She was an odd character, that Mrs. Anister. Every day at 4:00 p.m., she began what some would call a ritual.  She sat at her garden table in the late afternoon shade and began by first collecting a fork and a small plate, the perfect plate for the occasion and then the perfect knife; the white handled knife with the inlaid pearl.

The white pearl glistened with each movement of her hand as it tilted side-to-side one way and then the other. She had to be sure she made the perfect slice. The hat that she wore was made of straw and quite tattered from the many years of use, and her dress, well, it was the usual kind of dress that you might expect to see on a woman of 69 years old; long and full multi-colored floral.

Thirty-minutes before the set down time due at 4:00 p.m., her mouth would begin to water, for she knew the time was drawing nigh. Sometimes the anticipation would overcome her and she would begin collecting her fork, plate and knife very early, but before doing so, she would get a freshly washed cleaning cloth from the antique pantry, and wipe down the table.

Fifteen-minutes before set down time due at 4:00 p.m. Mrs. Anister would stroll to her rose garden and clip two big red roses for the occasion and place them in a vase center wise on the table. Then she would proceed to make her green mint tea as her jaws began to tingle and salivate for she knew that at the whistle of the teakettle, it was time to sit down in only three minutes. The three minutes, in which at the close, she ate her delectable chocolate bar. She ate it slowly and one very thin perfect sliced piece at a time.

During this serene time in which Mrs. Anister savored her delectable chocolate bar and slowly sipped her green mint tea, she reminisced about Fred, her late husband. She began from start to finish and pondered in hopes to understand why and how it all changed and came to such a bitter end. She missed him terribly, even though in his and her later years together, he changed into someone she barely knew.

He was a slender man, but a big man, tall, like a lumberjack, and his increasing angry temper was nothing to ignore. Mrs. Anister, being of a small frame, and her dog, Fritzy, would run and hide in the garden shed on those angry days, and no matter how nice Mrs. Anister would try to be, her husband became angry, and she never knew why, and it always happened without warning. It is as if he were two different people.