Moonlit Tea by the Stove

Slippers and a dressing-gown can only do so much to sway the bite of air that has not yet been warmed by the sun. Still she pulled them on, wrapping the fleece of her gown tightly around her body and curling her toes into the soles which never quite forgot the shape of her footprint.

Dawn would not be rising for a good hour, and the moon sat comfortably among the stars that glittered over her countryside home. A little run-down—little more than a small farm house—and with no central heating to speak of, but home nonetheless. She did not live there alone, but she paid no mind to the noise she made as she shuffled to the modest kitchen, or to the sharp resonance of copper against cast-iron as she placed a kettle full of water on the stove that had come with the old building. There would be more than enough for a hot water bottle and the two warm drinks she had grown accustomed to preparing before sunrise. One was for herself, and the other was for the not-child who had yet to return from his nightly wanders.

She always made sure to prepare the stove the evening prior, for the very reason that she knew she would be too tired to deal with it in the morning. A couple of struck matches later and a fire was burning merrily through the smoke-stained glass, quickly travelling through dated newspapers and dried twigs to catch the three small logs crowning the pile. She stood as near as was safe, feeling the life return to her fingers, and listened to the crackling of the hearth as she waited for the water to boil. A few times she thought she heard a noise outside—had she absent-mindedly locked the door by mistake?—but it was just the settling of a log, or the nearby adventures of a particularly brave mouse.

She heard the front door open just as the kettle began to whistle, and soon entering the kitchen was the figure of a young boy. His eyes were almost hidden underneath his mess of black hair, but she did not need to see them clearly to know just how bleary they would be. He came up to her, and as he did so dragged his feet across the tiles, leaving behind crumbs of soil that she would make him sweep up later. Still she smiled, moved the kettle off the heat, and welcomed the boy into her arms. She felt his little frame relax into her fleece, and she rested her chin in his hair.

“Tired, love?”

He nodded. She picked a couple of leaves out of the black strands with a sigh.

“Where did you go this time?”

“To the river. Went to see the beavers.”

“They're not beavers, love. They're coypus.”

“Went to see the coy-poos, then.”

She chuckled. “Did you see many?”

“Two, I think. An adult and a baby. Or one and a big rat.”

“Let me look at you.”

The boy pulled away, but she kept her hands on his shoulders as she ran her eyes over him. Aside from some muddy knees and elbows, he was largely unscathed. To anyone else, her son would have seemed like any other rambunctious boy: venturing off into the countryside, a long stick for a sword and a scarf to keep his mother warm, he would bring half of the woods back with him, caught in his hair and trapped in the button fastenings of his coat. A drop of red at the corner of his mouth was the only sign that he had done anything that a regular ten-year-old boy would not do. She cupped his face and wiped it from him with a licked thumb, making him grimace.

“I hope that wasn't the baby.”

He shook his head, looking shocked. “I'd never! The one I got was definitely a rat.”

She laughed and kissed his forehead. “Okay, I believe you.” She lifted the copper kettle and poured the hot water on to their tea bags—English Breakfast for her, lavender and chamomile for him—before filling the hot water bottle.

“Don't need it.”

“The clouds are barely gonna budge today. You'll need it.”

Although he looked unimpressed, the boy blew on his tea and did not argue.

Years earlier, when the boy had still been going to school at this time of winter, the pair would have watched the sun rise together on their way to the nearest bus stop. Depending on how tired they both were at the end of the day, they may have even watched it set—perhaps alongside a late film, or due to troublesome thoughts keeping one or both of them from falling asleep. They would no longer be able to experience those moments, but that did not mean they could not have similar ones. Their sunrise was their moonlit tea by the stove.

Just as her eyes began to shine with the energy of a new morning, his began to fall closed. It was not long before she was taking the cup from his little hands and leading him up to his bedroom, where she would place the drink on his bedside drawer and tidy the crocheted blankets while he dragged himself into creased and well-worn pyjamas. Long-forgotten school books were piled atop shelves so high the boy would never see them; windows that once would have captured the most of the day's light had been painted black, and adorned with glow-in-the-dark stars. Finally he climbed into bed, joining the stuffed bear that had waited for him patiently amongst the pillows. His mother tucked the hot water bottle beneath the quilt. It began to warm the bed through for him, even though his little body would not need it.

“What do you want for breakfast later?” she asked as she pulled the blankets up to his chin. Pointed teeth peeked through a yawn before he could reply.

“Dunno yet,” he murmured back, sleep already conquering him.

“No baby coypus?”

“No!” he wailed, but his grin betrayed his amusement.

She laughed. “Okay, no baby coypus.” She leaned down and kissed his temple, smoothing down the blankets one last time before feeling able to leave him be. “Goodnight, love.”

“Night, mum.”

His breathing slowed as he began to drift off, until eventually, it stopped. She did not worry about this fact about him any more, nor did she worry about his pallid complexion that could almost have reflected the moon's rays back into the sky. He was her little boy, and that was how he would stay: though he would grow older, he would never quite grow up.

What questions the future would bring she did not yet know, but she could not bring herself to worry about them. He was her entire world, and—for now at least—she was his.

In that moment, their little world was as big as it needed to be.