Cold Coffee

The moment I press the ‘Save’ option on my favorite word processor, I remove my glasses and start sobbing uncontrollably. I can’t help it. I just miss her so much.

My first ever story is staring back at me from my glowing laptop screen. I have been working on it for the past few days, always choosing to sit in the armchair from where I have a perfect view of the daisies in our garden.

Every day for the past week, I made it a point to sit down at 6 PM and keep writing until 8 PM. For two hours, I would write my heart out as best as I could. I could write beyond that hour too, but I choose not to because that’s when little Joanna wakes up from her evening nap and starts calling for her “Dada”.

Just two years old, she has recently figured out how to say “Daddy” as best as she can. If she calls out for me three times and I don’t respond, she gets down from her bed and somehow waddles over to the exact place where I am at that time. Be it cooking in the kitchen or reading in the living room, she just knows where I am. It’s almost like she sniffs me out. I genuinely find that incredible.

I smile now, because I think about how my wife would react if she could hear my train of thought right now. She would clap her hands to her mouth and squeal in excitement, her whole body jiggling in tandem, as if she’s just had the best Christmas present of all time. She is just so spontaneous and child-like in her mannerisms, and I have loved that about her ever since we met.

You see, my first ever story is about none other than my wife. I have been writing about her life for Joanna, because I want our little girl to grow up and read all about the incredible human being that her mother is. The idea came to me completely out of the blue a week ago when I was staring at the daisies in our garden, and after that thought was planted in my mind, it was impossible to let go.

I check my watch. It’s 7 PM right now. In about an hour, Joanna might come over looking for me in her panda costume that she loves wearing to sleep, for some reason. I lean back in my armchair and close my eyes, letting my thoughts swirl around like crimson leaves on a windy, autumn day.

                                                                       ~

“She’s like cold coffee in the morning, And I’m drunk of last night’s whiskey and coke…”

The first time I laid my eyes on Elise Irvine, I was a freshman student at university standing in a long line behind a registration desk, listening to Ed Sheeran and humming to myself. I wouldn’t have spotted her if it wasn’t for Stefan, my childhood friend, poking me in the back.

“Jeez Stef, what’s up?” I said, taking off my earphones.

“Hamish, I might be wrong,” replied Stef slowly, as if he could barely contain his excitement. “But I think those people over there are playing live Ludo!”

My eyes followed the direction of his outstretched finger and settled upon a group of people to our right who were indeed hopping around and rolling a huge foam dice over a live-action Ludo board on the field. But I barely registered them, because right next to them, I saw a girl who made me forget about everything for an eternal minute.

Her hair fell in waves over her shoulders, with streaks of red, blue, green, and violet running through it. I remember thinking it was like staring at a waterfall that had been kissed by sunlight. She was laughing at something, and it was like listening to a carefully orchestrated band of violinists. And her eyes, they were like cool pools of peach tea, and I just wanted to dive in.

I swear I’m not a cheesy poet, this is pretty much all I could think of in the moment.

“Earth to Hamish,” chuckled Stefan, obviously aware of my predicament. “We still need to get done with registration!”

I snapped back to the present, but all I could think about was the girl I’d just seen. I glanced to my right. She was still there, hopping around and flapping her arms animatedly. Like she had just heard good news from a friend. It was like looking at a bubble of happiness just floating around on a summer day.

The registration line was indeed long, but suddenly, I didn’t care. I exited the line and walked over to her. I had to get to know her. Thankfully, she was on her own at that point in time, just watching the live-action Ludo with an amused expression. She saw me approaching, and smiled even wider, as if she knew why I was coming over.

“You’re like cold coffee in the morning,” I said, putting on the smoothest show I could muster. Believe it or not, this was the only thing I could think of.

She arched an eyebrow at me playfully. “How do you figure that out?” she replied.

I didn’t even have to think about my response, because it was something that had been swirling around in the back of my mind ever since I had laid my eyes on her.

“Because no matter how terrible last night was, you make someone want to keep looking forward to the morning.”

She laughed in that orchestral manner again, and surprised me by doing a dramatic hair flip.

“Well, monsieur,” she said in faux regal style. “You flatter me, you do.”

I smiled, feeling warm inside all of a sudden. “There’s more where that came from, mademoiselle.”

“Okay Mr. Suave, if you want to keep up the sweet talk, I say we do it over an actual cup of cold coffee,” she said, grinning at me. “My friends tell me the café over here is really good.”

And that’s how me and Elise had our first date. For the next few hours, all we did was talk and laugh in the university’s small but brilliantly lit café. Those were some of the most magical hours of my life. I just didn’t want the day to end.

As the sun went down, Elise brought up her course registration, which in turn reminded me of MY registration. I looked at my watch. Barely an hour was left before it closed down and I’d be stranded the whole semester. We traded phone numbers, because I really wanted to see her again, and then I rushed out of the café with my bag barely slung over my shoulders, stopping only briefly to listen to her alluring laugh behind me one more time.

                                                                       ~

For the next four months, we spent almost every day with each other. And I was a man in love.

Here are all the crazy beautiful things I discovered about Elise:

She loves cats, and she comes up with pretty good names for them

She eats ice cubes like they are candy

She can hop on one foot for two minutes straight

She has these fluffy green gloves that never leave her hands in the cold winter months

She packs for almost EVERYTHING, and I’ve never seen her let go of the denim bag that she carries around with her

She absolutely adores babies; her eyes glow up whenever she sees them, or even hears them from afar

She has wanted to be a mother all her life (refer to aforementioned love for babies)

For someone who has hardly ever thought he could be so certain about something, I am very sure about her. I just know that this right here is the girl I want to grow old with. I still remember the first time I told her I loved her.

We were lying in the football field one clear night, just looking up at the sky and taking each other through our respective days. There was silence after a while, and I looked over to my side to find Elise looking like a peaceful dream, eyes closed and a perpetual smile on her face. I knew this was the perfect moment to say the words.

“Elise,” I said. “I want you to know that I love you. I’ve never felt as certain about anything or anyone else as I feel about you. You are quite easily the most magical thing that has happened in my life and I just don’t want to let go.”

Elise opened her eyes and turned to look at me, the moonlight bouncing off of her porcelain skin in a way that made me feel like I was under some kind of spotlight. Her eyes were glistening with tears that I’d never seen before, and I knew this right here was the most poignant moment of our lives so far.

“Hamish, I love you too. And I can’t even express just how happy I am right now. I…”

But she didn’t get to complete that sentence because that’s when I reached forward to kiss her, lightly touching her hair as I did so. She kissed me back, and I felt as if the grass underneath our bodies was suddenly alight with some ethereal kind of magic that was only known to us.

                                                                       ~

Five years later. I’ve got the ring in my back pocket. I have Mr. and Mrs. Irvine’s blessings. I’ve been practicing going down on one knee in front of Stef, who can’t help but laugh his head off every time we do this.

The ring is one of thousands that I must have looked through before I found the one that literally yells “ELISE” at me. It is elegant in its simplicity, with an alluring pink-gold color and a diamond cut in the shape of a star fixed on it. It’s our thing, our obsession with stars. One of the first things she taught me was how to spot Orion in the night sky, after all.

Six hours later. We are in our former university, sitting roughly on the exact same spot in the field where I saw her for the first time. I have brought her here under the pretense of wanting to hang out in our university to take everything in once again. We’ve just had a good couple of hours reminiscing about old times over cups of cold coffee in the café. Now we are just staring at the night sky, trying to find Orion.

Elise spots the constellation, and makes a big show of talking to it and letting it know how much it means to us. When she realizes I’m not saying anything, she turns to her side, only to find me kneeling in front of her with the ring in my hand. I barely get the words out before she’s crying and nodding her head in earnest. I slip the ring over her finger and stand up to kiss her, before swinging her around in my arms as her laugh echoes all over the field for what feels like an eternity.

                                                                         ~

Seven months later. Wedding day. I’m so nervous, I can feel the sweat beading up on my temples time and again. This is going to be the most important day of my life. Before leaving my room, I say a quick prayer.

We are at the altar now. Everything is unconventional in the best way possible, which is what you can expect when Elise plans something. She would stay up late many nights in a row hashing out details with our wedding planner over and over again. Her eye for detail combined with her natural quirkiness meant that the wedding was less of a formal occasion and more of a fantastical high school prom.

You could see the tables arranged in a way one might expect in a tea party that Belle from Beauty and the Beast might attend. You could see cherry blossom trees (her favorite) lining the perimeter of the ground with fairy lights strung through them. Wedding cake? Nope, she chose to go with a chocolate fountain set in the middle adorned with all kinds of fruits and candies because she wanted “kids to knock themselves out and have the time of their lives in a wedding that, let’s be honest, might get boring”. That is Elise. Even on the biggest day of her life, she is thinking about what would make others happy.

She is walking towards the altar now, arm slung around her father’s, giving that alluring smile to anyone who catches her eye. She looks like a vision, with her purple wedding dress and her rainbow-striped hair blowing in the wind. I can’t bring myself to cry at anything in life, which is something that me and Elise joke about a lot. But as I see my beautiful wife-to-be walking towards me looking like a slice of heaven itself, I can’t help but choke up. I love her so much.

We say our vows, all the while trying to keep straight faces, because unbeknownst to everyone else, we already discussed them at length over the past week and have included all kinds of inside jokes and sly innuendos within them. Everything is a blur in my memory after that, because all I can remember is the overwhelming feeling of joy distilling those moments to a mist. The “I do”, the kiss, the dance underneath the cherry blossoms with Cold Coffee playing in the background, and the feeling of inexplicable fulfillment.

                                                                       ~

Two years into our marriage. It’s a Sunday afternoon, a typically lazy time. I’m experimenting with something in the kitchen. Spaghetti Bolognese with a twist. Elise enters the humid room in her bathrobe with an indecipherable expression on her face. She observes me for a very long time as I obliviously prepare the beef mix. I start seasoning it, and if you must know, I can be pretty heavy-handed with the salt.

“Yikes, Hamish, you might want to tone down the salt,” Elise says, the hint of a smile in her voice.

“Uh-huh,” I reply, still engrossed in the meal I’m preparing.

“Yeah it’s not going to be great for the little one, you know.”

I stop what I’m doing, my mind going blank in that moment right there. I stare at her for what seems like forever, words simply failing to tumble out of my mouth. Her smile widens, and I can see her tearing up.

“What…are we…is this for real?” I stammer.

She nods her head excitedly. “We are having a baby, Hamish. We are going to be parents and we are having a baby,” she says, her voice quivering with uncontained excitement.

I stride towards her and hug her tightly, unable to contain my own excitement. Me and Elise are going to be parents. She is going to be the mother of my child. I feel like the luckiest man in the world. And I know that this means even more to her. It’s been her dream, and I can’t wait to see her holding our child in her loving arms.

“We are having a baby, El,” I say, laughing and tearing up as I say the words. I say them over and over again as we stand in the kitchen holding each other.

                                                                       ~

A little under two years later. We are sitting cross-legged in the garden, watching our baby daughter crawl around. I think she is looking for an earthworm. When she first saw it, she was so shocked she toppled over on the ground. We had to struggle to keep a straight face, but Elise helped Joanna up and placed her on my lap and we spent a good hour talking to her about worms, of all things. She is eagerly trying to find them now.

I look over at Elise, and I can’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of grief. I’ve been this way for quite some time now, ever since we learnt that she has been diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension. Something to do with the disease having a family history. Very unfortunate it had to happen to her, the doctors explained, but the symptoms are clear. And one more thing, they say with grave expressions, it’s terminal.

Elise catches my expression and smiles at me. She reaches out to give my hand a tight squeeze. I pull her in and hold her head to my chest, stroking her hair as I do so.

“I’m not ready to let go, Elise. I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”

She coughs. She looks up at me, and says softly, “You will, Hamish. After all, no matter how bad last night was, you can always look forward to the morning.”

And she was right. For no matter how difficult and unbearable those days were, sometimes all I could feel through the undeniable sense of loss were the overwhelming waves of gratitude. Gratitude to God and to every other force that conspired to bring us together. Gratitude for the fact that I met and fell in love with this breathtaking woman and got to have a life with her and watch her be the best mother in the world. I can’t ask for anything more than that.

As I hold her there, Elise starts humming Cold Coffee into my chest.

                                                                       ~

My eyelids flutter open. I check my watch. Five minutes to 8. I smile as I think about Joanna calling my name in a while. I get up from my armchair and gaze out at the daisies once again. They are swaying in the light spring breeze, and I swear I can hear an orchestral laugh in their midst.