Perth, Australia

My father asked me to teach him how to make my mother’s tea

Dear Delyara, My parents have been married fifty-two years. Mum is in hospital after a fall and will be there for several weeks. Dad has never lived alone. Today, he called me at six in the morning because he could not make tea “the way your mother does.” I reminded him tea is water, leaves, milk. He became annoyed. “No. Hers.” So I drove over. Mum apparently warms the pot first, uses one particular spoon, leaves the leaves for exactly four minutes and adds milk to Dad’s cup before pouring, but not her own. I had no idea. Dad knew every step but had never performed them. His hands shook slightly while he copied me. When we finished, he tasted it and said it was wrong. We tried again. On the third attempt, he nodded. Then he poured Mum’s cup too before remembering she was not there. He stared at it for a second and said, “Habit.” We drank both. Mum is expected to recover. This is not a tragedy. It is simply the first time in fifty-two years my father has had to learn one of the hundreds of invisible things his marriage has been doing for him every morning before he even sat down.