The Extra Cup

 

 Sometimes the smallest rituals are how we learn to live with what’s missing.

 She insisted on real cups and saucers for all of her guests. Each of her guests had a place: the teddy bear with a missing eye sat next to Mr. Giraffe, and Mrs. Penguin beside her new favorite doll, who didn’t have a name yet. Mr. Rabbit, whose ear she had tried to repair with tape, had a special place next to Lion; they were friends. One chair, though, was set a little apart, its cup carefully set expectantly, and next to her own place at the small table.

When asked about it, she only said, very matter-of-factly, “It's for the one who is sometimes late,” as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.

The rest of her guests had arrived in the same wagon; she had only a hallway and three rooms to wheel through, stopping often to break up fights and resettle them. Mr. Giraffe couldn’t abide Mrs. Penguin for reasons unclear. Mr. Rabbit said it was Lion who had nearly ripped off his ear, but they were friends at least every other day.

Today was friend day.

Her tea party always happened in the side room with the big bay window seat. Its bright, soft yellow walls and hardwood floors had what she considered a special touch. She wanted her tea parties to mimic a coffee/tea shop as closely as possible, like the one her mother used to take her to.

“Order for Mrs. Penguin,” she called out. On a side table, all the makings were there, some clear to see and some a bit invisible. One “tea latte.” She added professionally.

Now that she was six, her Nana allowed “real” warm water and cream packets, sugar cubes, and several flavors of tea. No more loose sugar because her renegade kangaroo had tried to keep all of it in her pouch. An idea that had created a terrible mess when she tried to dole it out into cups, not to mention the ants that had arrived later. That wasn’t her best tea party, she admitted.

Nana entered the room with a tray of cookies, smelling of warm sugar and cinnamon. “Looks like a proper full party today, Olivia,” she observed. “I thought you might want these for your guests.”

Olivia had clasped her hands together, hopping up and down a bit, her curls bouncing like tiny black springs around her head, bow lips pursed into a mock stern look.

“Nana! My name is Barista today, just like at Starbucks, remember?”

“Oh my, why can’t I remember that? I’ll never know.”  She laid the cookies on the side table, “Snicker doodles.” She announced with a smile. “You could be Olivia, the barista. It’s a real job, you know.”

But Olivia was already carefully delivering a cup of tea to Mrs. Penguin, returning for a cookie, and placing it on a small napkin, deeply involved in conversation with her guests.

Nana left the room, standing just out of sight, watching her granddaughter. She had sewn a small apron for the girl that resembled the coffee shop ones, even embroidered the name on it. Not sure if she should encourage this obsession, but it seemed harmless enough.

These “parties” happened at least once every week, more if something seemed to upset Olivia, and God knows it didn’t take much.  

She looked up at the sudden commotion in the room, stopping herself from entering.

Olivia was wiping up a spill in front of Lion and scolding his impropriety with a practiced adult voice that made the older woman put a hand to her heart. She had heard those words before.

The harsh scolding of a frayed single mother, trying to raise a child on her own. Her other hand drifted to her mouth, covering it, as she listened to the eerie words Olivia spoke.

“If you can’t try harder, I won’t bring you here anymore, I swear you just spill on purpose!”

The girl stood stiff before Lion, wagging a finger, “Now clean up this mess.”

Nana started, intending to scold her granddaughter for swearing, but placed her hand on the wall to steady herself instead.

The scent of cookies, cinnamon, and Earl Grey tea wafted from the small room. She saw the girl fill the teacup for the empty seat, carefully counting two sugar cubes, a cream packet, and a splash of the special lavender vanilla syrup that they had created together.

It was a London Fog, Olivia's mother's favorite drink. Suddenly, she understood.

It wasn’t just “play” she was watching, but a memory being carefully kept alive.

“You know who this is for,” she said to Mr. Rabbit, “She is a bit late as usual, but it will be properly cooled when she gets here.” All her prior anger evaporated as it often did.

Olivia took tiny bites from her cookie, teaching manners to her guest with alacrity and a generous smile. “There are lots of rules to good tea,” she told them.

Nana only half listened, her own grief pooling in her chest.

“What, what did you say?” Olivia hissed, her voice suddenly changing again, her powerful glare turned on Mr. Giraffe. “She will come back, you’ll see! We are going to name her,” she pointed to the doll, sitting next to Mrs. Penguin. Her tiny face darkened, her breath now short pants, her eyes darting around the room. “You’ll see,” she said, her voice filling with defeat rather than defiance, shoulders drooping. “She said we would pick a name together when she comes back.”

Before Nana could move, Olivia had taken the giraffe from its seat and flung it across the room. Her tiny mouth turned down, arms hanging limply at her sides.

She took off her apron and dropped it, then wandered to the window seat, noticing rain starting to fall outside. She scooped up the doll and climbed up, hugging it to herself as she gazed out the window, her guests ignored.

Nana, unable to restrain herself any longer, wandered over to sit near, but not too close, she knew her granddaughter's mercurial temper in these moments.

Instead, she picked up a small pillow, hugging it to herself, catching Olivia’s look of permission.

She said nothing as both of them watched the raindrops slide down the window, breathing in the sweet scent of London Fog tea and cooling cookies.

For now, that was enough.

 

 A thank you to Reedsy's writing prompts for the inspiration for this story 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Among Ordinary Spines

 

         

  Some books aren’t cataloged because they aren’t meant to be found — until they are.

 

She found the book while doing something ordinary and routine during her library shift. A Friday afternoon, a return cart now half-full, the library quiet enough to hear the building breathe. The book was thin, cloth-bound, the color of old slate, and when she turned it over, eyes sliding to where its barcode should be, there was none.

No stamp.

No penciled initials of ownership.

It sat there among its neighboring books as if it belonged, which somehow made it worse. She knew that sometimes people accidentally left their own books at the library, in which case this one would go to lost and found, and that would be that. But this book was already weighing more in her hands than she cared for. When she opened the cover, expecting nothing more than a title page, she met a sentence that knew her name, not the name on her library badge, but the one she had in her own head.

It not only knew her true name, but also something she had done just last month. Nothing could print all of that in such a short amount of time!

She flipped the book closed at once, the soft thud too loud in the stillness, and that’s when she heard the whispering, not close enough to make out words but purposeful, like a note passing from hand to hand. The voices seemed to emanate from the book, weaving between the stacks, dipping and rising, stopping abruptly, and resuming farther away. It was as if she had released them from their cloth binding. She told herself it was nothing, perhaps librarians conferring in careful tones somewhere nearby, but fear had skittered along her skin like spiders. In all that whispering, she thought she heard familiar words.

She carefully set the book back on the cart, but her hands had their own idea and picked the book up, slipping it into a sweater pocket. No one should read this book, she realized.

Thank goodness the library nearly emptied out of patrons, and would be closing soon. Her mind was in a panic spiral over the words she had read in the book. She felt no remorse about pocketing the book and planning to leave the library with it. It would need to be destroyed.

It seemed the book grew even heavier in her pocket, lightly banging against her thigh as she pushed the cart slowly through the aisle.

How could it exist, who could have written it, and when, and then why was all she could think. And then, with more horror, what if someone else had been working the carts that day? What if they had found the book and read about her choices?

At the end of the aisle, she looked for anyone who might have noticed her, but the section was empty. She usually took a long time to leave work, stopping to chat with anyone or to do last-minute things. There was not much at home to pull her there, and ending her job at the library always left her feeling empty. But today, she left so quickly, tossing her volunteer badge on the desk, grabbing her purse from under the counter, and barely managing a goodbye to the staff still closing up, leaving dust motes spinning in her wake.

There was no way on “God’s green earth,” she muttered as her shoes slapped along on the sidewalk. It was one block to the bus stop, and she could feel the book nestled in the deep pocket, tapping against her. No one had seen her do what the book had described; she was sure of that. It had been an impossible choice to begin with, but she had made a decision, and that was that. Life happens that way sometimes.

She needed to look at it again, but steeled herself against doing that here on the street. There would be time enough for that, at home. The inked words describing her moment of “impossible choice” were scrolling in her mind, like ticker tape. Her hand slipped down into the pocket to feel the book.  Beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. Her breath was short with fear.

On the bus, she chose a seat near the middle, tugged the sweater pocket onto her lap, and rested her hand over the book as if to steady it. She glanced around to see if anyone was watching, but the other passengers were absorbed in their phones or the blur of the passing street. Slowly, against her better judgment, she eased the book out again.

It felt cold in her hands, the cloth cover frayed, its corners softened by age. She opened it to the first page and read. There it was, not her whole day, not her whole life, but the moment itself, set down with unsettling precision. The impossible choice. The breath she had held. The reasons she had told herself afterward. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The bus lurched to a sudden stop. The book slipped from her fingers, struck the floor, and slid under the seats towards the front of the bus.

“My book!” she cried, startled, embarrassed. “I lost my book!”

Someone near the front picked it up and passed it back over the seats. She took it quickly, murmuring thanks, and in her haste, the cover fell open again. For a brief instant, the words were no longer hers. Just a flash, a single scene, stark and intimate, before the page rearranged itself, the ink settling back into the moment that belonged to her.

She looked up at the man who had handed it to her. He met her eyes only briefly, then looked away.  She slipped the book back into her pocket and turned towards the window, heart pounding. It had not been her life on the pages of the book; it spoke of a moment in his. Possibly his moment, when he thought no one had been looking. Maybe another impossible decision that had to be made. He had done what he could.

She felt a dawning understanding.

Once home, she carefully opened to the first page again and read what had caused her so much fear. Yes, there she was on the pages making the impossible choice, and that was bad enough. What preceded seemed worse. It now spoke of the hours that pressed her toward the choice. No one could have known all of this, all her inner thoughts.

She had moved halfway across the country. Changed her name. Let nothingness swallow her, just to keep going. In the end, none of it had helped. Not churches that judged, friends who melted away, not even nightly wine had eased the pain.

This book, though, held in her hand, spread relief and so much understanding in those pages. It was as if her pain in that moment had dissolved, as if a friend had told her story with compassion, not judgment.

She swayed a bit, then had a seat on the kitchen chair with the book in her lap.

               She thought about how the writing had changed before her eyes, from the man who had returned the book, she understood an implication. The book seemed to bear witness briefly and precisely to each person's life that held it. And then, she hoped, it would let those memories go. Maybe it was like the old Etch A Sketch toys she had as a child. You’d make a drawing and then shake it, and the drawing would disappear, clearing the screen so you could make another. Was this an Angel’s lost novella, or someone’s idea of a practical joke? Neither seemed possible.

The book had quietly rearranged her world until nothing fit the way it used to. She knew the world around her looked the same, and as if to verify her thought, she looked around her small, cramped apartment. But now life didn’t feel the same, or have the same meaning.

Clearly, the book did not belong to her. For a second, she had thought to destroy it, looking toward where she kept her matches. An instant later, she realized it might be indestructible; it was magical in some way. She couldn’t have that act recorded in its pages. She picked up the book once more. And there, on its pages, was her hand hovering near the matches, the pause before she reached for them. She immediately dropped it to the table, stood, and backed away. Surely just having it in her possession was some kind of cosmic crime.

Knowing that it witnesses her life, anyone’s life seemed supernatural, maybe spiritual, but she never gave much thought to those ideas and was at a loss. More than that, this book showed her that her choices did matter, that her life mattered in a far greater sense than she had ever known. The book was so foreign, so otherworldly, she had no words for it.

She left it on the kitchen table while she washed her hands, while she stood at the window and watched the lights go out one by one across the street. In all her time at the library, hundreds of books had passed through her hands, so much knowledge and wonder had lain in their pages, waiting to be discovered. Never had one come through like this.  When she passed the table, she rested her palm lightly on the cover, as if confirming it was still real. She thought clearly about returning it to the library, slowly turning the pages with one hand, and saw that the story had already begun to move in that direction.

She slept deeply and peacefully all night for the first time in days.

The next morning, she returned to the library early. There were special hours on Saturday, and she had the floor to herself for a bit. The building was quiet in the way only libraries are before opening, books patiently waiting on their shelves, each spine declaring its knowledge, each hopeful to be chosen. She walked quietly past the return cart, past lost and found, past the newly installed readers' nook, and stopped in a narrow aisle she hadn’t spent much time in.

The book came easily from her pocket. She held it for an instant, feeling its weight, just one last peek, she thought. Voices drifted through the room, weaving their way to her, whispers indistinct and ethereal.  Before she could read, they disappeared into the book with a vibration she felt, causing her to close it abruptly.

She turned and slid the book into the space between two ordinary spines and stepped back. There was no sign, no marker, nothing to draw the eye. The book did not belong to the careless or even the curious, she thought; it belonged to those standing in difficult choices, needing witness and hope. Better yet, the book might find them, as it had her. As she turned away, she felt lighter, full of wonder, not absolved, not forgiven, but steadied. She was not entirely alone. What she had done still mattered.

What she would do next mattered too.

To know that her life still had meaning was enough.

As she stepped through the aisle, her eyes found a gold-gilded spine with no name or catalog number, near the shelf end. With the tiniest tick of a smile, she reached out her hand, hesitated briefly, then pulled it from the stacks.

Almost Is Never Enough

She slid down the inside of the front door until the floor met her, heart racing, the air crisp with salt and damp wood. Her hands were empty, limp in her lap. She stayed there, counting her breaths while the house settled around her, the quiet tick of the clock on the wall, the wind outside worrying the eaves. When the sound of her own racing blood in her ears calmed, she could hear the distant slap of water that never fully went away.

Inside was still. Inside was safe.

When the shaking eased, she stood and checked the door locks, touched the sliding chain for reassurance, and turned the locks again. And for good measure, snicked the door hook down that she had inexpertly installed herself. Then she pulled a nearby chair under the doorknob, knowing this wasn’t necessary, but did it every time.

She crossed to the narrow window, pulling the thick curtain aside, and saw the mailbox way across the road. It leaned where it always did, the rusted flag half raised, sending a mixed message. She knew from past experience that it couldn’t stand straight up and wouldn’t go down all the way. It was surrounded by at least a foot of water, which rose and fell with the tide. Water that used to never be this close. Her lips pinched, she reflexively swallowed the inner shame of loss and failure. There could have been something in there, something important that could change everything.

The water rose higher at night, littering their yard with clots of debris that lay scattered about like the aftermath of war. Over time, the storms had gotten worse, shaking the house with screaming winds that left behind the scent of rot and salt. She could not trust the water, though; it followed its own rules.

There had been other houses, once seen in the distance if she squinted hard, not anymore. Her yard was sprinkled with some of their remains. A seaweed-covered scramble of once treasured items mocking her, daring her. She beat that dare once. Slipping, sliding, running ten yards out to rescue what she thought was a cat, but was a soggy teddy bear. It was her prize now. Her constant companion, despite the winds' howl for it.

On the sofa, knees pulled up to her chest, the bear sitting near, she allowed a sniffle.

Earlier, she had believed it was possible today. Today, the wind was silent, and the water receded. She had opened the door warm from the morning sun, the smell of spoiling seaweed sharp, and stood on the threshold longer than she meant to. It was better to be moving.

The water lapped out beyond the fallen yard fence, close enough that its slaps felt loud and jeering. She took one step down, then another, watching only the ground directly in front of her. The world sprang to life all around her, too much sky, too much sun, movements of grasses and distant waves making her dizzy, and she tilted a bit, clutching her scarf and coats. She always put on several layers, considering them her shield against too much of everything.

Her mind had traced the path she needed to take, reach the first sandy patch near the fallen fence, just get there first. Not the road, not even the mailbox yet, just one step at a time. But she felt herself tip as her frozen legs had stopped moving. She was falling, falling, mouth open in a silent scream. She tried to breathe, tried to let it find release from her chest, but it remained caught. The world started to turn gray, dimming.

It had been a deafening blur from there, but she remembered crawling up onto the porch, actually crawling into the house like a child. She had used the door jamb to help her stand as she slammed the door and tried to engage the locks, her hands trembling violently. Then she had fallen to the floor again, shaken and ashamed.

Much later, she lay down on the sofa, where she had been sleeping, too afraid to use the bedroom and leave the house unattended. She lay quiet in her defeat, staring up at the sagging ceiling. It was only when she lay unmoving that the mailbox came back to her as it used to be.

How long had it been since she used to run and skip to the box, delighted to pull out whatever was inside, smiling back as her mother waited at the door? It was like a mystery box of joy, sometimes filled with papers, and sometimes with boxes stamped with curved arrows, each containing surprises or necessities. Those boxes had mostly quit coming when the subscriptions stopped being paid. Sometime after, her mother had never returned home. There had been food, sometimes soaps, toothpaste, and then razors, which she never used. Every now and then, there had been letters, those she saved, she tried to read the slanting, hooked script over and over, most words impossible to decipher.

The hope that something, anything, would be in there called to her constantly.

In the dark of night, she lay wide awake, listening to the water, and realized it sounded the same as it always had. The house hadn’t fallen down; the walls hadn’t given way. Even the wind moaned as if it was lost too. And nothing, not one thing, had followed her inside to change her world. Her body slowly relaxed. Her thoughts did not. They moved through her mind like tiny tornadoes, tearing at words, lifting memories she didn’t want, leaving the same questions behind.

She remembered her mother scolding her. “Almost is never enough,” she would say. “You have to do it.” It applied to everything—homework, chores, all of it. She knew she should try again. She would try again.

By morning, light came in pale and thin, making the water outside look gentle.

Almost.

Already her body suspected what she wanted to do. It started to tighten before she reached the door, reminding her of yesterday and how quickly the world could grow too large. She stood there anyway, hand on the knob, listening. Her fingers moved to undo the locks. The house creaked gently, her own breath calm and steady. She turned to the teddy bear on the sofa and spoke, her voice cracking with disuse,

“I’ll be back in just a minute, okay?” Without waiting for an answer, she stepped out onto the porch.

Everything still looked the same outside. Far ahead, the mailbox still leaned on the other side of the road, but there was no water at its feet. Oh, she could see the waves out there reaching towards her and sliding back, but she stood up straighter, moving her feet carefully down the path, stepping around debris. She counted her steps, one, two, three, four, to quiet the fears that waited.

When her feet finally crunched on the sandy road, startling her, she almost stumbled and fell onto the mailbox with relief. Her fingers reached out, touching its cool, wet metal, feeling it give and sway beneath her. She glanced quickly around in disbelief that she had actually made it. She saw her house in the distance, the front door open, waiting. Overhead, a gull cried. She watched it dip out towards the ocean.

She did not open the mailbox right away. Being there was enough, enough to know the distance could be crossed, and she curved her lips into a small smile. “Almost is never enough,” she whispered, naming the rule she had once lived by, her fingers moving to pull the latch.

 

A thank you to Reedsy writing prompts for this story's inspiration