Steeped in Memory

The air was warm, and the sky was bright for three in the morning. The northern lights lit across the sky, and Ben told me they would dance for us if we sang loud enough. We laughed as we walked through the streets of our small town, singing The Love Cats as loud as we could. 

I don’t remember if the Aurora danced for us, but I remember dancing into Ben’s arms as he brought me close and kissed me for the first time. His broad shoulders made me feel small, even though I could never be mistaken for that. His warm breath, the scent of beer and cigarettes. His palms running down my back. 

***

There are six chairs at our kitchen table, and these days only two of them are ever occupied, and rarely at the same time. Instead of filling the chairs, I’ve taken to filling my mind with memories of falling in love with Ben. We were stupid teenagers. Small town kids grew up together, fell in love, had kids, never left.

We never left, but our kids did. 

Ingrid married Sam, they moved far away from the prying eyes of small-town gossip. 

Joss is completing her Ph.D. in… it is slipping from me. Something to do with global…blah, blah, blah – I’ve said it enough times it should be easy, but words seldom are these days. A fog consumes me, and I return to the comforting memory of that first kiss.

***

In fifth grade, our class had a high tea to end the year. Ben passed me a note across the room. It landed on my desk, and I looked around, concerned Miss Sparrow would see as I folded back the tattered edges. Inside was the message: 

“Will you go to the tea party with me? Check yes or no. Ben”

I checked, yes. On the way to the bus that afternoon I learned that he had also asked Stephanie Price the same thing. 

The next day, we met on the swings, his head bowed as he gently swayed, kicking his foot in the dirt, “I didn’t really want to go with Stephanie. I got scared you would say no, so I asked her as a backup. But it’s really you I want to go with.” He looked up at me with those deep brown eyes, “You would be my first girlfriend,” he said. 

I liked the idea. Ben was cute. But I couldn’t forgive the Stephanie bit. I didn’t go to school the day of the class tea party. I was too upset, and in a rare moment of kindness, my mom let me stay home. 

Six years later, I had forgiven or forgotten Ben’s oversight in asking out two girls simultaneously, and I found myself lost in his presence on a three-a.m. walk.

***

There is a pattern to small town life. When followed as you would a tried, tested, and true recipe for dinner, you simply combine ingredients as indicated and allow them to simmer, the results should feed you for several days – the rest of your days.

“Societal norms are the problem with the world; besides, I prefer to put my own spin on recipes,” Ingrid would lecture me if I tried to talk about how life should unfold. I only wanted my daughters to be happy.

“I’ve noticed. Your father and I have followed social norms and look how well it served us,” I’d retort – neglecting to do any looking myself. Self-reflection is messy, complicated… and, dammit, I’m her mother. Couldn’t she see that I have the life experience to know what is right? 

“Yeah, look at you. You two barely have anything to say to each other anymore.” It wasn’t for the reasons Ingrid believed. She struggled to see how love could be slow and steady, a safe harbor. 

She liked a good storm.

Ingrid didn’t just leave the prying eyes of the small town; she left the prying eyes of her parents. I can’t blame her, really. 

“You’re young, mom. Quit allowing everything to waste away.”

I don’t know if I hung up or finished the conversation. The comment is all that stuck.

***

The water lapped at the river’s edges, Ben threw a stone, it skipped six times, and I laughed. I couldn’t get a rock to skip once, let alone six times. He pulled me to his side as he stroked my cheek.

I turned into him, my pregnant belly pressed against him, my arms wrapped around his body, “I love this life we have created. I’m so glad you never went out with Stephanie Price.” 

Ben tilted my head gently with his hand, “Stephanie who?” And kissed me deeply. 

***

Joss stood at the lectern on stage, focused as she delivered her speech. The school gym was full of people, but their faces blurred into the background as I focused on my youngest daughter. “She’s going to change the world,” I whispered to Ben beside me. 

He wrapped an arm around me, “Just like her mama changed mine.”

***

It’s late June, the sun streams through the kitchen window. The walls are a color I don’t recall painting. Weren’t they yellow when we bought the house? I remember these walls being a soft buttery yellow. With curtains, I made from old bedsheets with tiny yellow flowers. Ben hated those curtains, but it’s what we could afford. 

There is a cup of tea in front of me, steam no longer rising from the now tepid liquid. I attempt to get up and my ankle reminds me it was recently twisted. Sinking back into my chair, I look around at the unrecognizable kitchen; the large mug inscribed with the word “Wifey” is distinctly different from the bone china sitting in the cabinet across the room. 

I sigh. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here, clearly long enough to allow my tea, which I don’t recall making, to cool. Patterns, recipes, they seem to be what keeps my life in order now. 

Whose idea was it to put the china in the cabinet?

***

The box had arrived two days earlier. I didn’t want anything when my mother died. I attended her funeral; that was enough. Everyone was going on about her like she was a saint. We do that as humans. We immortalize the dead as if they lived a beautiful life forgetting the secret lives of leather belts against bare backsides. 

My brother Jim insisted the china collection be sent to me. The contents of this box have been collected and passed down from my grandmother to my mother. The eldest daughter to the eldest daughter. This family heirloom of bone china and broken bones. A legacy I was determined to see shattered like the Royal Albert flower of the month cup with hand-painted purple violets that I threw across the kitchen moments ago. Bone china is supposed to be strong, but it shatters just as easily as a body when thrown against a tile floor. 

“Is everything alright?” Ben hesitantly entered the room, looking from the floor with the shattered remains of the teacup to me.

I wiped my hands on a towel, “I was never a fan of the February violets, much preferred the January snowdrops or the May lily of the valley.” 

Ben opened the closet door and pulled out the broom and dustpan, “You can send them to a consignment store.”

“I’d rather smash them, at least the ones my mother added to the collection.”

“Maybe Ingrid or Joss would like to have them,” Ben offered, dumping the remains of the cup into the trash. 

I shook my head.

It was my grandmother’s china first, and for that, I wanted to hold it close to me; she was the antithesis of my mother. Soft, kind, good for snuggling against after my mother would go on a tirade. Not strong enough to make her stop.

“Why don’t we put it in the storage room, and you can decide later what to do with it?” Ben offers.

“Sure.” 

***

Ben enters the kitchen and sees me sitting at the table. One chair occupied.

“I think we need a smaller table,” I hedge. 

“Why is that?” 

I spread my hands across the scarred surface, “It’s a bit big for just us two and way too big for just you.”

Ben sighs. He places his hand on my shoulder, “I have something for you.” He hands me an envelope. It is made from heavy yellow paper. Katie Holland, my name, is inscribed on the front in calligraphy.

“What is this?” I ask, opening the envelope. 

Ben doesn’t answer; he just watches as I pull out an invitation. It is printed on soft yellow card stock with delicate white snowdrop flowers as a border. 

In the same cursive as on the envelope are the details:

Second Annual High Tea for Katie Holland

A fundraiser for the Dementia Hope Foundation.

My eyes blur. At the bottom of the invitation is Ben’s chicken scratch:

“Will you go to the tea party with me? Check yes or no. Ben”

***

The sound of hammering and the scent of sawdust greeted me as I entered the garage.

“What is happening in here?”

Ben looked up, grey hairs peeked through his ball cap, his safety goggles covered in a film of dust, “I thought I’d make you a cabinet for the kitchen. You can put your china in.”

“I haven’t decided what to do with it. Why would you build a cabinet? I might not even keep it,” I was incensed that he would go ahead and build something when we hadn’t even talked about it. 

“Well, we talked about it last night, and you said that if you had somewhere nice to put it, you might keep your grandmother’s pieces,” Ben said, picking up sand paper and rubbing it with the grain of the wood.

I swallowed back my anger, “Hmmm, we’ll see.”

***

“I fear I have let it waste away,” I said to Ingrid. 

There was silence, and Ingrid’s face crumpled, “Mom, that isn’t what I meant. You aren’t wasting away.”

“Is there a timeline for this kind of thing?” Joss asked. She was clearly searching her computer to develop a solution to this latest problem. Forever a researcher and problem solver.

“You aren’t going to find a solution in Google, Joss,” Ben cut in.

“Well, I read about a clinical trial -“

“There isn’t anything you are reading that we haven’t already explored, honey. Right now, I just want to….” I faded off. I didn’t really know what I wanted. To make new memories that I wouldn’t remember? That seemed ridiculous. “My grandmother used to make these tiny little cakes. What did she call them? They were tiny, one bite type things. With lemon custard, and there were some with coconut custard, I think. I’d really like one of those coconut custard cakes right now and a cup of tea….”

Joss and Ingrid stared at me through the computer screen. I could feel Ben’s warmth beside me as he placed his hand on my lap and squeezed. “I want to have a tea party,” I smiled at Ben, “And this time, Stephanie Price is not invited.”

***

“She’s not having a good day,” I could hear a voice in the other room say. It sounded like Ben but more mature. 

***

I sat at my grandmother’s table. A large table made of dark maple wood – I know because grandpa told the story of cutting down that tree to anyone who would listen. There was a cup of tea in front of me, in my favorite Anne Hathaway cottage cup. 

“So, tell me why you stayed home today?” She asked, pouring fresh tea into my cup. The steam billowed from the liquid, and I breathed it in. Orange pekoe with a hint of milk and honey.

“It’s embarrassing,” I said, bowing my head to avoid her gaze. 

“Is it a boy?”

“Grandma,” I groaned. 

“So it is. What did he do?”

“He asked me to the year-end tea party and then asked another girl as backup,” the hot liquid soothed the lump forming in my throat.

“Sounds like bad people, Katie. Stay away from that boy. Now have some coconut cake; it makes everything better,” she pushed the plate of tiny cakes in front of me and took one for herself. 

“But I really like him,” I covered my face with my hands and peeked through my fingers at grandma. 

She smiled, “Well, of course you do, but you deserve someone who isn’t interested in a backup and won’t settle for anything but the original Katie.”

***

Ben stood before me, his brown eyes glistening, “You are the only one for me. I’ve known since we were eleven years old. I’m still sorry I screwed it up back then, but I am grateful for the chances you have given me, the people we have grown into, and excited for what is next. I love you to the end of the earth and back again.”

My hands trembled as he squeezed them tight. He looked so handsome in his grey tux.

***

The scent of sweet peas and lily of the valley fill my nose as I enter the hall. My dress is a soft yellow that reaches my ankles and swishes when I walk. I feel young and invigorated. A woman approaches me. 

“Welcome to your party,” she smiles warmly and takes my arm, guiding me through the tables filled with people, most look familiar, but not many names come to mind. 

She seats me at a small table with four chairs. Ben is on my left, Ingrid and Joss across from me. The table is set with my favorite Anne Hathaway Cottage cups and saucers, a three-tier tray filled with scones, tiny sandwiches, and my grandmother’s tiny coconut cakes. I wonder if she made them herself and then recall that she has been dead for… well, time just slips away these days, doesn’t it? 

Ben kisses me on the cheek, “Would you like some tea, dear?”

I smile at him and nod. I smell the dark liquid before adding a touch of milk and honey, “This is my favorite. What a lovely event this is. What is the occasion?”

Ben grabs my hands, lifts them to his lips, and then places them on his heart, “You.”