She served tea in mismatched, delicate cups, one a green veined porcelain with a thin ruffled lip, the other rice grain translucent white. The tea was strong and sweet, faint with mint. He of course loved her then and thought she smelled of rain.
“This is warming,” she said, “Lots of honey and a bit of rosemary herbal for the blood.”
“I thought it was mint.”
“Of course.” she said.
Everything collapsed to a white space around her, the steaming tea warming his palms. The far wedge of lake outside her window was dark as kelp and at the base of her neck the hollow gathered light in bleached faint hairs. She wore a longjohns top of honeycombed knit, sleeves pushed up and the top button of the front flap open demurely, its satin edge fraying. Two freckles, like the Indies, on her breastbone marked this gap.