fable: eightsday

§3The Counsel⧉

The counsel took three days. Not padded to fill them — counted, they came to three.

The first evening, I told my wife the state of the decision. Not the decision — the state of it. That it was leaning. Which way it leaned. That the angle of the lean had not moved between yesterday and today. She heard it all and asked:

"The other face. Did you find it?"

"I don't know if I found it. There's a candidate."

"Which is?"

"The face back from the condolence call," I said. "The one you read. I used to do that work as guarding. Guard the world, guard the friend, guard the verdicts. I think the guarding man's face was that face — the held-breath face. If I go back now, it isn't guarding. A great deal has already died, and the dead don't come back. The work now is to pay the respects, and plant what's left. You said the face coming home from the funeral hall is the most alive face there is. If it's work that can be done with that face, I think I can do it."

My wife thought about it a long time. The second day, the two of us walked the dog a long way and never once raised it. That was part of the counsel too. Some reviews proceed only when the talking stops.

The third evening she brought it up first.

"You remember the condition."

"I remember. The signature line."

"Can you really make one? On that — whatever it is — that paperwork of yours."

"I'll ask. If they can't, I don't go."

"And if you ask and they can?"

"You sign, I go. You don't, I don't."

She laughed. First laugh in those three days.

"See. You do know how to build a brake for yourself."