Last week I was reaching behind the Folgers for a fresh tin and my hand hit something metal that shouldn’t have been there. It was heavier than it looked. I pulled it out and just stood there holding it.

The tin was sealed with tape across the lid. I knew right away it wasn’t mine. I don’t buy tea in those old-fashioned metal ones anymore.

I set it on the counter and stared at it for a good minute before I touched the tape.

My husband drank coffee every morning for forty-six years. Black, no sugar, always before the sun came up. I drank tea. Two pots on the stove, two mugs on the table. That was just how it worked in our house.

He never complained about the smell of my tea. I never asked for a sip of his coffee. It was fine that way.

Then about a year before he got sick he started making tea instead. He didn’t say why. I figured the medicine was messing with his stomach or something. He never liked to talk about that stuff anyway.

I remember the first morning I saw him pouring hot water over a bag. He just nodded at me like it was nothing new. I didn’t push it.

We still sat at the same table. The only difference was the mugs matched now. I should have said something about that but I didn’t.

After he died in January I left his mug on the counter next to mine. It felt wrong to put it away right off. Every time I made tea I looked at it sitting there empty.

In March I finally moved it to the cabinet. I told myself it was time. The house felt too quiet with two mugs out.

I kept reaching for the Folgers though. Old habits I guess. That can sat in the same spot for years.

When I finally peeled the tape off the metal tin last week my hands were shaking. Inside were teabags. All lined up neat in rows. I counted them without even thinking. Three hundred and sixty-five.

There was a little paper tag wired to the handle. His handwriting looked shaky but it was still his. The date on it was November. Two months before he passed.

I stood there in the kitchen reading it over and over. The note said he counted them out himself. One for every day he thought he might have left. He wrote that he wanted to drink what I drank so the mornings would feel the same for both of us.

He said he should have done it years earlier. He hoped I wouldn’t be mad that he waited so long.

I sat down at the table with that tin in my lap and just cried. All those mornings I thought he was only doing it because he had to. All those mornings I never asked.