Every time my daughter visited, she brought me the same warm cup of tea and said, ‘Dad, I made it just for you.’ I drank it because she was my only child, because the house had been too quiet since my wife died, and because no father wants to believe the hand comforting him might be hiding something. But the night I poured that tea into my late wife’s plant instead of drinking it, the plant collapsed before I did—and my daughter’s face changed when I found out the truth behind it.
Every time my daughter came to visit, she brought me the same cup of tea. Not the same mug. Not always the same thermos. But the same soft, honey-colored tea she said would help me sleep. “Dad, I made it just for you.” She would say it with that careful little smile people give…
