On our first morning in the new house I boiled water, opened a fresh sealed box of tea, and made myself a cup, and I sat at the island and watched the steam rise, and Lucien came and sat beside me.
“You don’t have to drink that,” he said gently, “if it hurts.”
I took a slow sip, and I cried — but they were clean tears, the kind that let something out instead of holding it in.
I was taking back a small ordinary thing that had been turned into a weapon against my life, one warm cup at a time.
It sounds like a small thing, a cup of tea.
It was not a small thing.