I Hate My Wife. But I Love Coffee

Sometimes you don't know what you're missing.

Coffee dates were magic, even though I didn’t drink coffee.

I met her in college. She sat in front of me in our screenwriting class. A damn computer blocked my view of her, but I could hear her laugh. The bubbly, contagious laugh slowly constricted around me until I could do nothing else but ask her to coffee.

I hated coffee. As a kid I tried it a few times in my dad’s office. Maybe it was because he insisted on store brands. Or maybe because he doubled the suggested scoops per pot, but it left more than a bad taste in my mouth.

And yet, I asked. I did so because she walked in every day with Starbucks, the smell of a sugary dry roast lingering in the air with her laugh. Her love of coffee was the one concrete fact I knew about her. If it meant I could sit across from her, no monitor blocking my view, I’d drink anything.

She was dating someone at the time. Someone who attended a different college in a different state. She said he had no problem with her grabbing a cup of coffee. I didn’t press.

Every week or so we’d meet at a different coffee shop. Downtown Savannah had more than a few. We’d order our drinks, her’s some kind of corrupted tower of whipped cream and seasonal flair, mine a chai tea when available. Earl gray when not.

Conversations were as light as the foam on her drink. Our friendship had only begun to bud. It needed nurturing. So we talked about school and professors. Classmates that annoyed us. What our goals were and what drew us to the school.

The day she chided me for enrolling into the film cinematography class over digital was the day I knew our friendship had grown. The bud had begun to sprout.

“I don’t know how you drink that stuff,” I said, eyeballing her monstrosity topped with sprinkles and a melting chocolate straw.

“I don’t know how you don’t,” she said in return, a dot of foam sticking to her nose.

On occasion, we’d meet for coffee and she’d arrive, complaining of a migraine banging behind her eyes.

“I haven’t had my coffee for the day,” she’d explain. “Don’t worry. It’ll go away after a few sips.”

Her withdrawal symptoms, as she suggested, would fade after a few minutes, she’d relax, and the pain creasing from her eyes would subside.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” she said.

“You mean not having the coffee or not having you?” I wanted to reply but kept to myself. I liked her, a fact I assumed she knew. But our young friendship remained in the shadow of her distant boyfriend. I’d wait for an opportunity. And if one never came, at least the coffee meetups would remain.

---

The coffee dates continued. The long-distance relationship did not.

Our meetups matured, sometimes they lasted until the next day. Eventually, I stepped into the spotlight as the boyfriend. She still drank her frothy drinks, though we stopped meeting for coffee in the middle of the week.

I missed those coffee meetups, but I never said anything. Maybe I should have.

Funny, everything in the relationship evolved, except for what brought us together. That was forgotten.

We took our first big trip together while still in college. To Thailand during winter vacation. I started saving for it the moment I met her. Something inside of me said we’d have the chance. So I worked a side job, filled out surveys for a few quarters a pop. Anything I could to scrounged together the necessary funds.

I packed instant coffee with me for her. I knew it wouldn’t taste the same or deliver a similar sugar rush. But I didn’t want her to suffer through the headaches. I’d seen what it would do to her. The migraines would destroy her day, and she’d be left hiding behind sunglasses, away from the sun, popping Tylenol. I packed some of that too.

Due to protests in the Bangkok airport, we were diverted to Singapore. The first morning we woke up in Little India. Excitement and the aroma of curry filled the room, though after briefly taking in the view she sat on the edge of the bed, the look on her face only replicated by someone waking from an all-night bender and feeling the repercussions. I fixed her a coffee with lukewarm bottled water, apologizing for its temperature.

She had a second.

Sitting in the sweltering heat, surrounded by the foreign smells of the dusty hotel room and the dustier street outside, she relaxed after the last bump of coffee crystals. Hopefully, we could find something a little better the following morning.

Turning to me, she offered a sip. I turned it down. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” she said once again.

I was brimming with happiness sitting next to her in that little hotel room. Looking back on it all — on life and relationships and my time with her — I don’t know if I’ve been happier. There was something about being there, in a foreign country, her by my side, no worries, only excitement, that filled me. It was the beginning of something. I didn’t know it at the time but it was the start of a new journey. Of the two of us taking a fresh step. Of the two of us being tied together.

We dressed and left the room, full of life and expectations of things to come.

---

We sat at the restaurant table, not saying a word. After months of arguments, yelling, cursing, crying, what else was there to say? The folder I left in the car summarized everything for the judge. He’d sign off on it, and the divorce would be final.

Months earlier she moved back in with her parents several states away. She flew in for the occasion. I picked her up from the small-town airport. It was amicable. That’s what we both told ourselves, though I never wanted it to end. At least not like that.

With several hours before the hearing, we pulled into a 24-hour greasy spoon. I wasn’t hungry, though I felt like I could throw up. She ordered a coffee.

“You know,” I said, eyes looking at but not seeing the menu. “Make that two.”

I hoped she’d comment on me finally discovering what I’d been missing. Make a snarky observation on “why now?” or question the order. She didn’t.

Our last date, sitting at a table with coffee. So much like the first. So much different.

The coffee came. She stained her’s white with cream and sugar. I sipped mine black. It tasted like scorched dirt.

---

It’s been almost fifteen years. Since the divorce. Since I last saw her. Some things I can’t remember, other things I can’t forget. Most days I don’t think about that past life. At least not intentionally. Though there are times my present mind slips into the body of my past. Maybe I sit a certain way and hold a coffee cup just so and the morning light catches the table at the correct angle and a flash of my younger self appears. Usually, it’s nothing I ask for. It just happens.

Though at times I wonder if it’s nothing but coincidence, or if my historical mirage knows something I don’t. My mind plays out something I wish existed — or remained. But it never lasts. Today, it was looking back on that last date, sitting silently in the 24-hour diner, how I forever lost one thing from the first date and replaced it with something else. Coffee.

It’s so seemingly insignificant it’s laughable. Or is it?

She was right when she said I didn’t know what I was missing. While I wanted to discover what I was missing with her, I ended up with the intention of her comment. What’s strange is now, considering everything, I wouldn’t change it.

There’s a comfort in my morning cup. It comes after the first hour of work. When I can sit and sip and feel at peace. The steam caresses the underside of my nose while the liquid warms my chest. I embrace my mugs, each a small token of my life since divorce. One from the Grand Canyon gift shop, another from a Paraguay airport. There’s a handmade orange and blue ceramic with a smiling turtle from the Galapagos. I have nothing from Thailand.

The mugs bring a moment of peace to go along with the coffee’s delivery of tranquility. Both are brief, but I’m thankful for each.

I really didn’t know what I was missing.

That reminds me. I need to put on a pot. It’s almost lunch, and I’m starting to get a headache.