The Cups Went Cold

September second. It's Labor Day, which means Simone texted at nine asking if I had anything going on, and I said no, which was true, and twenty minutes later she was at the door with two coffees from the cart on the corner. She didn't have to do that. I don't think she thought about whether she had to do that. She just did it, and now we're at the kitchen table and neither of us has anywhere to be.

We talked for a while about nothing specific, a shift we both worked last week, a thing she saw on the way over, whether the weather is actually turning or whether this is just a Tuesday pretending to be fall. At some point I realized I had one knee pulled up to my chest and both hands around the cup and I was just listening, the way you only really listen when you're not performing listening. The coffee was probably cold by then. I didn't check.

the quiet before either of us said the next thing

I set the camera up before she arrived, on a stack of books on the counter, pointing at the table. Not for a reason exactly. More the way I've been doing things lately: the photo first, then whatever the morning turns out to be. There's a version of me from a year ago who would have felt self-conscious about that. Now it just feels like paying attention.

two cups, one quiet morning

The windowsill looked good in the light this morning. The collapsed bowl, the letterpress card, the photograph. I didn't say anything about it to Simone because there wasn't anything to say. They were just there. She saw them or she didn't. The cups are in the recycling now and the table is the same table it always is and that's a whole morning I wouldn't trade.