The Last Sip

The formica tables at the Little Gem diner were wet and worn. The light over their table was dim, the napkins were empty, and no one was within earshot. Stepping through the plastic strip curtains, their waitress went into the kitchen. Two cousins sat across from each other, one stirring a steady stream of sugar into their coffee while the other squeezed lemon into their tap water. It was their Grandma’s favorite restaurant.

“Thanks for meeting me here first,” Morgan said, eyes focused somewhere else.

“Yeah,” Taylor said, shaky hands gently rattling their phone against the tabletop. “Why, though?”

“Better than rushing to the hospital, all emotional.”

Taylor tapped the phone on the formica. “I guess. But…she could be…”

“She’s fine.” Morgan laid a heavy hand on Taylor’s. “Just sit for a minute.”

Morgan’s phone buzzed on the table. Without looking at it, the cousins blinked at each other. They sipped their drinks. Their waitress shuffled dishes in the back. Gravity pressed the two of them against their chairs, hands sliding away from the center. Morgan’s phone buzzed, ignored again. Taylor cracked every knuckle and vertebrae, then picked at the table engravings.

“Maybe I should go now,” Taylor said.

Sipping, Morgan glanced at the message on the phone’s glowing screen. “It’s late. She’s probably resting.”

“I feel like I should go.”

“You’ll get there soon enough.”

Taylor’s eyes flickered between the phones, fingers tapping The Lone Ranger theme song into the silence.

Morgan chatted. “Remember that summer we both stayed at Grandma’s for the week?”

“Kind of,” Taylor said. “We slept on the pull-out couch and watched The Wizard of Oz ten times.”

“Yeah, Grandma made me hold your hand while you fell asleep. You were so scared of that tiger statue.”

“I wasn’t scared of it.”

“You were scared of everything.”

“We have different memories, I guess.”

The waitress reemerged from the back. She set the two side salads down on the table, two forks, a basket of biscuits, and a saucer full of butter pats.

“Can you bring some napkins?” Morgan asked. The waitress smiled and nodded, disappearing again.

“I really feel like I should go see her,” Taylor said.

“You might as well sit and eat. It’s gonna be a while before you can get in to see her.”

Taylor scanned the almost empty diner, looked impatiently toward the kitchen, fidgeted with the phone in hand. Morgan stabbed at the lettuce, watching Taylor.

Looking at the clock, Taylor stood up.

“I should go now, right?”

Morgan finished chewing the lettuce. “You’re too late.”

“What?”

“The nurse texted me. Grandma passed away about an hour ago.”

Eyes wide, Taylor stared past Morgan to the kitchen. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Morgan swallowed the last sip of coffee. “I didn’t want you to be the last one she saw.”

After suffocating on the moment, Taylor’s eyelids batted back tears, her lips were cracked porcelain. “She was right about you.”