Time to Let Go

“I’m so sorry, Laney.”

Tears and glass blurred together as she looked from the counter to the floor, and finally back to Rachel’s hand holding the coffee pot handle. Rachel tried to start gathering up the broken glass in a dustpan, the tinkling sounds echoing loudly in the high-ceilinged kitchen.

“I… how… what…”, and other unformed sentences spilled out of Laney’s mouth as she tried to comprehend the mess. Her mind went blank. She could feel her hands starting to shake. Memories flashed across her mind of all that she and the carafe had been through over the years and whose hands used to hold it.

Rachel was a notorious klutz. Laney had learned quickly in the two months they had already lived together to hide any valuables in places well out of her reach. Every morning, Laney got up early to make a full pot of coffee and fill her to-go mug before heading out to work. She didn’t think the coffee pot would be in danger, since they both shared such a strong love and need for coffee in the morning. She was wrong. Her roommate’s notoriously erratic movements, which many other glasses and dishes previously suffered under, had finally broken the one thing she thought she couldn’t live without.

“What can I do? How can I make it up to you? I’m sure there’s got to be a replacement somewhere on the internet, the same model and year.” She swore, accidentally slicing her finger on one of the bigger shards she picked up. Most of the glass was up from the floor now with some smaller pieces remaining on the counter where the pot originally made contact. “We still have that French press my ex bought me that we can use for coffee in the meantime!”, she mumbled while sucking on the new cut. “I’m going to go find a band-aid but I’ll be right back to finish cleaning this up!”

Rachel came back to find that Laney had not budged an inch from where the accident happened. Full streams were rolling down her face in place of the previous tears Rachel had failed to notice. “Hey…” she whispered, slowly walking over to Laney. “It’s okay, we can get a new one. I know it’s an old coffee maker and it means a lot to you, but maybe it was time to let it go.”

Laney burst into full sobs and sank down to the floor. Rachel lowered herself down next to her and gently held her new friend, perplexed. It took several minutes before Laney was able to stammer out between hiccups, “It’s not about the pot.” More gasping and sniffles. “It’s who owned it. It was my dad’s.”

“Oh, Laney… I didn’t realize.”

“How could you? I never told you. I haven’t told you much about that part of my life yet.”

Rachel got up and brought back a box of tissues from the living room. She picked up the empty coffee mug from the kitchen table and filled it with water, handing it to Laney on the floor. Laney wiped her eyes, her breathing becoming more even as she tried to pull herself together. “Every day growing up, I remember him putting on that old pot to make coffee. My mom hated it, begged him to throw it away. She even tried to get him a new one for Christmas one year, but he ended up giving it away to a family at church whose house burned down.”

“I can understand why. That thing makes the most awful noise when it’s brewing. And it kind of smells like it’s burning, but the coffee’s been fine.”

“He loved it. It was the sound and smell I always associated with him. When I went off to college, I remember wandering into coffee shops to try and relive some of it when I missed him, but it was never the same. Over break when I came home, I would try to wake up early to watch him brew coffee. We would sit together on the porch, drinking his too strong coffee, watching the sunrise.”

She sipped the mug of water, still trying to collect herself as more tears slipped out. “My dad received his cancer diagnosis the week after I graduated. Terminal. Four to six weeks. It was such a shock for everyone. There was no time to process anything before I found myself sitting in the hospital, waiting for him to die. I kept joking that he would need to cut back on the coffee when he was out, so he could sleep more. He would just smile and tell me, ‘well, you can just drink enough coffee for the two of us.’”

They both sat silent, processing the loss still sitting on the dustpan in front of them. “He passed seven years ago, next month. Every day, I get up and try to remember what he looked like holding that pot, wishing he was here making the coffee instead of me.”

“Seven’s a lucky number, you know.”

Laney smiled weakly. “Yeah, I guess. He would have thought so too, or at least made a joke about it. He was always making light of things, even in the worst of it.”

“What do you think he’d say about this?”, Rachel gestured to the pile still sitting on the floor.

Laney paused, considering. “I think he’d look at it, sigh, and say, ‘Well, I guess that pot wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be!’”

They started laughing, shaking and clutching their stomachs, tears coming down both of their faces. A few minutes went by before they could stop, sighs stretching into a different silence in the kitchen, settling into contentment.

“I really am sorry I broke it, Laney,” Rachel said, wiping the last of her tears. “Are you free this weekend to go shop and get a new one with me? I know it won’t be the same, but maybe we can create some new memories together. Maybe ones that don’t sound or smell as bad.”

Laney smiled. “I think I’d like that.”