What passes for sorrow: a Lilith tale

After I read "We will fight in her name, in her memory, to save her seat and her legacy" (D. Tiffany) and after finding out what that phrase meant, I took Lilith out for a walk. I saw a neighbor standing next to her car, and told her the news. We exchanged four letter words, what passes for sorrow in this age. Her husband, who has not been friendly to me in over a year, came toward us. "Tell him," she said. I tried. He walked straight past me and Lilith, eyes ahead, as I muttered something about RBG. He poked his head in the trunk of his car as I walked toward him, asking. "I don't want you ever to talk to me again," he said. "If your tiny brain doesn't know why, I'm not going to tell you." His face was full of rage. "NOW!" he added. I started to walk away. Sangha appeared with the water bottle I'd left in the house. The man's wife came toward me, bewildered, saying she had no idea. I asked her not to apologize for him. "He's the one acting like a shit," I said, and she agreed. Lilith and I started on our walk, downhill, past the area where feral chickens gather to scratch the ground. Sangha drove by, then parked his car. I saw the man's wife on her lanai up the hill, looking. Sangha got out, gave me good counsel, pretended to decline a hug, and then gave me one. He has always been so good at hugs. I told him this replayed a childhood trauma for me, but I know it's not me, not me, not me. He drove off. Lilith and I headed off. We sat at a picnic bench in Ahuimanu Park for a while, then came home to the news.