The press was old enough that the plunger stuck if she pushed too fast, so she'd learned to count to three before she pushed. The mug she used had a chip on the handle she'd stopped noticing the way you stop noticing a scar. A cardinal had claimed the shepherd's hook at the fence line and she watched it without moving her eyes much. The coffee was too hot and she held it anyway, both hands.
The jackhammer started before she'd counted to three on the second press. Vera set her mug on the wall next to the French press and looked at the fence where the shepherd's hook was empty now, the cardinal gone somewhere she couldn't see. She held the mug for a while without lifting it. Around nine she went inside to find her reading glasses, and the glasses were on the counter where she'd left them - and she didn't go back out. By noon the coffee in the press had gone the color of creek water and she left it there, the plunger still up.
The cardinal came back the next morning, and the crew's truck was still two hours away when she carried the press outside in both hands like something that needed not to be spilled. She sat until the mug was only warm. By the time she stood, she had put the invoice in a drawer in her head, and filed her sister under Tuesday - and confirmed something about herself she couldn't have said aloud but knew the way she knew the chip on the handle. She rinsed the press under the tap. Then she went in.
The Crew Next Door
He'd brought his mug from inside, the tall blue one with the airline logo, and he set it down on the wall where she usually set hers. The cardinal didn't come. She answered everything he said about the neighbor's fence and whether the crepe myrtle needed cutting, and she watched a grackle land and leave while she talked. When the back door closed behind him she looked at her hands around the mug and couldn't find a single thing that had been in them. The press was still warm.
The glass door gave back a woman she didn't recognize right away, the robe too big at the shoulders - hair flat on one side. The broken press sat on the counter behind her reflection, the carafe in three pieces beside the sink, the rubber seal on the dish towel where she'd left it Tuesday. A sound came from the guest room, someone's phone alarm going off and then stopping, and she waited to see if it would start again. Outside the shepherd's hook stood empty in the gray - and the wall where she usually set the mug had a quarter-inch of standing water from last night's rain. She put her hand flat against the cold glass and stood there the way a person stands in a doorway when they've forgotten which direction they were going.
The rubber seal had dried stiff overnight and she had to press it back with her thumb until it seated, the way her father used to reseat the gasket on the old percolator every Sunday. She carried the press outside with the same two hands, and the patio was quiet the way a room is quiet after someone has finally left it. The shim was still on the counter, that soft square of laminated menu-paper she'd folded and refolded for three years, and she brought it out too - set it flat on the wall beside her mug like something she was done arguing with. The chair wobbled when she sat, once, and she let it. The cardinal came back to the shepherd's hook, and she counted to three, and pushed.
Her daughter called while the mug was still too hot to drink - and she watched the cardinal through the glass of the phone screen while it rang, the bird's red gone small and wrong in the rectangle. She let it go to voicemail. Later she found herself standing at the kitchen counter with the shim in her hand, turning it over the way people turn over coins, and she couldn't remember walking back inside. The voicemail sat there with its little red number, and the press was cold by the time she noticed the patio light had shifted - the shadows already on the wrong side of the shepherd's hook. She set the shim down on the counter beside the dead batteries and the rubber bands, and left it there, and went to find her reading glasses.
What the Cup Was Holding
She found the reading glasses on the nightstand and put them on and stood at the window that looked out over the patio, and the shim was still on the counter downstairs where she'd left it, she knew that without checking. The mug was in the drying rack. Below her the shepherd's hook caught the late light the way it did only in October - a particular gold that lasted about four minutes, and she watched it come and go with her hands at her sides. Her daughter's name was still on the phone screen when she picked it up, and she set it face-down on the nightstand next to where the glasses had been. She went downstairs and moved the shim back to the wall without deciding to.
The new press arrived in a brown box with her name spelled wrong, and she set it on the counter beside the old one and looked at both of them for a long time. The carafe was smooth where the old one had the small seam she used to find with her thumb in the dark. She filled it anyway, counted to three - and pushed, and the coffee came out tasting like nothing she needed to call anything. The cardinal was on the hook, but she had already stood up before she'd finished the mug. The shim stayed on the wall.
Her daughter came for the weekend and found the old press still in three pieces on the counter and said, without meaning anything by it, that she should just throw it out. Vera wrapped the carafe in the dish towel instead and set it in the cabinet above the refrigerator - where she kept the good things she didn't use. Sunday morning her daughter brought her own coffee out to the patio and sat in the other chair, the one without the wobble, and said the light out here was really something, wasn't it, and Vera agreed that it was. The shim was in her robe pocket - which she hadn't noticed until she reached in for nothing and found it there, the laminate soft now at the corners from three years of the same thumb. She left her mug on the wall when she went in for more coffee and when she came back her daughter had moved it to make room for her phone and she stood there a moment, looking at the wall, before she picked it up.
Disclaimer
This article is for general informational purposes only and doesn't constitute professional, financial - medical, or legal advice. Consult a qualified professional about your specific situation.
