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Kitchen Table

Wendy Taylor

    She took one last sip from her cup of tea.
    Flashing red and blue lights illuminated the soft evening light outside the window. The response had been quick, after her phone call. They would be hammering on the the door any minute now.
    She had always enjoyed a good cup of tea, a dash of milk, no sugar, and a sit down at the kitchen table. Especially in the late afternoon. A time to reflect, a time to contemplate, and a time to dream, images jostling in her mind. She gazed down at the table, ran her hand across its surface, as she did every day.
    The table; decades of life ingrained in that surface.
    She remembered its arrival. Pristine, wooden, shining in the glow of the afternoon sun and a new marriage. They had gone down to the new furniture store in town, skipped in the door, hand in hand, cash in pocket. They had seen it staunch, amongst the softness of sofas and up- righteousness of sideboards. Rectangular, solid legs, sturdy. ‘That table has our name on it,’ he had declared. She agreed. The next day, laughter, as they hoisted it off a borrowed trailer.
    At first it was polished every week. She nurtured it like she had been nurtured. Back then.
    Now the polish was broken, crackled, allowing stories to seep in. Permanent reminders of the past.
    She ran her hand over a rainbow of paint flecks ingrained in the wood. At first when the children had waved brushes around while creating masterpieces featuring fantastical creatures and imaginary scenes, she had covered the table with newspaper cried, ‘be careful.’ But paint seeped everywhere, and eventually she let it. The splatters, giggles and happiness.
    Tiny dents punched into some of the giggles. She picked at one with a ragged finger nail. She shuddered. The sound of clutched cutlery being banged end down, never left her. Meals too hot, too cold, too late, too early.
    Her hand travelled to her left. Picked at another dent. This one curly and flowing. Her youngest’s name. Carved with a mathematical compass. A dare by his brother. She had been so angry at the time. A grounding. Now she loved it. A physical reminder of that child, long left home.
    Some marks she did try to remove. Nothing worked. Round burns. Cigarettes. Dotted erratically across the tabletop. She was always grateful it wasn’t her arms.
    There were pale rings at her favourite end. Hot cups placed directly onto the surface of the table. There had been many days when she was too tired to reach for a cork mat on the sideboard, only an arm’s stretch away. She ran her forefinger around one of the circles. Days when dealing with the stress of his lost jobs, too little money, him gambling worries away, meant just making herself a cup of tea sapped her energy. But hands around the cup, eyes closed, mind drifting, elbows resting on the table, revitalised her, giving her strength. And hope.
    Now a new story. Blood.
    Today he had come home early. Another job gone. As usual an argument with the supervisor. Shouting. A fist. On her. A first, surprisingly. Usually it was cupboards, the walls, but mostly the kitchen table.
    More shouting. Hers this time. A first, surprisingly. She had always tried to soothe him.

    A rolling pin. How predictable. But she was making pastry at the time. Using the ghastly brown, pottery teapot, a Christmas present one year from his mother, would have been more original. That would have gotten rid of both of them at the same time.
    There it was. A hammering on the door.
    She placed her cup of tea on the table, dregs swirling, rose, and went to the door to let in her visitors.

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