Tea Water

Tea Water

Elizabeth Leah Reed

Trigger Note: This story contains brief scene of violence.

“Heart attack,” the ambulance driver said as the attendants lifted Jordan off the couch.

Mosley pursed her lips tight and cut her eyes at Kathryn as she climbed into the ambulance. Kathryn knew that meant keep quiet. She sat on the bench still clutching her purse and never said a word as they worked on Jordan. She just stared.

“Shock,” said the attendant said to the emergency room nurse when they arrived, nodding over at Kathryn.

It was less than twenty-four hours earlier that Kathryn had awakened with the thought, today I’ll do it. She turned over, flinching at the pain where his fist had imprinted on her stomach. In the shower, she moved her wash cloth softly over the bruises emerging like a Rorschach test, spreading black ink on the pink blotter of her skin. By the time she put the teakettle on to boil, she knew what she would do. She just didn’t know when, but, yes, today.

It had been the same when she met Jordan, knew right away she would do it. But then the “do it” was marry him. He smiled his dimpled smile and she knew. Eventually she knew when. She would know the right time again.

Kathryn cleaned the dishes left in the sink, turning to lift the kettle as it began to whistle. She poured the water—the steady stream a silver thread getting longer and longer as she moved the kettle high over the cup. She sat at the kitchen table in a sunbeam, cradling the cup in her hands. She watched the steam rise like a soul floating to heaven.

Before the honeymoon was over she realized it was a mistake. Those last days of the tense week that was supposed to be the exciting launch of eternity together were filled with sarcasm and bickering over the tiniest decisions. The cursing followed by long silences were the worst.

They returned to their first apartment and began playing house. “Goodbye dear, have a nice day.” “How was work?” Then the Friday calls started, “I’ll be a little late tonight, we have a meeting after work.” That’s when he started drinking too much. Kathryn didn’t have a script for a husband who came home drunk—that hadn’t been in the childhood games. In fact, she realized, she really never had a clear idea about what happens after the wedding, when she turned from the altar to walk back down that aisle.

At first she had tried insisting that he come home on Fridays so they could go out to dinner or do something special for “date night.” Then she asked him to let her know where the group was going after work, and she’d join them. “No—only the office group goes,” he said. In time he added Tuesdays, “Gotta bowl with the guys at the plant. Gotta get to know them better.” By the time it was baseball on Thursdays, she’d resigned herself to a life alone. The night he broke the car key trying to get into the wrong car, she started worrying about just how much he was drinking. “Don’t you think you might have downed a little too much beer when you don’t know which car is yours? And then you decide it’s the key’s fault not yours when it breaks in the lock?” That just made him angry.

That’s when it started, the physical fighting. First it was light bruise marks on her arms from shoving and pushing. Then deeper black discolorations and hard welts where his fists landed. Soon she was just as glad that he didn’t come home until after she was asleep.

She’d been 20, married and miserable, then 30, married and miserable. But now with three children, what was she to do? When she met him, he was in the Navy, a pilot. During those war years his carrier and he survived the kamikazes at Midway, but she’d always thought he’d die in a plane crash. She didn’t wish it exactly, but she thought it might happen. Her mother and grandmother were widowed young, so she halfway feared it and expected it at the same time.

No, she couldn’t say she wanted to be a widow, but as her tea cooled, her thoughts drifted to Arlington Cemetery some years before. She had stood under a tree as taps were played for Tommy, her childhood friend. Next to his flag-draped casket his young widow with her two toddlers wept. Tommy who would bound over the hill to greet her, who would listen to her chatter about her friends or a new beau, who comforted her when her father died and filled that role as best he could until she married and moved away. Tommy, her best friend for all time, was gone. The third baby stirred within her, and a tear started down her cheek. Why can’t that be me standing by the casket and Jordan in the box? Then I could be the poor, pitied widow.

As she held her teacup, Kathryn thought about the places they’d lived before the war and now it was over, Jordan was stationed in Charleston. She’d grown to love this rented house on a little island, just two blocks from the white sand beach. Still not air conditioned, it sat atop a cinderblock skirt to keep out the frogs and snakes and who knows what else that crawled out of the swamp or crept in the sand below. On most days Jordan would be off to work and the girls at school. Kathryn would put Jordy down for a nap and begin the housework. She loved being in the house alone and often sang as she scrubbed the floors or washed the clothes. She would pull out the old Hoover when the temperature went over ninety. “Can’t get much hotter than this,” she’d say to no one or anyone who was around, “might as well vacuum.”

In summertime, once the girls were old enough to be on their own, they’d be off with their friends at the beach or in the woods. Jordy was almost old enough to join them, but now Kathryn took him to play with the other toddlers when the mothers gathered at the beach. Each summer when Kathryn’s mother came to get the kids for a visit at her home, she’d say, “Why you are all just as brown as berries, living here on this island.” That’s where the children were, at their grandmother’s for the week, so the day was totally Kathryn’s.

As Kathryn sipped her tea, she knew Mosley was on her way, jogging to the rhythm of that old rickety school bus with the other day workers coming to the island to clean. Once Kathryn traveled those same roads to bring food to Mosley when she was sick, finding her way across the bridges from island to island to the cold-water shack deep in a Black neighborhood. Kathryn remembered the kerosene smell permeating the dark wooden cabin, the same smell that clung to Mosley like perfume in winter. She heard the bus screech to a stop at the end of the street, then the calls of “have a good day” in soft Gullah tones.

As Mosley came up the walk, the chatter followed the other women continuing on their way. One worked in the only air-conditioned house on the island. It also had the only television, and if the girls weren’t at the beach or up in the tree fort, that’s where Kathryn found them when they didn’t answer her calls as dusk fell.

“It’s a hot one today Mz Cameron,” Mosley said when she’d climbed up the stairs to the porch and knocked on the screen door, “My, it’s a hot one today.”

When she first came to the island, Kathryn thought Mosley was a little shy of her working alongside, but Kathryn couldn’t sit while someone else cleaned her house. She never sent Mosley to the beach with the children. What would happen if one of the children started to drown with Mosley not allowed in the water?

Kathryn knew Mosley noticed the bruises right off. Sometimes they were deep purple with black spider web lines prominent against a yellow background of fading memories of pain. But Kathryn saw Mosley’s marks, too, almost hidden in her dark skin. That first time, when Mosley glanced up at Kathryn, their eyes met in a moment of recognition before Kathryn laughed, “Can’t seem to miss that door knob. Rammed right into it yesterday.” Other days she’d give another lame excuse. Lately there hadn’t been any need for excuses with no bruises on Kathryn’s arms or legs. She’d learned when men got smart about hurting people, they slugged where the damage was worse and evidence less. At least Jordan had.

So Kathryn spent the day cleaning alongside Mosley, reading when she’d gone, and fixing dinner. As usual, Jordan didn’t come home, so she ate alone. By bedtime when he still wasn’t there, Kathryn grabbed a book and went to bed.

Early the next morning he came in, got into bed, and started snuggling. Kathryn mumbled, “not tonight Jordan.” He persisted. Once fully awake Kathryn got up and stood by the bed. “Just stop,” she said quietly. “You just stop your drinking. You just stop your swinging at me. You just stop . . . .” It was then he started his drunken yelling.

“Put a sock in it! he hollered as he came at Kathryn, sinking one fist and then the other into her stomach. “Fuck you, you fucking bitch” he said with each punch until she doubled over on the floor. As she curled up in a ball, he gave her one last kick and left the room.

Kathryn lay there, listening as Jordan grabbed himself a couple of beers and plopped onto the couch. Kathryn quietly went back to bed. She listened for the snoring, knowing that soon he’s be fast asleep and she’d be safe.

She slept a while, but by seven she and the sun were up. Kathryn tiptoed by Jordan on her way to the kitchen to fix herself a cup of tea. She put the kettle on to boil and grabbed it quick, just as the whistle started to sound. As she poured the water over her teabag, she brought the kettle higher and higher to see how fine a thread of scalding water she could make. As the steam rose, she knew now was the time to do it. Before Mosely arrived for the day. She added water to the kettle, put it back on the burner, and went to the living room.

“Jordan?” she said as she leaned down near his ear. “Jordan, wake up now.” He didn’t stir. She paused for second thinking he looked so innocent lying there, like that sweet young man she thought she had married.

But Kathryn wasn’t fooled. Her stomach hurt where the bruises couldn’t be seen. She knew who he was and what she was determined to do. She turned back to the kitchen and grabbed the tea kettle just as the whistle started again. She carried it to the living room and stood by the couch.

“Jordan? Jordan?” He didn’t stir.

“Jordan, you hurt me, and now I’m going to hurt you.”

Kathryn lifted the kettle high and poured a thin stream of tea water right into his ear, just enough to fill it and not run over.

Jordan startled up. His eyes bugged out. He bellowed as he grabbed his chest. Just as quickly, he slumped down on his back, splayed across the couch, eyes staring at the ceiling. Silence.

Kathryn really didn’t know it would kill him, that boiling water. But he was dead. She looked down at him and said, “Jordan, you won’t hit me again. Not now. Not ever.” She went to the kitchen and finished her tea when she heard Mosley let herself in and come into the kitchen. Kathryn looked up with a frozen face.

“I killed him, Mosley.”

“Why—What you say?”

“Look—on the couch. He’s dead.”

Mosley went out to the living room and there he was across the couch, mouth gaping and eyes staring.

“You call the ambulance?’

“Yes. They’re on their way now.”

“Why, Mz Cameron . . . ,” Mosley started, but Kathryn kept talking and told Mosely what she had done less than an hour ago.

“Oh, Mz Cameron,” Mosley said, “Have you told anybody?”

Kathryn slowly moved her head from side to side—“No.”

“Now you just sit here with your tea and don’t say a word to nobody about what you just tolt to me, you hear?”

At the emergency room, they treated Kathryn for shock but never noticed her bruised body. A policeman came to get her story, as they always do when a death occurs at home. While he was there, the doctor stopped by to tell her that, yes, Jordan had died of a heart attack—“so much alcohol in his system, that’s what caused it, most likely.” he said, then added, “Sorry for your loss.” The officer said the same. She just nodded her head as they both left her sitting.

Three days later, Kathryn stood with her children by the flag-draped casket, heads bowed as the sound of taps drifted through the trees of the military cemetery. Two Marines of the honor guard clicked their heels and marched to each end of the coffin, clasped the flag, and snapped it tight before they folded it. Turning on his heel, the sergeant of the guard stepped over to Kathryn to hand her the neat triangle of white stars on a blue field. She held the flag tight to her chest as he mumbled condolences, turned on his heel and marched away. As Kathryn wiped a tear from her cheek, she turned to be comforted by the mourners. That’s when she noticed two policemen standing by the limousine.