As was often the case, something about Glenn helped ground me, and I felt better when I left Cooper’s a few minutes later. My subsequent grocery store odyssey took longer than I’d expected, wandering the aisles with no list, but I had a sense of—not hope exactly—resigned calm? as I drove home with a couple of bags of food. The piece of candy I grabbed in the checkout line didn’t hurt.
But dark chocolate serenity is apparently as fickle as any other kind. A hint of annoyed anxiety took its place as I approached my street and all of the things I had to do, all of the decisions I had to make. When I saw my elderly neighbor Mr. Ginley waving frantically from his mailbox, the hint of anxiety bloomed into the pre-vomit stage.
A breeze lifted a silver section of comb-over hair, making Mr. G loo
