The scent of a perfectly brewed cup of tea surrounded me and I immediately began to smile.
No matter where I was, no matter how sore my heart and tattered my spirit, a good cup of tea always made me feel a little better.
It was our ritual, you see. Every time we saw one another, there was tea. Even on the days when it was blisteringly hot and I couldn't bear the thought of even a hot meal, there was still tea.
We met over a cup of tea, her and I, and now tea and her have become so intertwined in my mind that every sip results in an outpouring of memories with her at the centre.
I miss her dearly, this woman. I mourn the cups of tea that she will never sit across from me and drink and I resent the fact that none of the countless cups I drink are ever as sweet as those we shared.
By the way I've spoken of her you may think we were lovers. But that is not the case. We were sisters.
We met when she was eighteen and I seventeen. She had just finished high school while I was still struggling through my last year.
By some stroke of fate, we had both decided to spend the day at a very popular cafe. I, being an early riser, had gotten there just after it opened and had claimed a table for myself.
She, on the other hand, had arrived after the last seat had been taken. That is, except for the one across from me.
I am not a friendly person by nature and I have never looked approachable in my life – not even as a child. Despite this, she came up to me and asked if she could share my table.
She was so bright not even I could say no.
We spent an entire day in that cafe, leaving only once the staff had begun stacking chairs on tables.
That day was the first time that we shared a cup of tea. In fact, we shared a pot.
We discovered that we had much in common – a passion for good books, wicked senses of humour and family lives that left much to be desired.
The little cafe that we'd first met in closed not long after but our friendship endured. We found other places to meet and share our days – some nicer than others. It became a game between the two of us to find the best and worst tea being served in town.
Eventually, she even invited me to her home. We had confided so much in one another that she felt brave enough to allow me to see that, knowing that I would not judge her just as she would not judge me by my roots.
Even when she went on to university and I began to feel the stress of my final year of high school, we made time for one another. Those tea times became my safety blanket and I clung to them, craving their routine in a time when everything else was chaos.
Time passed and we grew from girls to women. This was when the trouble started. My family, while dysfunctional, would never have dreamed of trying to marry me off – or perhaps it was that they didn't believe anyone would want me. Either way, I was spared the indignity of being evaluated like a product.
My sister, however, was beautiful and charismatic. And her parents were the greediest people I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. Not content with controlling their daughter's career path so they could benefit from her salary, they turned their eyes to the dowry she would fetch.
My poor sister was badgered day and night. Anything that could possible turn a young man off her was attacked until the 'flaw' was gone.
Many wonderful men did wish to marry my darling sister but the dowry they offered was never high enough to suit her parents. It was cold comfort that no one malicious managed to satisfy them either.
YOU ARE READING
The Scent of Tea
Chick-LitThe scent of tea evokes a very particular set of memories.