In time for tea

Nelson tried to focus on the smell of his coffee, rather than that of the antiseptic that wafted past his nostrils every few moments. As much as the building management did what they could to help the memory care center not feel like a hospital, there were some aspects of it that couldn’t be covered up. Like the smells and how every person who worked there happened to wear scrubs and a name tag with stickers on them, as if to ease the fear of a child about to get a vaccine.

He sat in the modest cafe with one hand on his mug and the other laying gently on the table, not far from the cup and saucer of a woman sitting adjacent to him. Her attention was on the pianist playing quietly across the room and her head quietly swayed with the tune, her eyes stuck to a still point beyond the instrument. A soft-looking pink turtleneck stretched across the narrow width of her shoulders, her hair a dark gray and swept up into a bun at the nape of her neck.

She turned to him quickly and he startled, the coffee in his mug sloshing slightly, just barely avoiding a spill. He felt his heart rate go up. She’s old, about his age, but the wrinkles didn’t crease as deeply into her skin as his did. The skin on her neck hung looser than it would’ve when she was young, but her neck still looked long, even constrained by the turtleneck.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked, drinking from her own mug. A small tag hung over the side. Nelson saw it was one of those tea brands that had a message tied to each bag, but the inscription was on the other side, inaccessible to him. Her eyes held a youth that didn’t match the rest of her face. Big and brown, the color of autumn mulch after a rain, her eyelashes framed the jewels looking out to him.

“It is indeed,” he nodded. He knew she was talking about the music. If he were a younger man, he may take the time to compliment her, but he was past that age of smooth confidence. He wanted to tell her she looked elegant. Radiant, even. He worried that any kind words wouldn’t be taken as he intended.

“Have we met?” she asked him. He glanced down slowly before returning her look. Was now the time to say something? “What is it that you do?” she asked before he could decide.

He couldn’t help but chuckle. No one had asked him that in what felt like years. His friends at the VA all knew or otherwise hadn’t the interest to ask. They only cared about the backgammon. “Well, I’m retired now,” he paused. “But I was a mailman.” He tried to keep the sigh escaping his lips quiet. “And yourself?”

“I was a music teacher. My name is Gertrude. And you are–”

“Oh then you must love the music.”

“Yes. It’s alright.” Her expression faded abruptly, as if waves breaking in a bay suddenly calmed to a flat surface.

“I’m Nelson, by the way.” He wrapped both of his hands around his mug, resisting the urge to hold out his palm for hers. It’s what he’d been taught to do. But those teachings were for normal situations and being here simply did not feel normal. He brought his hand to his nose then, instinctively trying to nudge the smell of rubbing alcohol away.

Gertrude turned to face the piano again, this time one of her hands moved to the music, as if she were conducting the musician on each downbeat. He thought he may have caught a whiff of her perfume when she waved her wrist. Jasmine, maybe. He nearly blushed then. Nelson looked around in an effort to distract himself. There were others there. Families, he had to assume. Or perhaps good family friends of residents. A social worker or two who likely weren’t paid enough to be there on a Sunday. A woman with long dark hair pulled into braided pigtails walked side-by-side with a nurse or administrator. Nelson glanced at her and did what he could to not react when she returned his gaze.

Looking down to his wristwatch, he saw it was just past 3:30pm. The winter sun would set soon and he didn’t want to still be here at dark. Thankfully, the coffee he’d poured himself was decaf.

“I knew a mailman once,” Gertrude said, her attention now fully back on him. Her mouth was curled up on one side, buttoned up with a small dimple that gave way to joy.

“Oh? I hope he made a good impression for us.”

“Oh yes,” she nodded. “It was during the war. He brought me letters each week from my husband. He was overseas.”

“That must’ve been tough. Were you all alone?”

“Well, no. Not technically.” Her eyes met his and something in his gut lurched forward. “I had my daughter. And plenty of neighbors. So many of us had husbands and family members serving.”

“I see. That’s true, I guess it was common at the time.”

“I was one of the lucky ones. The letters that I got weren’t always cheerful. I could tell just how bad things were a certain week when my husband would focus a lot on the details of home.”

“That was the tell, hm?” Nelson noticed that the pianist had switched keys for a new piece. The music sounded starker now. There was a harshness to it that didn’t fit the rest of the day’s program. But maybe it only felt that way because the light coming in through the windows was dimmer.

“Yes. If he took the time to tell me about what he was eating or about his friends, then at least I knew he felt okay.” She paused and Nelson waited. “But it was when he focused on things back here,” she put her finger up as if just coming up with an idea. “Then I knew he wasn’t willing to face what he’d seen that week.”

“Mm. That’s perceptive. Well…I’m sure whatever they saw wasn’t always the type of thing he wanted to recount out loud, much less put down in writing to folks back home.” Nelson shifted in his seat and took a sip of the water he had beside his coffee, quickly draining half of the liquid in the cup.

“I was one of the lucky ones, though,” Gertrude told him, bringing her hands to her lap. She told Nelson of how the mailman kept coming by. How he always smiled when he handed her letters. She said that there were days when she could hear a woman down the street wailing, two officers at her door, and yet the mailman would still come and bring her a letter, wincing through his smile nonetheless.

“But your husband–he came home?”

“He did. And he always told me he would. He signed each of his letters by telling me he’d be seeing me soon.”

“And the mailman?” Her face crinkled, the wrinkles on her forehead coming together like tissue paper inside a gift bag.

“He still came by. But me and the kids ended up moving. We sold the house after the divorce. I didn’t know our new mailman once we moved. We lived in a large building, so it wasn’t the same.”

Nelson didn’t know how to respond. Gertrude looked at him, content to wait. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said finally. “I was hoping for a happy ending.”

“Well,” she took a sip from her mug and a bit of tea spilled onto her chin. She dabbed at it with a paper napkin before crumpling it into her hand resting on the table. “My husband wasn’t the same after the war. A lot of men weren’t. He brought the war home. All that anger.”

Nelson couldn’t meet her eyes then. “Luckily he saved it all for me. Never the children. And never let the anger get physical. But it turns out you can do a lot of damage with just words…” He looked across the room and saw the pianist had stepped away from the instrument. The chatter of an older gentleman and his son several tables away took over airtime picked up by his hearing aids instead. His stomach lurched again, this time downward, anchoring him more firmly to his seat.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that. You and your kids deserved better,” he told her. He gazed at his fingers as they held the mug. He kept his fingernails clipped and clean and made sure to wear lotion to keep them from chapping in the cold. But they were beginning to look so old to him. His eyes, too. But he could avoid looking in the mirror. His hands were another story.

“How would you know? You don’t know me,” she recoiled a bit then and Nelson shrunk in his seat. This was what he’d been afraid of earlier, the reaction of disgust.

He coughed and sat up straighter. “I would just think that any woman and her children would, is all. You and your family would be no exception.” He focused on keeping his breath level then, and waited for her response. She looked into his eyes and he stared back, noticing the crows feet that rippled out from the corners, like the tails of little fireworks. Most people their age had wrinkles, but crow’s feet are another story. People only get those if they’ve had good times. He was glad to see evidence that she’d had happiness in her life, even if it was after this mailman stopped bringing her letters.

“We did. Thank you.”

They sat for a few minutes in the quiet until Gertrude’s gaze returned to the empty piano.

“I’d love to learn more about your music,” Nelson said. “What is it you were most fond of?”

Her face lit up then, lightning above the waves. “Piano actually was my first love, but when I got a bit older–”

Nelson turned to his side at the shuffle of fabric and the scent of an overly sweet perfume. There was a nurse there with a clipboard, and the woman he’d seen earlier with dark hair braided into pigtails.

“Sorry to interrupt,” the nurse said. “Gertrude, I thought you may like to wash up a bit before supper.” She looked at Nelson and then to the windows, where the dusk quickly gave way to evening.

Gertrude turned to brace herself on the table and back of her chair as she stood up. The woman with pigtails brought a walker around. “Here you go, Mom.”

“Pfft.” She shook her head as she lay one hand on the walker, waiving the other one at the woman. She turned to Nelson. “She thinks she knows everything,” she rolled her eyes.

“We’ll have to continue our chat about the piano and music another time,” he smiled, raising his mug to her.

She nodded, her eyes still distant. Then a smile quickly came back to her lips. “I love the piano!” Nelson thought he heard her humming as she walked away, the nurse guiding her.

Nelson let the fog of his breath lead the way to his car in the dimly lit parking lot. Once in the car, he sat as the engine warmed up and turned on the radio to a station that played classical music. He took out a piece of paper out of his wallet. Unfolding it, he caught a smaller photo from inside and placed it on his lap. Flattening the paper’s edges over the steering wheel, his old fingertips caressed the words as if the talk about the children and the local weather were golden promises he could touch.

He picked up the smaller piece of paper then and flipped it over to see a faded photo of Gertrude beside a little girl with her hair braided into pigtails, framing a smile with a couple of missing teeth. Back when they were all free of any of the weathering that age brings. Even the paper of the photo itself was worn and wrinkled.

He reached into his pocket to get the little tag he’d plucked from Gertrude’s tea bag before busking the cup and saucer in the cafe. He read the little message. Knowledge gained through your own mistakes is long remembered. Leave it to Salada teas to remind him what he already knew. He placed it over the photo and carefully enveloped them into the folds of the letter before placing it safely back into his wallet.

He jerked when he heard a tapping on the glass. The woman with the pigtail braids stood waving an ungloved hand. He quickly rolled down the window.

“Well, how was it today?” she asked, burrowing her hands into her coat pockets. Nelson was hit with the smell of jasmine. Maybe it was her perfume. Or maybe it was her shampoo. He didn’t know the difference but his nose welcomed the scent that wasn’t as bitter as the halls of the facility. It smelled lovely to him, comforting.

“It was nice. We enjoyed the music today. And I told her that I’d been a mailman during the war.”

The woman laughed. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell her that I was an astronaut.” Nelson nodded and looked around the parking lot. There were only a few cars left. Most visitors made a point to leave by sundown. Ideally before. It wasn’t easy to see loved ones shift in demeanor, as most who lived there did.

“Well, I’d rather have her associate me with something good is all,” he shrugged.

“Because the mailman delivered the letters?”

Nelson saw a touch of pity scrunched between the woman’s brows just then. She looked older than her hairstyle let on. He nodded.

“She did love those. Still does. She has a few in her room that we look at sometimes.”

He looked up and chuckled. “Is that so? Well that’s nice to know.”

“Thanks for coming. It means a lot. The doctor said socializing is supposed to be good for her. With people besides me and the nurses, anyway,” she sighed louder than she may have meant to, but Nelson’s hearing aids made him practically bionic. To him, it was a rush of wind.

He allowed his lips to upturn then. He wished he could’ve done more sooner.

“So, I’ll see you this week for dinner after the kids’ basketball game?” She angled her body away from the car. He sensed their conversation was coming to an end.

“You bet. I’ll be there.”

She leaned over to give him a quick kiss on the cheek before turning and walking away in a manner he never would’ve imagined decades earlier. “Great. See you then, Dad.”

He needed to go home, too. He knew he’d be seeing them soon.