Closing Time

The fact that the espresso machine was not meant to make that sound–that hiccupping pop–was something that Sade did, in fact, remember. But she couldn’t figure out what the hell was causing the noisy spasm: it wasn’t any of the steam nozzles, the foam doohickeys, or the bottom tray, or–what was it again? Oh yes, the portafilter. It wasn’t that. She’d checked, she was certain. 

It was fine, probably. The damn machine hissed, gurgled, and frothed even when it was working correctly. What was a little pop every now and then? 

The machine shook under her hands, and a sudden waterfall of milk leapt onto her apron. It dripped down her front and spread rather insidiously on the floor. 

“Mom!” Asha’s voice floated from over by the cash register. “I’ll be right back,” she assured the suit-clad man across the counter, whose mouth was just closing around the “o” in “cappuccino.” His eyebrows shot up his prematurely-lined forehead and his eyes darted down to his watch. Yeah, yeah, Sade rolled her eyes. Go cry about it in your million-dollar car.  

Asha pushed herself off her stool and waddled over, the straps of her apron struggling to fit around her hugely pregnant belly. “What happened?” Her tone was patient, but the corners of her mouth were tight.  

“This bloody machine,” Sade gestured to the milky waterfall. “Don’t know how the hell I used to manage it.” 

“Let me take a look.” Sade moved to the wall and watched her daughter fiddle with the silver beast. The milk geyser ceased, but not before landing a spurt of viscous liquid on Asha’s arm. “Misaligned portafilter,” Asha sighed. “We might need a replacement. Or a new machine, at this point.” 

“Excuse me?” Suit Man called out from the front of the line. “I have a meeting I need to get to, so…?” 

“Be right with you!” Asha called back brightly, hand clutching the front of her apron in a fist. The straps in the back finally admitted defeat and unraveled, leaving the fabric dangling from Asha’s neck like a long black bib. 

“Oh, darling,” Sade gathered the straps in her hand and redid the loose knot. It immediately slipped apart, and both of Asha’s hands came up to cover her eyes. Sade pulled at her ponytail and wrapped the rubber band around the very end of the apron straps. “There you go. You shouldn’t be working when the baby’s this close, you know.” 

“I know,” Asha sighed.

“You waddle back there, tell that man his coffee is coming right up, and go home. You need a break.” Sade patted her shoulder.  

“I don’t waddle,” Asha turned to face Sade, frowning. “It’s not like I’m a penguin.” 

“Of course you aren’t, love,” Sade nodded. She moved back to the cranky espresso machine and began mopping up the small ponds of milk everywhere. “Don’t worry, I can take it from here.” 

Asha said nothing, watching Sade for a minute. “Mom,” she said quietly, taking the rag from her hand, “you know you–” 

“Am I getting my coffee?” Suit Man’s voice cut through the quiet buzz of the morning patrons. “This is a bit…ridiculous, you know?” 

“Oh, you can make your own and shove it up your arse,” Sade flashed a smile at him, snatched the rag back from Asha, and began furiously dabbing the counter. Really, some people. The way they thought their time was gold and everyone else’s was bloody pyrite. 

“Mom!” Asha’s mouth hung open. She waddled–walked–to the register, her eyebrows tilted with remorse, but Suit Man was already out the door and climbing into his Model 3 Tesla before Asha could say a word. 

___

By closing time, Sade had taped a clumsy OUT OF ORDER sign on the espresso machine, handled dozens of disgruntled, under-caffeinated customers, forgotten three orders, and called about five people by the wrong name. Asha was drooping like a sunflower in rain, hair spilling out of her ponytail and apron long abandoned.

“Our reviews keep going down,” she was sitting on her stool behind the register, scrolling through her phone. “We’re almost under four stars.”  

“Who gives a damn?” Sade waved her hand. 

“Everyone. Why would anyone come to a place with three-point-something stars when they could go somewhere with five?”

“We have our loyal customers,” Sade leaned the broom against the wall, where it promptly slid down to the floor with a hollow ping. “Dan and Joe still come in every morning, don’t they? And Simran and her book club every weekend?” 

“Dan and who?” Asha’s brows creased. 

“No matter,” Sade picked the broom back up and held on to it. “Anyways, I’ve been thinking. We’ve had a good run here. Good enough that we should close the whole thing down while we’re on top, no?” 

Asha froze. “What?” 

Sade shrugged. “Let’s sell the place.” 

“Mom.” Asha slowly put her phone facedown on the counter, reflexively moving her hand to her stomach. “Mom, what are you saying?” 

Sade plucked a Lysol wipe and swiped the surface of the corner table. “What I said. I think it’s time to move on.”

“But! But this place is your life!” 

Sade looked around at the small space, lit now by orange lights that hung like orbs from the ceiling and on the tables. There were the dark wood floors and tables, clean and varnished but with the inevitable coffee rings staining the odd corner. Dried flowers hung from the walls, a product of slow afternoons when Asha took old bouquets and delicately threaded the blossoms together with twine. Paintings that Sade’s late husband had carefully brushed onto old newspapers. And everywhere–on the aprons, backwards in the windows decals, on the hand-drawn chalk sign outside–was the name that had brought Sade such pride for twenty-three years: Sun & Sade Café. 

There were so many memories, floating like ghostly cobwebs strung all over the place. But now, little by little, they were vanishing. She was losing sight of the threads, and sometimes she hardly felt their absence. The cups, the frames, the vases–these were pieces of a beautiful life. Someone else’s life. 

“Not anymore,” she said, eyes crinkling at the corners. Wasn’t it a bit wonderful, somehow? 

“Is this because of what the doctor said? Because you’re still you, you know, you can’t be not yourself, it’s a conundrum–” 

“The past has its place,” Sade interrupted. “It’s true, I loved it here. I loved making it with you. But you need to focus on your family. I need to have space to be someone else. The past is the past, but that’s all it is.” 

Sade looked up at Asha to see tears running down her face, and she dropped the broom to embrace her daughter. She might forget her, too, one day. But not today. Not right now. And that was all she had. 

“Okay,” Asha sniffled.

“Okay,” Sade smiled. “Let’s go on until Friday, then we’ll close. For good.” 

___

Asha was gone for the day, back to her orthodontist husband and their churlish brown terrier. Sade sat at the table at the very center of the room, hands quivering as she pushed a needle through the thin strip of cloth. The rest of Asha’s apron pooled in her lap as she sewed the straps, adding another foot of fabric. Friday was only three days away, but her daughter might as well be comfortable if she was going to wear this bloody thing for another half-week. 

“Goddamn,” she said to the empty room as the needle poked her finger through the cloth, again. “First my brain decides it’s a sieve, now a pin cushion.” She carefully wove the string through, up and over, down and through, blind to the cars rushing past the wide windows or the timid footsteps of new rain.  

When she was done she had no recollection of what she’d made or why, but she folded it neatly and placed it over the cash register. It was something for the future, she knew. Small hands and baby teeth and a universe to relearn, again and again and again.