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By Root 885 0

the most out of it. In fact, she had squeezed every last drop out of every advantage that she had, being the wife of the president of a bank. Even though it was only a small branch bank in the small town of Elmwood Springs, she had been as puffed up as a powder pigeon over it. However, keeping up appearances, plus hiding her true age, had been exhausting. She had almost been caught once, when some mean jealous person had shown Herbert her high school annual. She had lied, of course, and said it was not her: it was another Ida Mae Shimfissle, a distant cousin that had moved away years ago. And Herbert, a trusting man, had believed it.

And then after all that, Norma had married the Warren boy, who had no promising future at all, except to work in his father’s hardware store. It had broken her heart. Even when Norma told her how happy she was with Macky, she never understood her own daughter. “Happy? Cows are happy, Norma, and look what happens to them.”

Verbena Tells Cathy

Verbena must have called the newspaper office a hundred times, but the line continued to be busy. By this time she was so frustrated not being able to reach Cathy and tell her the news, she was red in the face. She could not stand it a moment longer, so she put the BE BACK IN FIVE MINUTES sign on the door of the cleaners and walked across the street. When she opened the door to the Elmwood Springs Courier office, she heard Cathy still talking to someone on the phone. She went into the back office and Cathy looked up, put her hand over the receiver, and said, “I’ll be off in just a minute,” and gestured for Verbena to have a seat. She was just finishing up her weekly interview with the school board president, gathering the latest updates concerning the ongoing fight about whether or not to include the theory of Intelligent Design along with Darwin’s theory of evolution. When she saw Verbena, Cathy figured she was here to talk about that and knew she was in for an hour of Verbena arguing to include creationism. But Verbena surprised her when she reached across her desk and wrote on a piece of paper in big black letters “Elner’s dead!” and put it in front of Cathy and banged on it with her finger. Cathy glanced down and said, “What? Are you serious?” Verbena nodded. “Pete,” Cathy said, “Elner Shimfissle just died, let me call you back,” and hung up. “What happened?”

“We don’t know, but Ruby got the call from the hospital a few minutes ago, I tried to call you as soon as I heard but the line was busy. You need to get call waiting.”

“I know I do. Well this is just terrible news.”

“Isn’t it? I’m just heartbroken over it, and Merle is beside himself, life just won’t be the same without Elner, will it?”

“No.”

“I have to get back, but I thought you would want to know as soon as possible.”

“Yes, thank you for telling me, Verbena.”

After Verbena left, Cathy reached over and took the phone off the hook. She didn’t feel like talking. Elner Shimfissle was dead. It was hard to believe, she had been so sure that Elner of all people would survive a few stings and a little fall off a ladder. She shook her head and thought how strange it was that she of all people, who wrote about life and death every day, was still mystified by the whole thing. “Here today, gone tomorrow, here’s your hat, what’s your hurry, don’t let the door hit you in the back when you leave.” A person lives for years, touches so many people, and then at the end winds up just a small picture and a few paragraphs in the paper, the paper gets thrown away, and it’s all over.

Cathy had written hundreds of obits before and had just finished doing Ernest Koonitz’s yesterday, but Elner’s was going to be a hard one to write. Although hers was only a small town newspaper, when it came to writing obituaries, Cathy always took her time and tried to write something interesting, offer a little variety and do more than just facts. After all, other than a birth announcement or a wedding, this was one of the few times most law-abiding citizens got to see their names in the newspaper. Also it was important