Ebony Eyes

For the last seven months, Meron has been waking up at 6:30 a.m. every morning. As her partner Aaron is sleeping, she brews some coffee in their moka espresso maker. She always likes to have her first cup, extra hot with a splash of french vanilla coffeemate, while sitting outside on their stoop. After spending a good thirty minutes slowly sipping her coffee, contemplating her day ahead, and waving hello to the occasional neighbor, she heads in to drop off her mug and grab her bag for her early morning walk.

Depending on the day, her walk route varies; today is Monday and it’s when her favorite market is restocked with fresh flowers.

Two days ago while catching up with her mother on the phone, Meron’s mom had shared that her sister, Meron’s aunt Aida, loved marigolds and it was the only flowers she had planted all along the outer ends of her backyard. Although Aida wasn’t a big fan of gardening and nature, something about regularly seeing the yellow-orange hue of those flowers gave her great joy and warmth. She often gifted close friends or family bouquets from her garden, her own whimsical expression of care. Meron ruminates on these sweet details about her aunt as she walked the two and half miles to her trusted market to get her own bundle of marigolds.

Meron is in luck, she is one of the first people at the market when it opens that day, and there are plenty of flowers to pick from. After greeting Luis the store owner, she strolls throughout the store to pick up two large bundles of marigolds, a basket of blueberries, pint of greek yogurt, and a bottle of Coombs Family Farms maple syrup.

On her walk back home, since she and Aaron share a spotify account, she decides to play one of his favorite Stevie Wonder playlists and starts humming along to the words of “As”.

As Meron enters the house, she sees the table is set and can smell that Aaron has already made breakfast: soft scrambled eggs and wheat toast for him, fresh waffles with thinly sliced bananas for her. As he waits for the espresso maker to finish bubbling their second round of coffee, he prepares a third plate: fresh oatmeal, thick-cut bacon, buttered toast, and orange juice. Meron walks over to gently kiss Aaron’s cheek and places her bag on the counter. He notices she has bought syrup and blueberries, so he washes a handful for the oatmeal. After washing her hands and placing the flowers and food on the counter, she heads to their living room. She goes to pick up a clear circular vase sitting on top of their wide circular industrial bookshelf near the back windows. The vase is stained and the water cloudy from the lavender peonies of the past two weeks. As she returns to the kitchen to clean the vase, Aaron has just finished drizzling the maple syrup on the oatmeal and walks the plate of food to the living room. He temporarily places the plate down on a nearby side table and then begins to clean and dust off the top shelf of the bookcase. There is a deep mulberry colored fabric adorning the top with pictures and mementos. He smooths out the fabric, softly wipes the photos down, and removes any remaining old petals from the now tossed peonies.

Back in the kitchen, Meron throws out the flowers and pours the murky water into the sink. She gently washes and dries the vase, ensuring there are no streaks and residue.

She grabs the kitchen shears from a drawer next to the fridge. After pulling the tape off the plastic wrapping, she begins to cut roughly two inches off each stem. She cuts open the plant food packet and dumps half into the vase. Then grabs a long wooden spoon and turns the faucet on. As the warm water gushes into the vase, she slowly stirs the plant food to ensure it blends completely. Once the water reaches just above mid-level she turns it off and places the vase on the counter. Meron gently places each flower stem into the vase. As she is pulling off any wild leaves from the stems and gently wipes any debris between the soft petals, Aaron has made his way back into the kitchen. He realizes he forgot about the coffee on the stove and turns it off. Aaron pours the black coffee into an ivy-leaf patterned cup and takes it to the living room. Meron has finished with the vase and follows him into the living room.

As he places the coffee cup and saucer on the top bookshelf next to a photo of a young slender Black woman with a feathered bob and subtle gold stud earrings is dressed in a tailored red skirt suit and matching pumps with a feathered. Set in a 4x6 cerulean blue frame, the picture is slightly stained but shows the woman leaning against an olive green Fiat Brava, that is juxtaposed against a large fig tree in the background. As she stands with her chestnut colored pursed in one hand and the other hand casually strewn atop the driver’s side door, she confidently stares at the camera with a beautiful cheery smile and slanted eyes. On the same shelf, right across from the blue frame, there is a 4x6 red frame with the portrait of a striking and solemn Black woman dressed in white linens and her hair tied in a matching white scarf wrapped into a tight turban. She has large pearl earrings and thinly drawn ultra-black eyebrows with charcoal eyeliner magnifying her deep hazel eyes.

Meron places the vase on the shelf behind the framed pictures. After a quick glance with Aaron, they hold hands and say a brief prayer aloud, calling on their ancestors, specifically it was: Meron’s maternal aunt Aida, the vivrant woman in the photo, and Aaron’s maternal aunt Winta.

As they begin their brief morning prayer, they take turns mentioning their general asks for health and joy in the day. Then Meron takes over and asks for protection and success with their fertility journey.

This week is special; it’s the last week of their IVF process, a third cycle in a very arduous journey. Aaron and Meron have been trying to get pregnant with their second child for two years and this time it has been especially challenging. Although the issue turned out to be more of Alex’s health, it did not alleviate the burden or stress any less for Meron. Her parents were fully aware, but his parents were not; a tender wound for both of them that they didn’t talk about often. Aaron feared his parents would not understand how complicated this entire process could all be. As Meron and he stood at their altar this morning, Aaron made a special point to ask for support and guidance for when to speak to his parents and tell them the truth. He also asked for protection over their five-year old daughter, Alem. To ensure this cycle went smoothly and carefully, Meron and Aaron had sent Alem to visit her grandparents, Aaron’ parents, for the next two weeks. Although they felt this cycle would finally be successful, just in case, they didn’t want Alem to witness any of their potential disappointment or grief. However the cards fell, they had Alem and to them she was their greatest luck. Meron finished their prayer by asking for protection over Alem while she was away.

As they sit down at the breakfast table, Meron thinks about how every day for the last fifty-five days, they have been consistently doing this prayer. Setting a deep and clear intention of guidance, protection, fertility, success, peace, and healing for their journey.

As Aaron pours the new thick maple syrup on her waffles, she shares with him, “I was listening to your playlist on my walk earlier, it was pretty good…I take back what I said last week.”

Aaron lets out a loud laugh, exclaiming, “I told you! My music taste is solid. I’ll never lead you astray.”

He jumps up to grab his phone from the kitchen counter and starts connecting it to their bluetooth speakers. As he settles back down into his seat, Meron is chuckling to herself and enjoying her waffles.

Aaron finally settles on a song, after hitting ‘play’, he digs into his scrambled eggs, slightly cold now, but he’s too hungry to care. “Ebony Eyes” by Stevie Wonder is playing loudly through their home, and slowly between bites, Aaron is lip-syncing while using his fork as a microphone. Meron glances over at him and a tender smile creeps up on her face.