The Coat on the Firehouse Hook

Idella drove to Hays on Wednesday afternoon, as she does. She asked if I wanted her to bring anything. I said no. She stayed until dark.

She came in the back door with her purse on her arm, took off her coat, and hung it on its own hook. She did not say anything for a minute. I thought, well, there it is.

Then she reached into her coat pocket, took something out, and set it on the kitchen table in front of me.

It was a small pink plastic teacup, the kind that comes in a toy set. It had a chip on the rim.

She said, “Darlene met me at the door. She said Colt came home Wednesday noon and found the box on the porch. He read the letter standing up. Then he read it again at the table. He went out to the truck and sat in it a good while.”

She said, “He did not say anything to me, Rex. He did not say a word about you. But Darlene put this in my hand when I left. She said Wynnie wanted the man who drinks it all to have it.”

I looked at that cup for a long time. I did not pick it up.

She said, “Wynnie holds a tea party every Sunday, it seems. She makes everyone a cup. She told Darlene you would want one too.”

I said, “Somebody told her about me.”

Idella said, “Somebody did.”

She did not say any more, and I have learned not to ask for more than I am handed.

Thursday evening, after the supper dishes, I drove down to the firehouse and let myself in by the back door. Dallas had left the lights on for the Thursday drill. I stood in the empty kitchen with the percolator ticking as it cooled.

The hook by the back door, third from the end, is empty now. I walked past it three times that night looking for the coat before I remembered. Then I took my white apron, the one with the burn on the pocket, and I hung it there instead.

Idella says it is the first thing I have hung up in four years that I meant to take down again.

I filled two cups from the big percolator. One was a plain white cup, and one was that pink plastic teacup with the chip. I set the white one at my place and the pink one at the end of the table, where my son used to sit.

Black, no sugar. It was too hot to drink, and I let both of them sit.

I do not know if he will ever drive down here and sit in that chair. I know I sent a letter ninety miles into the dark and he sent back a teacup, and that is more than I had on Sunday morning.

The Sunday crew comes at six. I will pour his cup at the end of the table. When the crew goes at noon, it is going to stay there, steaming or cold, and no one is going to wash it.

I put my hand flat on the steel counter where he set his helmet down. Then I turned off the lights, and left the two cups where they were, and went home to my wife.