Chapter 1 - Tea

Sunday, October 4

I made our morning pot of tea, English Breakfast. Each morning, Jane and I would sip the hot beverage in our easy chairs in our living room. We had an early freeze that October, and the chill air gripped the house. We turned the furnace down at night and up in the morning. Our elderly Victorian home had an old furnace, and it took over an hour to warm the house.

But tea makes everything better. I heard Jane go into the living room and into her easy chair. I could tell by the squeak when she rocked back. In the kitchen, I poured a mug for each of us and added milk.

“Jane, are you ready for your tea?”

“You bet,” Jane called from the living room. And can you grab a biscotti for me too, Jake?”

“Sure thing. A biscotti sounds good to me, too.”

I got two biscotti out of our cupboard and took them and her tea mug to the living room. The room stretched an echoing thirty feet. But our two leather easy chairs flanked the crackling fireplace, which Jane had started.

Jane smiled at me as I placed the tea mug and biscotti on Jane’s side table. I took a moment to take in her sincere love, shining in her eyes. Forty years of marriage had not diminished our love. I took my biscotti and plunked next to her, enjoying the warmth from the fireplace.

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“Thanks,” she said.

“You’re welcome. Thanks for starting the fire.” I opened my biscotti, took a crunchy bite, coated with chocolate, and reached for my tea mug. It wasn’t there.

“Grrr!” I wrinkled my face like a gargoyle.

“What’s wrong?”

“I left my mug in the kitchen. I hate it when I do that.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if it’d come when you call it?”

I laughed. “On little legs. I’d just say, ‘Come here, tea mug!’”

We both laughed. We laugh together nearly every day. I got up from the chair and stopped. I heard an odd ‘tap-tapping. Almost like our little corgi, but even smaller and lighter.

“What’s that? Is that a mouse?” I said. We have mice in our house every fall until we trap them.

“It doesn’t sound like one.”

From the dining room came my tea mug on four little legs scampering across the floor. I reached down to pick it up and it jumped into my hands. The legs disappeared.

Not knowing what to say, I said, “That’s different.”

“Uh, that’s never happened before, not to us or anyone else I’ve ever heard of.”

“It’s like my wish for the tea mug got granted.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s convenient.” I sipped my tea. “That’s good tea.

“Did you rub any magic lamps?”

“No. “

“Did you throw a coin in a wishing well?”

“No. I wonder if we can make any other wishes?” I sipped my tea. “Mmm.”

“Mmm,” Jane agreed as she took another sip.

“Mmm,” the tea mug purred.

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