Anne Jones deftly pulls into my driveway and lightly disembarks, Katie’s lead in hand. I watch from the porch with a smile rising to my lips. I cannot believe this 80-something lady moves with grace and ease across the piles of leaves, hand tucked in one pocket, glancing over her shoulder and signalling me to wait while Katie walks back and forth, freed from comfortable, brief captivity, snuffling the ground.
When Katie has finished exploring, the two of them make the short trip up my porch stairs, then tour the Holmes House. Such a pleasant place, says Anne, while Katie forages for mice. I’m sure the place wreaks of their smell, and Katie, evidently an excellent mouser, seems to agree. Anne and I laugh.
At Panera’s in Brookside, we sit at a table by the window, Katie quietly lying at Anne’s feet wearing her Service Dog halter. Anne and I talked about politics and the comparative safety of neighborhoods, finding we agree on more issues than we might have suspected. I think I’m less liberal than Anne anticipated; or perhaps I’m just more pragmatic. We laugh together at our assumption that we’d not agree on anything. We do not argue once.
Anne drives us east, to Independence, to Mt. Washington Cemetery where her parents are buried. She nimbly climbs the old stone stairwell but motions me to stay. You might fall, she cautions. I agree; and let this delightful lady briskly walk around, pushing leaves from headstones, letting Katie visit the ancestors whom Anne shares with my favorite curmudgeon, who was Anne’s cousin and frequent lunch companion.
Afterwards, we drive through Elmwood Cemetery and just give a nod to the various members of her family resting there. We do not get out. We talk about the deer which got shot there; a scandalous event that we both lament. Then we drive back to Brookside by way of Prospect, each of us commenting that inner city seems to have gotten itself spruced up a bit.
Anne drops me at my house, stopping long enough for a photograph and to greet my boycat who inexplicably has appeared on the porch far later in the day than his normal six a.m. breakfast. As Anne and Katie pull out of the driveway, I find that my smile has never once left my face. I let the cool of the autumn afternoon play against my face and ruffle my hair. I have lots to do, with a trial scheduled for Monday morning and a birthday present to buy for Chaska Vogt. But my Sunday afternoon with Anne Jones and Katie, her service dog, has set the right tone for the rest of the day.
Anne Jones and Katie.
In which Pablo meets Katie and is not well pleased.