I’d Make You Some Tea
By Neely Mallik
Image by Elle Klaus
If you were here tonight, I’d make you some tea.
Nothing grand. Nothing dramatic.
Just a kettle beginning to hum in a quiet kitchen. Just two mugs pulled from a cabinet. Just the simple ritual of waiting for water to boil.
I’d let it steep a little longer than necessary, the way we always did when the conversation was good and time felt generous. I’d sit across from you at the table, knees almost touching. We would talk about small things; the weather, errands, stories we’ve already told before. And then, somehow, we’d drift into the real things. The questions that linger. The memories that feel warmer every time they’re retold.
The conversations were never dim, and the silences were never uncomfortable.
No one tells you when it’s the last time.
There’s no announcement, no soft closing music. Just an ordinary day. An ordinary cup. An ordinary goodbye. You assume there will be another conversation, another afternoon light slanting across the table, another chance to ask the question you forgot to ask.
But then one day you realize the last time has already happened. Quietly. Without permission.
If I had known, I might have listened harder. I might have stayed at the table longer. I might have memorized the way your hands wrapped around the mug, the way your voice softened when you laughed.
Now, when the kettle hums, it carries more than heat. It carries absence. It carries longing. And carries gratitude, because what a gift it is to have memories steeped so deeply into something as simple as tea.
If you were here tonight, I’d make you some tea.
Not because it would fix anything. Not because it would change the ending.
But because for a moment, in the quiet clink of porcelain and the rising steam, it would feel like we never stopped talking at all.
