The History of Coffee

I'm at Starbucks. The barista is shouting. Big band music is playing. The sound of a muted horn separates itself from the rest of the instruments. It sounds like a long time ago. I started drinking coffee a long time ago. It is Bastille Day. Big deal. I have the day off. Bigger deal. My day off began five hours ago. I started drinking coffee five years ago. That was B.C. - Before Charlie.

I remember once Jill and I were staying in a quaint room above a small café. It was one of those romantically simple European rooms where the doors are no longer square and the hinges squeak and the locks require a skeleton key. I don't know who I was back then, before Charlie, before coffee, before Christ. I ordered a cappuccino and a buttered shortbread cookie. The espresso taste almost overpowered me. I left a piece of shortbread on my tongue before the next drink. I took a small sip and let the dry flour absorb the earthy bitterness. The combination of sweet and strong sat well with me. It was served in a real ceramic mug on a glazed coaster with a chip on the edge. Maybe I'm making the chipped part up. Jill took a picture of me. I took a picture of her.

It was in one of those small lakeside villages that line the shores of lago di somewhere, Italy. Lago di tourist. Lago di youthfulness. Lago di memories. The pinks and purples and blues of the sky gloated over the choppy wind whipped tarn. Jill had dyed her hair brown on that trip. Brown with hints of red, like the color of espresso in a clear shot with the sunlight shining through it. She had cut it short. She did everything for me back then. She still does.

I attempted to come to her aid as she practically emptied her stomach lining into a toilet bowl in Costa Rica. She had picked up something terrible in El Salvador besides the coffee. I was debating going into nursing back then. I was lying on the bed in the unlit room watching the wicker fan blades spin slowly above me on the ceiling. Our room was on the bottom floor and the two exterior walls were nothing but framing and screen. A ghastly storm was heading our way. The cool winds blew in through the screens causing them to hiss. Between the whipping of the leaves and the hissing of the screen, I could hear Jill's hacking. I got out of bed and went into the bathroom where she was bent over the toilet with her knees on the clay tile floor. Her hair was matted to the sides of her face with the fever. Her face was so pale it shone like the moon. I was going to hold her hair back. I was going to but I couldn't. I couldn't handle it. I failed her then. I drifted toward sleep as the tempest came upon us, watching the wicker fan blades turn, hearing the hissing of the wind, Jill's sickness, wondering what on earth else I would do instead of becoming a male nurse.

Another time we rode rented bicycles through the Dutch countryside to the North Sea. At the beach, her hair flew in the wind that traveled unchecked over the water and stuck to her lips. I loved the way she pulled the strands of hair from the corners of her mouth and slipped them coyly behind her ear with her hand. I remember these things.

A little girl in pink overalls and whipped cream all over her face is staring at me. Her eyes are blue. I miss Charlie. His eyes are crema brown. He rolled off the bed this morning. He ran into the edge of a table this weekend. Last night he gave me "lovies." Lovies are kisses and cuddles. This morning Jill and I were arguing before she left for work. We were arguing in the hallway. She was under our bedroom door frame. I was at the end of the hall, outside the bedroom. Charlie was running around in the midst of our exchange. Charlie tried to walk between us. He tried pushing on our legs. We looked down at him.

"Bridge." He said looking up. It's not impossible, but near, to argue when you're making a human bridge for your eighteen-month-old to pass under. I feel like we have an emotional bridge now. It's easy for it to get washed out. But we have something more than we had a long time ago. It is sweeter than shortbread cookies. It is bolder than the boldest Robusta. It is higher than the Alps and deeper than the North Sea. It is love. It is bittersweet. It is a complex aroma.