Coffee Day

by Cynthia Lee Sheeler

Helen loved Thursday. Coffee day. The one day a week when her best friends half-mooned around her kitchen table, swapped coupons, traded recipes, and chatted about the best honeydew melons the supermarket had to offer. They’d been doing it for years. Every Thursday for decades, ever since her Ada was born. Those were tne days when Helen had been latched to her daughter’s bassinet, so her dear friends visited her home.

She flicked up her eyes to the rooster clock above the stove. Almost 9:00 a.m. They’d be there any minute. She slowly closed her hand around the cupboard knob, pulling it open. Boy-oh-boy, it hurt to make a fist. She straightened her stinging fingers and studied her hands.

All those speckles, creases, and veins, like the backside of a dried leaf. The sight always shocked her, as if they belonged to someone else, some wrinkled, spotted old woman. Her hands had always been as smooth as rose petals. She remembered how her Benjamin liked to hold them. She could almost feel him caressing her soft, firm flesh. Dropping her arms to her sides, she sighed. Beautiful hands. Just one more thing she’d lost.

She lifted her gaze to the inside of the cupboard. Moved her eyes over soup cans, raisin boxes, and numerous prescription bottles. Now what was it she needed? Her pills? She plucked one of the bottles, squinted as she studied the label, pressed her palm on the cap, and twisted. The burn through her arthritis-riddled fingers reminded her she’d already opened that bottle. She’d taken her pills shortly after waking up. Helen placed the bottle back on the shelf when her eyes landed on the coffee filters. Ah, that was it. The girls were coming over.

The girls. She giggled to herself. None of them had been girls for over sixty-odd years. Yet, that’s what they’d always been to Helen. The girls. Her dearest friends. She felt a tickle of excitement each time she got to see them. Her days could be so empty, but seeing her friends helped smooth away the jagged edges of loneliness.

Helen pulled the coffee can from the cupboard, scooped heaping tablespoons into the paper filter, and poured water into the maker. She opened another cabinet door, removed a frying pan, and carried it to the stove. Today she’d make an omelet with three eggs instead of two. Why not? She’d watched her cholesterol all week.

She padded to the refrigerator and opened the door to fetch the eggs. Her eyes snagged on the crumb-top coffee cake on the middle rack. Coffee cake? She curled in her lips, drew her fingers to her chin. Why had she bought a coffee cake? She turned her head to the gurgling coffee pot. Oh my. It wasn’t three-egg omelet day. It was coffee day with the girls.

What had she been thinking? She lowered her eyes to the tops of her house slippers, shoulders weighed down by a layer of shame. What would Ada think? Her daughter thought she was losing it, especially after that day in the park. Why on earth did that policeman have to call her daughter? Wandering around. That’s what he’d told Ada. Your mother was wandering around the park, lost and confused. Hogwash! She’d simply stopped to watch the birds. Just walked a bit too far into the woods was all. She would’ve found her way home. No doubt about it.

She pulled the cake from the fridge and set it in the center of the table. Ada would never need to know about the omelet. Just a simple lapse in short-term memory was all. Could’ve happened to anyone. Anyone at all.

Reaching up to the shelf above the sink, she hooked her achy fingers around the handles of two delicate china teacups. She loved those cups, gold-rimmed with pink roses. She only ever used them on coffee day.

Setting down her cup first, she placed the other in front of Margaret’s seat. Dear Margaret lived next door with her husband, Roy. Had for years. Helen still remembered that day so long ago when they’d first met. Margaret had welcomed her and Benjamin to the neighborhood with a lemon Bundt cake.

The couples had been the closest of friends ever since. They’d made dinner together each Sunday. Helen and Margaret would season each other’s sauces while their husbands lounged in the living room, debating the virtues of Eisenhower and sipping highballs. They’d often played cards and gone to the show. Had seen all kinds of pictures. Benjamin had loved the westerns. That had been a long time ago. A sad smile played at her lips.

Benjamin. Another loss.

She shrugged off the familiar pinch to her heart and scooped up two more teacups, setting down Sylvie’s. Good old Sylvie. Helen had known her the longest, ever since they’d worked together at the public library. While Helen had surrendered the book life to marry her Benjamin, Sylvie had remained single, eventually becoming head librarian, with an uncanny talent of shushing even the most rambunctious boys.

Sylvie was a hearty gal with a heart as big as her backside and a sense of humor that could rival Phyllis Diller’s. Helen remembered that first day they’d met. While shelving books, Sylvie had asked, “What has a spine but no bones?” Helen had shrugged. Sylvie had held up a copy of Moby Dick. “A book, silly!” Over sixty years later, the joke still made Helen giggle. Always good for a laugh, that Sylvie was.

Finally, Helen set down Lillian’s cup. Lillian. Her very best friend of all. They’d met in a dress shop decades ago and had been inseparable ever since. Lillian was the closest Helen had to a sister. Sweet Lillian was the one who’d calmed her colicky Ada when Helen needed just a moment of peace. The one who’d delivered casseroles when Helen was sick. The one who’d clutched her in the hospital waiting room when Helen turned from wife to widow. Helen didn’t know how she would have coped after her Benjamin died were it not for Lillian.

Despite the loss that came with age, like so many rose petals falling away in the wind, Helen knew how lucky she was to have such great friends. She’d lost her husband. She’d lost her beautiful hands. She may have even lost her sharp memory. But she still had her girls. Helen perched on the edge of her yellow vinyl seat and stared at the clock.

Ada slipped through the back door. The scent of fresh coffee, typically such a pleasant aroma, assaulted her nostrils. She felt her body slump. She straightened her shoulders and stepped into the kitchen to find her mother sitting in her usual spot.

Helen widened her eyes at the sight of her daughter. “Ada, my dear. I wasn’t expecting you today.”

“Hi, Ma.” Ada plodded to the table and pressed a gentle kiss onto Helen’s soft gray curls. Her eyes traveled to the three cups set before the three empty seats.

“Good to see you but, as you can see” — Helen swept her hand over the table — “I’m expecting company. The girls will be here any moment.” Her thin lips bloomed to a wide smile. “It’s Thursday. Coffee day.”

Ada nodded and sat beside her mother.

“I thought they would have been here by now.” Helen pointed to the clock. “It’s past nine. They’re never late.”

Ada touched her mother’s hand. That beautiful hand, lined and spotted like a work of art. Patterns that took some eighty-odd years to create. “Oh, Ma.” Ada sucked in a breath. Dread wormed through her. How could she tell her mother, again?

“My dear, why so sad?” Helen patted Ada’s hand. “Don’t fret. They’ll be here.”

Ada met Helen’s faded blue eyes and inhaled deeply, the stench of coffee taunting her. “They’re not coming, Ma. Remember?”

Helen dragged her hand away and swatted the air. “Don’t be silly. They wouldn’t miss coffee day.”

Ada lowered her head.

Helen’s gaze roamed over the china cups. “I set these all out for them.” She pointed to the cup to her right. “That there is where Margaret sits. Fifty some odd years, she’s sat there sipping coffee out of my fine china. She’ll be here. Don’t you worry.”

“Remember, Ma? Margaret’s not in the neighborhood anymore. She and Roy moved to Florida last fall.”

“Oh no, Ada.” She pointed in the direction of Margaret’s house. “They’re right next door.”

Ada stood and stepped over to the kitchen window. Pushing the yellow ruffled curtain to the side, she pointed. “See, Ma. She’s gone. Her son’s selling the house.”

Helen stared out the window at the foreboding For Sale sign, dropped her stare, and drew her brows together. Ada waited for the reality to settle in. Her mother’s gaze moved to another cup. She pointed to the empty seat. “Sylvie. Good ol’ Sylvie. She’ll be here.”

Ada padded back to the table. “Remember, Ma? Last July?” She touched her mother’s bony shoulder. “Sylvie had a stroke. Can’t talk. Can’t get around anymore. She’s been living at that care facility near her daughter two counties over.”

Helen touched her fingers to her cheek. “A stroke? Can’t be. Sylvie’s always been so strong. Sturdy Sylvie. That’s what we call her. How could she be in a home?” Her eyes moistened.

Ada whispered. “Sorry, Ma.”

Helen’s eyes traveled to the last cup on the table. Lillian’s cup. “Lillian. Where’s my Lillian?”

Ada draped her arm around her mother’s narrow frame. Lillian was the toughest of all. “Remember, Ma? Right before Christmas?”

Helen stared back at her with the wide eyes of a child. She didn’t remember.

“Lillian got sick. Had to be admitted to the hospital.”

Helen dropped her stare.

Ada drew her mother closer to her. “She became too weak. There was nothing more they could do for her.”

Helen shook her head, shrugged off her daughter, and covered her ears like a child. “No, no, no! She’ll be here.” She reached for Lillian’s cup. Cradled it in her hands, like a bird with a broken wing. “I know my Lillian. She never misses coffee day. She wouldn’t leave me. She’ll be here any minute now.” She raised her eyes to her daughter. “Won’t she?”

Ada shook her head. “Remember? We visited her grave last week. You set down a bouquet of pink roses. Lillian’s favorite.”

Helen lowered her eyes to the teacup in her hands and traced her finger over the painted pink rose. A slight flicker lit her pale eyes. Her shoulders sagged. Ada saw the memory register in her mother’s mind. Helen set down the cup and drifted her eyes over the table. Tears slid down her face. “How could this be?” She opened her palms as if expecting the answer to fall into them. “My girls. All gone.”

Helen hid her face behind her hands, those hands Ada found so beautiful, and silently sobbed.

Ada touched her mother’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Ma.” It never got easier.

Ada hated Thursday.

Coffee day.