Tea Time

Like every morning, Ester watched as trembling hands lifted the robin’s egg blue teapot and poured the amber liquid into a matching teacup. Louis’ hands were wrinkled, weathered, calloused from years of work. She still loved holding those hands across the small kitchen table as they talked. She remembered doing it for fifty years, the hands had changed but they felt the same. It was a good day when she could think back over the years. It was better in the mornings. The fog of sleep when she woke up lifted and she remembered his name, but in a couple hours it wasn’t guaranteed.

“Sugar?” he called to her from the counter.

“Yes dear?” she smirked.

He chuckled, “every morning, you know, you pull that joke every day?”

“Yes, I remember,” she said.

“That’s good,” he said almost to himself. He was worried about her.

“It would be even better if you could remember that I always take two cubes of sugar,” she giggled. He chuckled but didn’t respond. They both knew he didn’t forget, it was his way of asking if she had. Some days she didn’t remember how she liked her tea. It was always mostly little things like that. He sat her tea down and got his newspaper and she read a book. They had never eaten breakfast, not that she could remember. Maybe on special occasions or Sunday afternoons after church. Now they were both too feeble to go to church. Some of their friends would watch it on the tv or computers. But they hadn’t had children that could help them with those kinds of things. A young neighbor boy had offered to help them set up accounts online but they had refused. Now they just read the Bible to each other on Sundays and would have personal discussions. She remembered things like that, no matter what she remembered God. That was a comfort.

One morning she was watching him make her tea and heard something she hadn’t noticed before. A rattling sound. It was something she had heard before but it had never registered with her. She watched closely as he added her sugar. Two cubes and then some white powder.

“What was that?” she asked him.

“Nothing Sugar,” he chuckled.

“Okay,” she said. But she wondered. Her mind was clearest after the fog of sleep had gone away, but then after tea the fog seemed to come back. He was the only person in her life and she was well taken care of, never wanted for anything. Who would she ask? Him? She remembered when she started getting forgetful telling the doctors she didn’t want medication. She had tried it for a while and it made her tired. It’s not like it could fix her anyway, just prolong the inevitable. So she had refused even though Louis had wanted her to take it. He came over and handed the tea to her and she looked down into the amber liquid. It was warm and smelled the same as always.

“Go on, drink it up,” he said and sat down with his paper. She could remember so many mornings like this, and so many things they had been through together. One day she would not know his name and maybe then she would wonder if he had her best interest at heart. But today was not that day. Today she remembered.