Chinese resteraunt Tea

The one thing that she did enjoy , 

was to watch the Jasmine tea leaves in a freshly poured cup, swirling lazily as they sank down and danced to the bottom. 

“Chinese restaurant tea” She called it, 

every time, every day after the first sip, grumbling quietly to her husband Ernesto that it never tasted as good when they made it at home .They hardly ever left the house anymore,not to go anywhere. Not with her “behavior” lately.

“Exhente.” he’d started to call her ,

One hand placed firmly on a stiffened back bent over, the other reaching down to pick up whatever it was this time she had broken or thrown across the room. 

Exehente, y grosera.

Shed found herself snarling and growling at him constantly , catching angry glimpses of herself in the mirrors as she stomped around the little apartment.

Each new day a brand new frustration, another thing now hard to do that used to come easy. It felt like a surprise in a box of cereal, in a strange way that made sense only to her. The unpredictability fueled a specific frustration both helpless and painful. The suffocating stress transformed her into a feral cat, swatting wildly at Ernesto’s efforts to help her put the other arm in her sweater or pull up the knee length compression socks . Her strained voice echoed through its thin walls , its frame a cave for her throaty cries. 

No,

she did not want to listen to her favorite old rancheros. 

No,

 she did not want to go for a walk. 

No,

 she did not want to call the doctor.

It was either that, or she wept bitterly . Throwing herself on the bed , face first into a crumpled pillow , an exhausted toddler. Ernesto , flopping down beside her in an overpowering embrace.

“Por favor ,” hed plead in the silky soft whispers used to soothe teething babies, lips pressed against her cheek as he spoke 

“Tranquilo.”

She’d continue her crying in silence , salty streams running down sun weathered skin of the arms Ernesto wrapped around her. His prickly beard nuzzled her ear.

“You don’t know what it’s like. “ shed say to him in a whisper , though Ernesto snored softly beside her . 

***

On mondays and fridays , Ernesto would walk to the closet and pull out one of the blue work shirts. They always were lined up side by side on white plastic hangers , ironed crisply with the first button fastened only. One by one they would disappear, each Monday and Friday when he left the little apartment. For years , it was how she remembered the laundry needed done, when a single blue shirt stood alone in the closet.

Laundry was a thing that she used to be good at . As a child she’d spent Thursday’s after school on the Q bus with her mother, Lorena. They would get off at their stop an hour later and walk the few blocks to the laundromat, each dangling a swollen trash bag by the plastic drawstring over their shoulder.

Sheets and shirts and shorts and panties.

Bras are hand wash only .

Lorena would hand her three bucks or a five , and she’d skip to the change machine to trade them for quarters. She’d wait for the Sing-songy beep of the dryer, turn and pop open the door, and press a shirt to her cheek. Still warm from the dryer, It felt like a kiss .

This was a left over memory , saved somehow from the grainy scrapings of her brain when most of the rest had seemed to turn to static. The memory of the warmth of the dryer , and also the muscle memory of Lorena’s militant folding method .

 Sharp lines and tight squares , toss into the clean bag and go! Quick before the next bus comes!

Her folding no longer went swiftly and smooth. Tight sweeping movements and neat angled stacks became sagging tilted piles ,sleeves and pant legs unraveling from their placements.  

  . Shed grab them in furious fistfuls and throw them with full force , Tearing at fabrics and ripping buttons from their threads. 

Half folded sweaters went smack at the panelled wall, sliding limply to the ground in a crumpled pile. 

                       ***

 Once upon a time shed worked part time in the city, chasing after the subway every evening in the black satin heels, click clack click, catching her breath as the doors closed behind her . She’d make it home before the kids . 

The woman from those days. The woman she really was.

Not this thousand pound burden, strapped tight to the backs of her husband and daughters. A burden so heavy her husband would halfway retire, filling his days now writing reminders.

She missed the satin heels and calls to friends on her lunch break. 

She missed , 

“How’s your daughter, the one down in Texas who’s 20 ? I remember you said that she graduates soon. 

And,

“ remember we sat on the cars hood for that picture ? Our thighs got real burnt in those green checkered shorts . “

She missed days not spent reading Ernesto’s scribbles on jumbo pink sticky notes . Scattered throughout the apartment , the lost feathers of flamingos .  

“ don’t leave the stove on”

“ green and white pills: morning,

Blue and red: at night “

“ instructions to make tea :…”

All she had left were cracked pieces of her brain. Broken up shards that used to be whole.

 The dimpled, pink gummed grandchild remembered only as “el bebe”

 The unfamiliar faces of old friends , coming over every weekend stocked with pity and floppy polaroid memories, squished together with her tightly in the ugly green couch.

The ruined chicken mole left to blacken in the pot, forgotten and left to “simmer” until the smoke woke up the neighbor.

                                            ***

She looked down again at the crumpled clothing piled lifelessly at her feet, focusing in on a blue sleeve peeking out . She reached down her hand to snatched it out from beneath t-shirts and socks, a flurry of fabrics still crackly with static that revealed the blue work shirt. On the left sided breast pocket embroidered in black read Ernesto’s name. 

She held it straight out in front of him her and fluffed out its wrinkles. Then she held it close to her chest , touching the soft collar her cheek , still warm from the dryer .