But I am a coffee kind of girl, and coffee girls don’t take the lack of coffee sitting down. So I walk around and grumble to anyone fortunate enough to cross my path.

“Where did the milk go?” I ask no one in particular. “It was here last night. But today it’s gone.” There are many coffee drinkers in this family. And the house is occupied past capacity today: sisters and brothers, brothers-in-law, little ones in tow. All it takes is a few cups of coffee, some midnight cereal, and I am without coffee on this wonderful morning.

It’s like I’m held up, unable to move forward. No coffee — now what?

Of course, there are always the neighbors. Bless them; they always have milk. But if you understand how often I borrow milk from the neighbors for my coffee, you’d understand my hesitance.

They open the door to the small, plastic cup proffered in my timid hand. “Do you have milk? Just a bit, for my coffee.” I try to keep the desperate gleam out of my eyes. Casual, I coach myself. Act casual. Don’t let them know just how much this means to you.     

They always deliver. I come home with my little cup, sit it alongside the urn, and make my coffee: granules, hot water, milk.

But my most recent neighbor milk-borrowing episode was last week. I can’t borrow again. They’re going to wonder if we need to work on our supermarket math. You would think that after enough time, we’d master the milk-per-family formula. And we nearly do. Somehow, we always have enough for bowls of cereal and chocolate milk and whatever milky delicacy you might dream up. So close, yet so far. Somehow, we’re always off by one cup of coffee.

I hear the door open. It’s another sister. And she does not come alone.

In her hand is a beautiful white paper cup emblazoned with the Dunkin logo. She sips slowly.

I ogle.

I offer her my greetings. But I do not comment on the cup that she clutches with two hands, the cup from which she takes long, content sips. I am much too kind for that.

In my mind’s eye, I can see beautiful brown coffee, silky and luscious, just the perfect color. I can almost smell it, taste it lingering on my tongue.

I can hold it in no longer. “You are so smart,” I blurt out. “Coming with your own cup of coffee. I should’ve been so smart. I’m just a teeny-tiny bit jealous,” I confess. “But no worries, I’ll get over it. Don’t feel too bad. Enjoy it, really. We’re out of milk here,” I explain at her quizzical expression. “And what is coffee without milk?”

She laughs. “Really,” she says. “Come.” She opens her cup and I look inside.

Black coffee. Watery, the color of asphalt.

“You drink it black,” I say. “Who would do such a silly thing? And here I was, jealous of your cup.”

We laugh. She resumes her sipping as I pace back and forth.

Mid-lap across the room, I turn back. “It’s a good lesson, you know. It’s like a mashal. Here I am, dreaming that the inside of your cup is exactly what I want, when it’s really the one thing I don’t like.”

She nods. “It’s true—”

The door opens again. It reveals our mother, bearing milk bottles and the goods to feed a big family well for another week.

Philosophizing arrested; I go to make myself a cup.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 917)