Clouds in My Coffee

The house is quiet, not in the relaxing, lazy, summer kind of way, but in the empty, listening, waiting kind of way. Where are the thumps from above the kitchen, the sound of the phone that often drops from my daughter’s bedside table onto the floor when she reaches for it upon waking? 

Where are the feet that emerge as the other one descends the steps into the kitchen, ready for the day, on her way to somewhere, usually with a plan? I turn expectantly, poised for that fresh, unlined face to appear above the feet. I never get tired of looking at their faces, judging what the mood is. Are they up for conversation? One usually yes, the other almost always no. Sometimes her eyes are puffy, her hair unbrushed. She beelines for the coffee machine, usually protesting having to answer some question. “I know, I know … I don’t know, ok? Please don’t talk to me right now. I’m sorry, I just need coffee.” 

Coffee. The twins are 18, and this last year of high school — spent mostly at home because of Covid — has been all about coffee in the morning. “We are a coffee family,” one pronounced a few months ago, pouring herself a large mug. Sometimes the machine goes through three rounds in a morning. How can four people drink so much coffee? I wonder.

They have been in a summer resort town for the last month, working a few miles from the town center at a restaurant and living with friends. My husband and I recently came from spending a week there after driving them over. One morning in town, as I ducked out of a shop to take a phone call from one daughter, I looked up from my perch on a bench to see the other one running up the sidewalk, carrying a tray of iced lattes from the coffee shop down the block.

“Hi sweetie!” I wave. Into the phone I say, “Your sister is walking up the sidewalk!”

“Mom, we’re rushing to work! Sorry, I can’t stop,” says the drink-laden teen, zooming past me in her work uniform.

“Where are you going?” 

“We’re parked up the street!” she calls back over her shoulder.

Still holding the phone to my ear, I proceed to follow her to the corner, where the car is idling and her sister is behind the wheel. As the coffee carrier scrambles into the car, I peak through the passenger window. “Hi!” I say brightly to the driver, and into my phone.

She barely glances at me and shifts the car into gear. “Why are you driving all the way into town to get coffee?” I ask incredulously as they try to make their getaway.

“We were out of coffee at the house!” comes the answer, fading behind the car now disappearing up the street.

I shake my head. A coffee family indeed.

Bonus: One of the best songs of all time