Marigold Tea

Kait drew herself off the bed and onto the floor, disturbing a stack of magazine cutouts that waited next to a new bottle of clear glue and an empty cardboard box. Reaching back for her phone, she compulsively checked for messages and saw none. Feeling summer’s ennui, and total lack of focus, she ambled downstairs to where Mom and her brother sat at the kitchen table, lost to the world while assembling a Batman puzzle, generally unhelpful to her cause to quell the boredom.

Kait pushed open the back door and paused, her eyes scanning the yard as if to make sure it was still there. The humid air grazed her face and smelled like all sorts of things that regularly made her sneeze: slightly old lawn clippings, allergy-inducing sweet pollen, and soggy, hosed-down plants. She turned her head away and paused.

Stuck in the indecision, a memory slowly emerged, jutting up between the minutes of the slow summer heat, and dragging her back in time. She saw Nana, just two years ago, sitting in the yard while she dutifully collected flowers. In real time, Kait stirred at the surprising intensity of the past, and shifted her hand on the black handle of the screen door to settle in the moment. She let herself relax into the thought.

Kait remembered the smell of the fluffy, round marigolds, ripped from the ground and torn up (it had to be “exactly one cup!”) She saw the beat-up metal pot on the step, still cold from being in the air-conditioned house, and stained from all its years of use.

“We’ll need the mint,” Nana said, gesturing to the overgrown crop near the back step. Kait obliged, plucking a bunch and wiping the light green juice on her shorts.

“I like my tea like my men, strong and hot,” Nana said with a wink, and Kait blushed and giggled at the familiar expression, thinking of the black and white wedding picture of Pop and Nana on the mantlepiece inside. She had never met Pop, but she supposed that firefighters had to be somewhat strong. Something abruptly clicked inside and she pushed back on the happy thought.

“I don’t like men,” she told Nana, and it sounded more defiant than intended. Kait stirred the pitcher of water into the pot and adjusted it onto the kerosene flame and stand below. Nana had responded with a shrug and raised her eyebrows with a look of anticipation, either knowing by now that there were more words to come, or not responding because she genuinely had none herself. Kait thought of her failed attempts to speak to guys at school, and turned a darker shade of red. Picking up the ladle, she stumbled for words, “it’s not that I don’t like them for sure, but I just don’t know. I’m so confused about love.” The concept seemed eternally far from where she stood in the yard, and Kait’s body filled with doubt about whether it would ever arrive. The bigness of such thoughts often overwhelmed her.

“You’ll know it when you see it,” Nana said. She was generally unhelpful in this area and immune to her granddaughter’s frequent attempts at shock value. Kait often glorified the past, where people who were set up on blind dates went on to have six children and a loving home. She didn’t see the pain, money troubles, or chronic stress that went with raising a family, too far away from having any relatable content. In this exact moment, Kait wanted none of what she saw as ‘the good stuff.’ She hated when things got too deep for a Tuesday, and was now frustrated with herself for saying anything at all. Kait’s guts twinged with the uncertainty of being a teenager, and she felt totally stupid for being brutally honest to the octogenarian who sat beside her, once again. These tea outbursts were becoming a bad habit.

The tea had boiled, and the water turned a dark yellow. Kait measured out the honey and spices, and eventually scooped out two cups, just as she had done countless times before. They waited in silence for the tea to cool, and sat in rocking chairs on the concrete slab of patio. Kait felt the tension and embarrassment of not being able to communicate her feelings because finding words that weren’t there was chronically exhausting. She turned sideways and saw Nana’s smiling face. Kait remembered with a start that the face next to her never mirrored her own internal awkwardness. Nana’s almost-oblivious cheeks were quite incapable of judgment (at least towards her grandchildren.) Or maybe, Kait thought, she didn’t really understand because the time of her life when spontaneous declarations of sexual uncertainty mattered was long gone.

Kait’s angst naturally subsided. She felt safe again. She slowly sipped the sweet tea. Nana asked her for the coupon section of the newspaper, and she passed it sideways. “Chicken cutlets are on sale for $1.99 per pound!” Kait finally smiled back.

In the bright daylight, Kait returned from the memory, shaking her head lightly from side to side. She felt the door give in to the weight of her body and tested it a little. It swung out and returned her to earth. She still didn’t have love figured out, but she no longer felt dumb for past ponderings and ill-timed statements. It had been the first step to finding words that hadn’t been there before, a practice round with a friendly audience, or like reciting her debate speeches for the dog, but even less important. Instead, she missed the tea ritual and the brewer very deeply. The feeling was rawer than the silly idea that she had seriously shocked anyone with her obscure comments.

Stepping inside, Kait grabbed a Diet Coke from the fridge, and jogged back upstairs to finish her collage and text her best friend Bridget. Maybe they’d go see a movie.