Three Coins in a Cup of Yesterday

More about Three Coins in a Cup of Yesterday

The tea smelled like a house she had forgotten how to get to.

She climbed onto the spoon and looked over the rim. There were mountains in the steam. Below them, a lake lay very still, as if someone had asked it a difficult question.

A woman was waiting in a house beside the lake.

Before she became a fairy, she had been that woman’s daughter.

She remembered a bus station. Rain. Three coins in her palm. Enough money to telephone home or buy a cup of tea.

She bought the tea.

For years she remembered how warm it had been.

Now the woman in the little house rose and went to the window.

“I meant to call,” the fairy said.

Her wings made a small noise behind her. They were good wings, but they had never taken her anywhere she needed to go.

She found the three coins in her purse. They were still damp from that evening.

She dropped them into the cup.

The telephone rang beside the lake.

Her mother answered. The fairy watched her sit down and move a vase of blue flowers out of the way, making room on the table for a conversation.

Then the steam disappeared.

The fairy sat on the saucer with her knees drawn up.

She had no money left.

Across the lake, her mother was still talking.