Let me tell you about Patricia.

Patricia comes in every Tuesday and Thursday at 2:15 PM, and I have spent the last four months dreading 2:15 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays like other people dread dentist appointments or tax season. She orders a medium latte—never small, never large, always medium—and she has never, not once, in four months, been satisfied with it.

Too hot. Too cold. Too much foam. Not enough foam. The milk tastes "off" (it doesn't—I check every delivery personally because I am neurotic about dairy freshness[^1]). The espresso is too bitter, too weak, too strong, or—my personal favorite—"too espresso-y."

Too espresso-y.

I didn't know that was possible. It's ESPRESSO. That's the whole POINT.

I've vented to Jennifer about Patricia approximately forty-seven times. Jennifer, being Jennifer, keeps saying things like "Maybe she's going through something" and "Hurt people hurt people," and I keep saying things like "Hurt people should maybe not take it out on my perfectly calibrated 9-bar extraction pressure," which is perhaps not my most spiritually mature response.

The thing is, I KNOW I'm good at coffee. This is not arrogance; this is objective fact backed by obsessive study since age ten and a genuine love for the craft that borders on concerning. My espresso pulls are consistent. My milk texture is correct (microfoam, not dish soap—there's a DIFFERENCE and it matters). When Patricia says my latte isn't right, I know she's wrong.

But I smile. I remake it. I say, "Let me fix that for you," while internally reciting Romans 8:1 and also maybe some other verses about loving your enemies, which feels dramatic but also accurate.

This was our pattern. Every Tuesday. Every Thursday. 2:15 PM.

Until last Thursday.

Patricia came in at 2:14 PM, which should have been my first clue that something was wrong because Patricia is never early. She's exactly on time, always, like clockwork that criticizes your milk temperature.

She was wearing the same navy cardigan she always wears, but it was buttoned wrong. One button off, the whole way down, and her collar was uneven. Her hair, usually styled in that particular way older women have—the kind that requires weekly salon visits and sleeping on your back—was flat on one side.

I watched her walk to the counter. She didn't look at the menu board she never looks at anyway. She didn't scan the room with that expression that always made me feel like my coffee shop was personally disappointing her.

She just... stood there.

"Medium latte?" I asked, already reaching for the cup.

"Yes. Please."

No complaints about the cup size. No comments about whether I was using whole milk or 2%. No questions about the origin of the beans, which she doesn't actually care about but likes to ask anyway.

Just: "Yes. Please."

I made her latte. Perfect temperature (155°F—hot enough to be comforting, not so hot it scalds the milk proteins). Proper microfoam. I even did a little rosetta on top, which I don't always do for Patricia because why bother when she's just going to tell me it's wrong anyway.

When I handed it to her, she didn't look at it. Didn't lift the lid to inspect. Just took it to her usual corner table—the one by the window that gets the afternoon light—and sat down.

And stared at nothing.

I've seen a lot of people in this coffee shop. Happy people. Sad people. Students stress-crying over laptops. First dates that are clearly going well and first dates that are clearly going to be last dates. People laughing, people working, people having quiet conversations that look important.

I have never seen anyone look the way Patricia looked in that corner.

Empty. Like someone had reached inside her and removed something essential.

I wiped down the counter. Reorganized the pastry case. Swept a floor that didn't need sweeping. Made an unnecessary phone call to check on a supply order I already knew was confirmed.

I am very good at avoiding things.

But Patricia hadn't moved. Her latte sat untouched in front of her, the rosetta I'd been so proud of slowly dissolving into nothing. She was just sitting there, hands in her lap, staring at the window like she'd forgotten how to look at anything else.

Mother's voice in my head: Mind your own business. Don't make a scene. Keep your head down.

The Bible verse that knocked that voice sideways: "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."[^2]

I grabbed a cup. Made myself an Americano I didn't want. Walked over to her table.

"Is this seat taken?"

Patricia looked up at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed. Her mascara had smudged under one eye, and I could tell she didn't know it was there.

"I—" She blinked. "No. It's not taken."

I sat down across from her. Set my Americano on the table. Tried to figure out what to say next, because I hadn't thought this far ahead.

"Are you okay?" Brilliant. Masterful. The kind of pastoral care that really requires a seminary degree.

Patricia's face did something complicated. Her chin trembled. Her eyes filled with water she was clearly trying very hard to hold back.

"No," she said. "I don't think I am."

Her husband's name was Samuel.

Thirty-two years. They met in college—he was pre-law, she was nursing. They got married the summer after graduation, in a little church in her hometown with her grandmother's veil and his father's cufflinks. They had two kids, now grown. A son in Seattle who works in tech, a daughter in Boston with the grandchildren Patricia visits every Christmas.

Henry left that morning. Told her over breakfast—scrambled eggs, toast, the same breakfast they'd had together for three decades—that he didn't love her anymore. That he'd met someone else. That he was sorry but he needed to be honest.

He packed a bag while she sat at the kitchen table, still holding her coffee cup, unable to move or speak or do anything except watch her entire life walk out the front door.

"I drove around for two hours," Patricia said. Her voice was steady now, the way voices get when you've cried so much there's nothing left. "I didn't know where to go. This was the only place I could think of."

My coffee shop. The place she'd been criticizing for four months. The place she came to every Tuesday and Thursday like clockwork.

"I know I'm difficult." She looked at me, really looked at me, maybe for the first time. "I know I complain. I know you and your staff probably—" She stopped. Shook her head. "I'm not an easy person."

I thought about all the eye rolls in the back room. The texts to Jennifer: Guess who's here. The way I used to see 2:15 PM approaching on Tuesday and Thursday and feel my whole body tense.

"You're particular," I said. "There's a difference."

"You're kind." Patricia almost smiled. "I don't deserve that."

"I doubt that's true."

Here's what I didn't say to Patricia:

I didn't say that I understood the complaints now. That I could see, sitting across from her in the afternoon light, that the complaints were never really about the coffee. They were about control. When your life feels like it's spinning and you can't grab onto anything solid, you grab onto whatever you can reach.

Coffee temperature. Foam consistency. Something, anything, you can fix.

I didn't say that my mother does the same thing with criticism. That when Mother feels out of control—which was always, because having a daughter who questions everything feels like losing grip on the world—she gets particular. About my clothes. My hair. My posture. The way I walked, talked, existed.

I spent almost thirty years thinking I was the problem. That if I could just be better, more perfect, less clumsy, less me—maybe she'd stop finding things wrong with me.

It took moving out, starting over, standing in my own coffee shop covered in grounds and milk and chaos, to realize: it was never about me at all.

It was about what she could control when everything else felt impossible.

I didn't say any of that to Patricia. Some things you don't say out loud. You just know them, and you let them change how you see the person sitting across from you.

I refilled her cup. Made her a fresh latte because the first one had gone cold. Didn't charge her for either.

"Stay as long as you need," I said.

Patricia looked at me with those red-rimmed eyes, mascara still smudged, cardigan still buttoned wrong. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

Because hurt people hurt people, and I spent too long being hurt to keep passing it on.

Because thirty-two years of marriage collapsing over scrambled eggs is the kind of pain that doesn't need coffee criticism on top of it.

Because I've been the person sitting in the corner trying to hold myself together, and someone bringing me a warm drink without judgment was sometimes the only kindness I could receive.

I didn't say any of that either.

"Because this is what coffee shops are for," I said instead. "Mess and all."

Patricia stayed for an hour. She didn't say much else, and neither did I. Sometimes presence is enough. Sometimes just sitting with someone, not trying to fix them or preach at them or tell them it'll all be okay, is the holiest thing you can do.

When she finally left, she paused at the door.

"Thank you, Rena."

It was the first time she'd ever used my name.

I texted Jennifer that night, sitting in my apartment with a mug of decaf and a cat that doesn't exist yet but I keep manifesting.[^3]

I was wrong about Patricia.

Jennifer: What happened?

She's just sad. This whole time, she was just sad.

Jennifer: Most people are.

I thought about that for a long time. Let it sit in my chest like a warm drink, uncomfortable and true.

Most people are.

The customer who snaps at you. The mother who criticizes everything. The father who shows love through silence and biscuits because words are too hard. The stranger on the street who doesn't smile back. The difficult person you've been dreading.

Most people are just sad, scared, trying to control something when everything feels out of control.

It doesn't excuse everything. It doesn't mean you have to accept mistreatment or let people hurt you indefinitely. But it changes how you see them. And sometimes that's enough to change everything.

Patricia came in on Tuesday at 2:15 PM, like always.

She ordered a medium latte, like always.

"A little less foam today," she said. "If that's okay."

I smiled. "I can do that."

When I handed her the cup, she inspected it. Old habits, I guess. But then she looked up at me.

"This is perfect," she said. "Thank you."

She still comes in every Tuesday and Thursday. She's still particular—asks for specific temperatures, comments on the foam, has opinions about whether I should switch to oat milk for the environmentally conscious crowd.

But I don't dread 2:15 PM anymore.

I just see Patricia. Sad, scared, particular Patricia, trying to hold her world together one medium latte at a time.

And I make sure the coffee is perfect. Because sometimes that's the only thing you can offer someone.

Sometimes it's enough.

[^1]: Once I found a container that was TWO DAYS past the sell-by date and I almost called Todd at 11 PM to ask if dairy-related shame could physically kill a person. He did not answer. Probably for the best.

[^2]: Galatians 6:2, for those keeping track. I am not naturally a "bearer of burdens." I am naturally a "mind my own business and hope no one notices me" person. But apparently God has other plans, and they involve sitting down with people who critique my milk foam.

[^3]: His name will be Espresso. Or maybe Decaf, ironically. I've given this a lot of thought.