TWO LATTES.
“Good evening, Margaret Elizabeth! The usual two lattes?” I ask with a smile, studying her small, deeply lined face—still charming despite the years—as she steps into the café later than usual.
“Hello, Lizzie! Yes, the usual, if you’d be so kind. And a cinnamon bun, please.”
Margaret Elizabeth hooks her walking stick over the chair and—suppressing a wince—settles into her usual seat by the window.
“We were all wondering what kept you—couldn’t imagine you forgetting what day it is. I even ran outside, hoping to catch sight of you,” I say, pausing to direct a new waitress before turning back.
“My dear, what you’re thinking will happen to me one day—just not yet. No need to fret. The answer’s simple: the ATM swallowed my card this morning. Had to queue at the bank for a new one—seems every pensioner in town chose today for their grand financial schemes!” She jokes, but exhaustion weighs on her.
Her hands, always in black lace gloves, tremble. Her lips droop slightly, and her pale, delicate face looks even thinner. Time spares no one.
I’m the manager of a small café in the heart of Oxford. This beloved city holds countless stories, but I’ll tell just one.
I started working here at fifteen, eager to earn money for my mum’s new phone. At first, I washed dishes and mopped floors. Later, I became a waitress. Now, while studying psychology at university, I observe people—reading moods and avoiding mishaps before they happen.
Our customers vary—boisterous teens, whispering couples, young women with silver-haired gentlemen, mothers chasing curious toddlers.
Early on, I met a striking couple: a tall, silver-haired man and a woman defying her age. Every Saturday, rain or shine, Margaret Elizabeth and Edward William strolled the cobbled streets and stopped for coffee—an unbreakable ritual.
“Still stubborn as ever, I see. Told you to take an umbrella—my knees ached last night, but no, you swore it wouldn’t rain. Who was right?” Edward William would chide, watching her sip her latte, pinkie daintily raised.
“So what? I won’t melt. Not sugar, am I?” she’d retort, pretending annoyance.
“Like last autumn, wading through puddles like a child? Remember the month I spent nursing your bronchitis?”
“Oh, stop grumbling, Edward. Just order me another bun—they’re divine here.”
Like the Queen herself, she’d nod approvingly while he stirred sugar into his cup, adoration in his gaze.
He’d laugh. “Watching you eat is better than eating myself. Where does it all go? Still envy your appetite—forced myself to eat since my last surgery.”
A year ago, Edward William passed. Yet Margaret Elizabeth still comes, ordering two lattes—drinking one, leaving the other untouched.
She sits by the window, stirring sugar in silence. Sometimes she cries, dabbing her eyes with a white handkerchief. I never intrude—those memories are hers alone.
Once, she shared their story.
They met in a library. Eighteen and shy, she’d fallen off a ladder reshelving books.
“You’re not hurt?” he’d asked. “I was too flustered to speak—my dress had ridden up! Then I saw his eyes. Not just charmed—drowned in them. His voice was like velvet.”
They married three months later. “I just knew,” she’d said. “Even when we argued, I never regretted it. When I was ill, he brought me tea and tugged on my socks. I miss his shuffle, his cane tapping… Half of me is gone. But I believe I’ll see him again. Until then… I endure.”
The café owner often offers her coffee on the house. She always refuses. “Everything in life comes at a cost.”
Now, paid up, she leans on her stick and shuffles out. I watch her go, blinking back tears. I want faith like hers.
Two cups remain—one empty, one full.
While people like her exist, there’s reason to live. And love. Against all odds. Love.
