also with little positive comments here and there that encouraged him to keep going, both in his dialogue, and, later I knew, in the real world.

And they were making progress.  He was speaking favorably of making his way back into life; she, guiding him to each waypoint.

I was typing, (not about them) and swinging my legs from my highchair, generally soaking it all in, including my London fog.

But then something changed with him. 

He went from somewhat cheerful and accommodating to dark. 

He started circling, round and round. 

It seemed he was hyper dialed in on the process that the judge would use on the divorce. 

She asked him about a certain point of what he was saying, trying, I could tell, to get him to stop circling. 

He got angry and his tone got snappy. 

She backed up and asked him to explain it all to her so she could understand the divorce process, even though that knowledge to her was meaningless. 

I saw the line go from the apex down to a point not far from the level where they had started when they were talking cooking on the figurative line graph in which I was plotting their progress. 

But she was okay with that.  Because it was still progress.

And then the thing that caused him to start circling got blurted out.

“We always fought on navigation,” he said.

“You mean like when you were driving?”

“Yes.  We would be driving along, and I would tell her where I thought we should turn, but she wouldn’t have it.  Said when I talked like that to her it was disrespectful.  She could tell me what she was thinking, but I could never tell her what I was.”

“So, it was navigation that got you.”

“Yes.  We always fought on that one.  We could get along just fine on most everything else.”

My London had chilled measurably by that time; so had my estimation of him. 

He kept whining about his wife and how she had mistreated him.

I had to restrain myself from getting up, stepping over to his table and saying, “Sir, please. Can you try a bit harder to be a little more open minded?”

Because he was 65 and couldn’t reconcile navigation with his wife that he had been married to since their twenties. 

And because there were people in my life who were dealing with death and heartache that would have welcomed a chance to have a disagreement on navigation with their loved lost, had it been possible.

I’m sure there were other things in the picture that he didn’t mention which also magnified things. 

But right then, I had a hard time keeping from circling him myself.

Instead, I shut this computer down, cased it in my trusty backpack, and slung it over my shoulder.

I stood just for a second by my table, and she looked up at me with those kind, now a bit saddened eyes.

I locked my eyes with her and said, “You sound like a very kind woman.” 

And she giggled. 

Like the little girl she used to be 60 some years earlier. 

It seemed the least I could do.