The Funeral Tea by Barry Denson

The scent of bergamot wafted through the parlour as porcelain cups clinked gently against saucers. Chairs scraped the floor, some slower than others, as if the weight of grief were a physical thing. It was a proper funeral tea—neat sandwiches with the crusts cut off, scones with barely a whisper of sugar, and a somber arrangement of chrysanthemums dominating the sideboard.

Anne poured the tea with the precision of someone used to waiting on others. Her hands shook only slightly, though her heart thudded against her ribs with a rhythm that refused to match the room's hush. The murmurs around her ebbed and flowed, pockets of conversation punctuated by the occasional clearing of a throat.

“Lovely service,” murmured Mrs. Holden, the elderly neighbour from three doors down. Her pale hand hovered over Anne's wrist as she reached for the sugar. “Your mother would have been proud.”

Anne smiled tightly, not trusting herself to speak. Proud? It was a hollow word, like the eulogy she had forced herself to deliver that morning. All those careful sentences had said everything and nothing. "A loving mother," she'd called her. But loving didn’t quite capture the sharpness of her tongue, the cold critiques of Anne’s life choices, or the smothering expectations that had bound her like invisible chains for decades.

Across the room, Anne’s younger brother, Simon, leaned against the mantle, looking as though he’d stepped out of a magazine. Dark suit, tailored perfectly, his tie immaculately knotted. His charm worked its usual magic as he nodded sympathetically to one of their mother’s friends, a woman who had always referred to Anne as "the shy one." Simon, the golden child, hadn't spoken much during the service, except to read a poem he hadn’t even written himself. Anne envied his detachment.

The tea had been her idea. “A small, simple gathering,” she had told the funeral director. She’d pictured something intimate, restrained, perhaps even healing. Yet now, as the soft din of polite chatter filled the room, Anne felt as though she had made a mistake. The carefully arranged sandwiches, the polished silver, the tea itself—it all felt like a performance. Not for her mother, but for these people who had known only the curated version of her.

She set the teapot down and turned, nearly colliding with Simon. He held a side plate of biscuits, his expression unreadable.

“You’ve done well, Anne,” he said quietly, his voice low enough that only she could hear. “She’d have liked all this.”

She stared at him, searching for sarcasm, but found none. It unnerved her, his sincerity. He handed her the plate and gestured to a chair in the corner of the room.

“Go sit,” he said. “I’ll take over.”

The offer was so unexpected that Anne obeyed without protest. She sank into the chair, biscuit in hand, and let her eyes drift across the room. The guests blurred into a haze of black coats and careful smiles.

For the first time all day, she allowed herself to breathe.