The House Made of Tea Tree Wood

Every conversation with her mama flowed smoother with a pitcher of southern sweet tea. When Rosie was a young girl, much younger than she is now, she would fall asleep listening to the women of the house talk, punctuated with the clinking of ice in their glasses. She’d close her eyes listening to the ice make music with the windchimes on the porch, the laughing and the gossip becoming the lyrics to a secret song just for her. She never knew what they were talking about, just listening to the lullaby of their voices. Inevitably, the cackling and the cawing of the laughs would grow loud and awaken her. Unsure of how long she slept, she would eye the amount of sweet tea left in the pitcher. Sometimes when she’d wake up there was more tea in the pitcher than when she fell asleep. It took her longer than she’d ever admit for her to realize it meant she slept so long they drank the whole darn thing then refilled it. 

She took her first step back on that porch after 7 years of being away. It was the kind of porch that was already so old time didn’t really do anything to it. She imagines she could have waited 10 more years to come back, and it would’ve creaked the same way. The whole house was no different. It stood with what her mama always joked was an “aching hip.” It wouldn't be resting anytime soon, not as long as her mama was still living in it. Rosie always thought the house was kinder during gossip and tea. It must've enjoyed the times. It never seemed to crack the same when people were talking on its porch, nothing like the noises it made at night. Younger Rosie hated the house’s old bones. It’d keep her up at night. She never believed in spirits, Mama made sure of that, so she never thought there was anything haunting it. Instead, for years, she thought the whole thing would cave in. 

She was the only girl on the block with a house like that, but it was not something to be jealous of. When her friends first started calling it creepy, she got self-conscious, but time taught her to take it with a smile. She’d call it creepy too. When she was seventeen, she had a boy over, Billy Toho, who was so scared of the house he’d only meet her in the garden. They met there every Thursday for a month before getting caught by Rosie’s mama. Mama didn’t care about the boy, but she overheard the words they were using to talk about her house. She cared about that. She ran Billy off with a garden hose and dragged Rosie inside. Rosie thought she’d get a talking to but instead mama sat at the table and asked her to make tea. 

“What kind?” Rosie was sure she said, stubbornly too. 

“Whichever is your favorite.” Mama said. 

So, Rosie did. She grabbed a box of rosemary tea, a special box. It was a “healthy tea,” or at least that’s what it read on the box. When Rosie was younger, she had sat at the table reading all the text on that box like it was the bible, waiting for the tea to be ready. She knew every word and could recite it by memory. “It lowers blood sugar, improves the mood, protects the brain and heart.” She would whisper like a jingle every time she made it. She felt the affinity was only natural, it was her namesake, after all. So, she made that tea like her mama told her, unsure whether she was being punished. She was taught not to talk poorly about that house, so when she brought the kettle to a boil she couldn’t help pleading:

“It was just a joke, Mama.”

“Is the tea done?” She heard from the other room. She knew that tone of voice. It said, “there was nothing more to be said.” When Mama used that tone, she knew she was getting nowhere in the conversation. The whistle of the kettle pulled her back into the present moment.  She poured her water over the tea bag and started a timer for it to steep. Normally, she had the waiting memorized, but today she was distracted. She didn’t know what her Mama was thinking, and she definitely didn’t want to mess up this one task she’d been given. In those few minutes, her mind didn’t wander. She stayed acutely aware of each passing moment and second. An old grandfather clock impatiently ticked in the corner, and Rosie thought the house must be as bored as she is. When it was done, she removed the tea bag and served it up with a bit of honey, filling two small cups, one for her and one for mama. She carefully carried the tray to the table, but once there her mama stood up.

“Not here.”

She followed her mama to a corner of the porch. If there was anything Rosie felt most embarrassed that this house contained, it was this spot. On a certain wood plank was a large brown stain. Every time her Mama made a new batch of tea; she always poured the last cup right here. She never understood why, but she knew that if any of her friends knew they’d think her mama was crazy, and she couldn’t have that. When she’d ask why her Mama did it, she said it was because “The house likes a sip too.”

And here they were, at that shameful spot. Rosie nearly screamed when her Mama took the teapot and began pouring the whole batch on that plank. The wood drank it up rapidly, parched by the dry winter that year. 

“Now pour your cup Rosie.”

“No, Mama. It’s weird. I don't-”

“You need to apologize.”

“I’m sorry, ma-”

“Not to me. Say it to the house.”

So, she did. She took her cup and stole a quick sip before pouring the rest onto the wood. Just like before, still thirsty, the porch drank it up. Her mama followed, reverently doing the same, before taking the tray and walking back inside. Rosie couldn’t move. She just sat there staring at the ugly spot on the porch. She hated looking at it, its mixture of browns she thought appeared like melanoma. She was never caught talking ill about the house again, but it took another year for her to understand what her mother saw in it. Mama always said she thought the house was a mother. She would say that it protects them only because it wants to, and that the least they could do is be grateful. 

Nearly a year later, in the middle of hurricane season, a particularly bad storm came to town. When the tornado sirens started to sound, a screeching whining noise, Rosie hid in the tub. Her mama came in, gave her the throw blanket from the couch and a pillow from the cupboard, saying to fall asleep until it’s over. But Rosie couldn’t sleep. The sirens were nothing like the sound of clinking ice, windchimes, and chatter. All she could hear were the creeks of the old wood, plaguing her with visions of the whole roof coming off in a single swipe of God. One thought about her mama being out there in all this was all it took for her to gather the courage to go find her. The creaks were much louder in the outside rooms and the wind pounded at the windows. It sounded like strained screaming. If it were any other day the sound would have made her call the authorities, fearing a murder was taking place. It didn’t take long to find her mama, in fact she nearly tripped over her. She was sat in the middle of the living room, eyes closed, listening. 

“Mama, we need to go to the tub. It’s safer there. You can’t be out here.” She plead. But her mother just shook her head, bringing a single finger to her lips, letting out a soft shush before going on.

“Listen. That’s the sound of the house protecting us. She’s doing her best. She loves us, Rosie. That’s the sound of love.” Her mama said, before opening her arms, offering Rosie a home. Rosie took it, cuddling up. She’d be damned if she left her mama alone in here by returning to the bathroom, so she settled with her fate. It was harder to hear the sirens over the creaking. In fact, the familiarity of the creaking softly lured her to slumber. When she woke up the next morning, her mama was making tea for the neighborhood. In the storm, it turned out, every other house on the block was hit hard. All the worst horrors Rosie had theorized in that tub were the realities for others. Yet her old, creaky, creepy house stayed strong. They took a lot of people in after that storm, mama thought it was only the right thing to do. Rosie’s friends were never caught insulting the house after that. All the people meant a lot of tea as well, and from then on Rosie always poured the last cup out for the porch. 

Now that she was back in this house, she felt it fitting to do so again. She could hear in the creaks how the house had been thirsty for some time with no one to feed it. The pantry was stocked more than usual. She wasn’t there when her mama first fell ill, but she knew without a doubt the whole town was. If they knew anything about her mama, it was surely that she loved her tea. Boxes and boxes filled the tables, the cupboards, and, politely, the trash. Hibiscus, Oolong, Turmeric, clearly anything people could bring. She’s sure they all come with a list of cures: Ginger for the nausea, Chamomile for the sleep, Peppermint for digestion. Truly, the kindness was overwhelming, but it wasn’t what she was there for. She pushed past the boxes of black and discarded tea bags of lavender to find her perfect box of rosemary. 

It had been 7 years since she had that tea. At college she could never find the same box in the stores, and she couldn’t lie and say any other tasted the same. She probably could have hunted it down, but after a few years she was afraid it was the place that made the taste, not the leaves, so she never tried. No, only that box, in that cupboard, was Rosie’s tea. She set the water to boil and waited. The moments for herself are her favorite part about tea. She contemplated the number of boxes truly in that kitchen. Far more than one woman could drink in a lifetime, even if that woman was her mama. Even if you included the nurses who came through to check on mama, it still wouldn’t be drunk in the next 20 years. The kettle whines, telling her to stop overthinking. As she allows the tea bag to steep, her mind finally drifts to the woman upstairs. There was no way her mama didn’t know she was home. The doorbell never worked, so Rosie didn’t even try. After all, the creaky floorboards made do. 7 years was a long time not to see someone who you saw every day all the years before it. She didn’t think she’d fall in love with life outside this house the way she did. She still called, but she knew for a fact it wasn’t the same, because if they had still been meeting in person her mama couldn’t have hid that she was sick. She used to excuse the time she spent away from home, saying it was valuable, she was working on her doctorate, that she was just so busy. But the second she learnt about the illness, she wished she could throw it all away. Perhaps that’s why she sat here stalling with the steep. The tea bag had been in for far to long at this point and she knew it. She was terrified of going upstairs and seeing what she had missed. If she had known, she would have been there for her mama in a heartbeat. She knew that was perhaps why her mama never told her. 

Carefully, she pours two cups of tea and places them on a tray. Like the rest of the house, the ornate tray had stayed the same. Ever so like a loyal butler, Rosie knew that tray would be here as long as the house remained upright. It was wood, a bright brownish red from a tree she couldn’t even guess. On it were carvings of small birds: kinglets, wrens, and warblers, with a large crane in the middle. That crane knew just as many stories as she did, perhaps more, considering he was awake for all of them. Rosie placed careful feet as she brought the tray to her mama’s room. She creeped with a practiced ease, coming back to her through muscle memory despite her years away. She was only halfway up the steps when she could see into her mother’s bedroom. She wasn’t sure if the door was purposefully left open, after all, the house so misshapen it was permanently ajar. A light peaked through, cutting the darkness of the hall like a knife. She could see the scene so clearly: nurses tending around the bed and her mother with a small bag of dried rice over her eyes. She was still. So was the house. 

The teacups hit the ground first, shattering as fast as Rosie’s heart. The ceramic, which once contained a small painting of little ducklings, became a puzzle as it hit the ground, the pieces never to all be found as they fell into the cracks of the stairs. The teapot did not shatter as completely, merely breaking into large, jagged pieces. Rosie imagines years ago her mother would have yelled at her if she tried to clean it up, worried she’d get cut on the nearly serrated edges. Lastly went the tray, which bumbled down the stairs like a dying heartbeat. Together it made a song which would persist like an ear worm in Rosie’s mind for the rest of time. This was not the sound of comfort, like windchimes and clinking ice, nor was this the sound of danger, like the sirens, instead, this was the sound of mourning. She looked down, stunned, and unable to look up anymore. Looking up meant looking to that doorway, and that permanently ajar door, and seeing something she wasn’t meant to. Not yet. Not when she had told herself for seven years, she still had time to have one last drink with her mama. She couldn’t look, so her eyes traced the wood grain in the floorboards. They held a familiarity that all floorboards in the house likely would, nothing special or unique about them, but undeniably this house. She watched as the wood drank the tea, as it always does. She sat on an adjacent step, watching each drop sink into nowhere. But she told herself that those thoughts couldn’t be true. The tea can’t be going nowhere. Just like mama. Sure, she was no longer in her body, but she couldn’t drain nowhere. No, she drained like the tea, into the bones of the old house. Rosie sat in silence for a moment and took in the noises. The melody of creaks paced a new rhythm, perhaps the house could rest now. This was her last tea with her mama.