The Best Cup of Tea

Monday morning a package came in the mail. Mrs. Stevenson was excited, nothing like a package to start your day off right. To be on the safe side she got her cane and walked onto the porch. From there she could see her new neighbor getting into his car wearing shorts, a tee shirt and a baseball cap on backwards. She snorted. The man was fifty if he was a day, had two grown children, she’d seen them visit. He was an accountant for goodness sakes, someplace in Southport. Yet he dressed like he was twenty. Did he really dress like that for work? A lot of rich people in Southport, maybe they all wore baseball caps backwards too. Oh heavens, he was waving at her.

“Good Morning, is it Martha?”

“Mrs. Stevenson” she replied frostily. Honestly, he wanted to be on a first name basis with her? She’d met him once, at a neighborhood picnic a few weeks ago.

He laughed, as if she amused him and then added gravely, “of course, Mrs. Stevenson. “

She felt maybe she’d been too rude. “Off to work then?” She asked, she felt she has to say something. She wished they could get this over with, her knee was aching and she wanted to go in and have her tea.

“Not today” he said cheerfully” I’m playing tennis with my son this morning.”

“Very nice” she said. She approved of parents taking time for their children. Gerald had always done that, hiked and biked and camped with their children. “Well, enjoy your day” she said, her voice slightly warmer as she slowly picked up the package from the bottom stair of the porch, checked her mailbox for good measure(empty) and headed inside for her tea.

The package was from Laura, her best friend since grammar school. She was now a few hours away in Massachusetts, had a big garden and still had the energy to work in it. She was always sending tea blends that she made from her own herbs and begging her to try them. Martha never did, they made her nervous. She preferred a tea bag from the grocery store. She just put them in her pantry, pouring the teas into jars, they did look pretty lined up on the shelves, so they were not a complete waste.

Dear Martha,

Just to let you know I can visit in two weeks, as that is when my son Charlie and his wife can come and take care of the garden for me. But please, before I come, drink at a cup of this tea every day. It will help your arthritis SO MUCH! It is my best blend yet. Nettle and mint and chamomile and lemon balm and clover and a few other herbs I got from my Chinese neighbor next door, Mrs. Chen. It tastes delicious and really helps the joints. I promise it won’t hurt you! I drink it every day and it is really giving me energy. It just helps aging bodies in general. If you don’t use it don’t throw it out! Just save it to give back to me. The herbs from Mrs. Chen are rare. I don’t want to waste them. But please, just try the tea! Laura

Martha sipped her Earl Grey and thought about it. Well, why not? If she didn’t Laura would make such a fuss when she got here, and to be honest, she hated to have Laura see how much she had slowed down. Somehow, overnight, she had turned into a grouchy old lady whose joints ached, needed a cane and worried her children. Fine. She’d drink the tea. She got up and put the kettle on, found the tea ball Laura had sent about five jars ago and opened the newest bag. It did smell delicious, sweet and lemony, like summer in a bag. She got out another canning jar and carefully poured it in. She noticed this one had some purple flowers in it too. She filled up the tea ball, hung it by the little chain in a mug (World’s Best Grandma) and waited for the water to boil.

In the end she couldn’t believe how delicious the tea was, and decided to have another cup, adding some honey this time (raw and unfiltered) a gift from one of her sons who had bee hives. She often worried he would get stung and end up in the hospital, and told him so, but he just laughed and said, “Don’t worry Mom, I talk to my bees, they know me and don’t sting me.” She personally thought this was ridiculous but he was a grown man, and if he wanted to talk to his bees that was his business.

As Martha sat there having that second cup of tea she noticed how dirty her windows were, the screens too, they needed hosing down. She had a house cleaner once a week, the kids had started that when her arthritis got so bad, but the girl didn’t do any deep cleaning. To be honest, she wasn’t even a very good house cleaner in general. Martha had to teach her how to clean, and created lists for her. She never thought to move the furniture, clean underneath things, wipe down the stove hood, or even pick up the throw rugs and shake them out. Well, that wasn’t a problem anymore, her daughters had gone through the house and taken up all the throw rugs anyway.

“We don’t want you tripping Mama” they said. Martha personally wondered if they just wanted those throw rugs. They were twenty dollars apiece at Walmart! But she’d never seen them in their houses, so she didn’t know what they’d done with them. Oh well. She thought, we can’t always have throw rugs, that fact has to be accepted.

After the second cup of tea Martha marveled at how good she felt. Really energized and her knees felt much better too. Maybe the tea did help. She decided to work on the windows on the south side of the house, get them cleaned, maybe even get outside and hose down the screens. Her plants in those windows would get more light once she the glass was clean.

She worked happily all morning, really she couldn’t get over how much she’d gotten done. At lunch time she had a ham sandwich with cheese and pickle on rye and another cup of Laura’s tea. The she headed outside and got the stepladder from the shed and dragged the hose over to the south side of the house and…

“Mama, what are you doing?” came an outraged voice. Martha turned to see daughter number one standing there with her hands on her hips in outrage. This was Julia, loving but bossy. Very bossy.

I was just thinking about rinsing the screens. I wiped them down well on the inside with a soapy rag, now I just want to blast them with the hose. It would be better to take them down completely of course but I thought this would work okay .

“Do you want to end up in the hospital with a broken hip or something?” Demanded Julia indignantly. “You know we can get someone in to do the windows. You just have to tell us what you need done. Now come inside and we will have a cup of tea and you tell me what you want done.”

Martha sighed. She’d been having so much fun and felt great. She looked at her watch, 2pm, that meant that Julia had to leave in an hour to pick up the kids from school, so Martha would be able to get back to work then, and a little rest was probably a good thing.And maybe she’d have another cup of Laura’s tea.

So Martha and Julia had tea, although Julia wouldn’t touch the herbal blend Laura sent. “It smells nice though” she said, as she spooned liberal amounts of Andrew’s honey into her tea (English breakfast) and added some lemon as well.

“ Is the house cleaner working well for you then?”

Fine, lied Martha. She didn’t want Julia firing the girl, what was her name again? Tiffany, that was it. Someone had to teach the girl how to clean, encourage her to go to school and get a degree and leave that dreadful boy she lived with. (Martha had seen him once when he’d dropped Tiffany off and then vaped for ten minutes in her driveway) Martha was thinking of encouraging her to go into the medical field, an x-ray technician maybe. She’d looked up all the information online. It was doable, she thought. I can give her some big tips, maybe even save them for her for the college bill…

“Mama are you listening to me?” Julia was looking at her sharply.

“I’m sorry. I was just thinking of what I need done,” she lied again smoothly. Really, she was turning into a terrible liar in her old age, and after all those years of drilling honestly and the importance of good character into the children, taking them to church and everything. Seriously, she needed to stop lying. But if she told the truth life just got so much more complicated, certainly something to think about though, that was for sure. She jerked herself back to Julia who was going on and on about the importance of hydrating. Finally Julia left after saying she would pick her up Saturday for lunch and Martha, after making sure the car was gone, went outside and turned on the hose and spent a happy hour washing down her screens.

That night she slept well after a good dinner, Julia had brought her a nice meal: grilled chicken with broccoli and sweet potatoes. Really, all her children were good cooks, she’d seen to that. Another thing Tiffany probably has to learn she thought. Well, she’d see what she could do for the girl. A few nudges in the right direction might make a big difference. She really did feel this tea was giving her more energy, nice to be able to think of something besides her aching joints and doctor visits.

The next morning she woke early and noticed again how good she felt. Nice to know the tea worked so well for the joints. But the real shock was when she looked in the mirror and saw her hair. It was darker, much more brown than gray, and her face definitely less lined. She looked younger. No this was ridiculous. She couldn’t possibly be right. She was just well rested and her new shampoo must be making a difference. Emily, her youngest, had gotten it for her last week. Very expensive some ridiculous name, all vowels. Really, how do people even know how to pronounce things these days. She’d been in Shop-rite the other day and noticed a lot of phonetic spelling too. Some new product was called Cirkul. What it was she didn’t even know. No wonder the English language was going down the tubes. All those years she’d spent grilling spelling and punctuation and grammar into ninth graders, did it even make a difference?

She went downstairs and made the tea, noticing for the first time that there was not that much left in the jar. Well, she’d had four or five cups yesterday. She’d better ration it out a bit, and call Laura and ask her to send more. Would one cup a day help as much? But as she was sitting at the table with her egg and toast she heard the mailman put another box on the porch and wondered if Laura had sent her more tea. It could be something from Amazon. The kids were always sending her things they thought she needed and usually didn’t even want. A juicer, she snorted. Like she wanted to spend all day pushing celery into a tube. But the grand kids loved it so she made sure to have a lot of carrots and celery in the fridge for when they came over. They didn’t actually like the juice, just using the machine, so then she had to drink it herself. She thought she’d have them do kale next week. Kale was big now. It was a good way to impress her kids, knowing about kale.

And there was her neighbor again as she was getting her package, checking her mail. Baseball cap on backwards, like he though the was a rock star or something.

“Hello Mrs. Stevenson, should you be out without your cane?”

“I’m perfectly fine” she replied icily, wanting to say, shouldn’t you be minding your own business and wearing your baseball cap the right way? But she held her tongue. Really, loving your neighbor could be so tough sometimes.

“Let me just come over and help you into the house,” he called and bounded over like a Labrador, took her arm and had walked her into her foyer before she could think of a thing to say. She realized she had to be polite. After all, she had to be an example of good manners to this young man.

“Thank you.” She said graciously and found he was staring at her. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no” he stammered. “You just look a lot better than the other day when I saw you.” He laughed self -consciously. “You almost look younger. I am glad to see you feeling better. “

“I am feeling better” she said. ” A new herbal tea I’m using is helping with the joint pain. Well, I won’t keep you and I have some things to get done myself.”

When he’d finally gone she looked at herself in the mirror, she did look better, probably because she was not in pain, her face was more relaxed. And the shampoo was really very nice. Her hair was definitely thicker and darker. No complaints there she thought cheerfully. And the package was more tea, with another short note.

Martha,

I had enough herbs left to blend one more batch and I’m sharing it with you. Let me know how it is working for you! You’d better be using it! I’ll call soon.

Laura

She felt relieved to have more and thought one more cup this morning wouldn’t hurt. She made herself a cup with honey and lemon this time and then decided to call Laura herself. They needed to talk.

Laura answered right away. “Are you using the tea? Do you notice it ah, helping you?”

“Laura, I do. This is crazy but I feel better and I almost think I look younger. But it must be my imagination.”

“Martha, it’s not. Laura was whispering now. I wasn’t sure it would work, I didn’t believe Mrs. Chen. I didn’t want to get your hopes up, but I have been drinking it, and you know I don’t have arthritis but I feel better, sleep better and have more energy.”

“What is this herb?”

“Mrs. Chen calls it the ten-year flower. It has some cool Chinese name but I can’t remember it. But she said it takes about ten years off your age!”

“How much of the tea do you have to drink? For how long?”

“Just finish what I sent you. As long as you drink at least one cup a day.”

“So I’m like 65 now instead of 75?”

“I guess so!” The two women laughed together, a little crazily. They’d seen each other through so much and now this. It was quite incredible.

The next morning, after a breakfast of eggs and toast and of course the tea, (honey and lemon again), Martha headed out for a short hike in the nearby state forest. She wasn’t going to waste a moment of this strength and energy and working joints. She had on a baseball cap, but the right way. A good example for her neighbor she thought smugly. And there he was, bounding around his yard raking and digging, it almost seemed that he was just making a big mess. What was he doing digging up all that dirt anyway? Naturally his cap was on backwards.

He waved cheerfully and said “Nice to see you feeling better. I like your baseball cap!”

Martha waved graciously. One step at a time, she thought.