Black Coffee and Chocolate Milk

     The bell above the door jingled as I followed my father into the coffee shop. My pink winter jacket puffed out around me, my black winter boots stomping against the tile floor. We had a simple routine before I got dropped off at preschool. He ordered a coffee, black. I collected a chocolate milk container from the fridge and slid it across the counter. The cashier totaled everything up and my father paid for it. As he waited for his drink, he helped me with my straw. My little hands then grabbed at the carton, and I slurped it all down as we went back out to the car. 

     At nine years old, we moved away from Minnesota. I no longer lived in a town with coffee shops, much less ones that sold chocolate milk. On the rare occasion that we went out of our small town far enough to get coffee, I now got a hot chocolate. My mom, as always, ordered a hot latte with hazelnut syrup. My dad still ordered his coffee black. At this point, he’d mostly switched over to making coffee at home on some machine that I refused to learn how to use. He loved a full-bodied dark roast, and living arrangements would hardly stop him from getting that. 

     Near the end of middle school, we moved again. I couldn’t drive, but every once in a while, my family went out to a coffee shop. I no longer ordered a hot chocolate. I wished to be more mature, so I ordered an iced mint mocha. Neither of my parents understood the appeal of iced coffee, preferring their hot beverages instead. While the coffee shops were hardly identical, the fireplace and the leather chairs had a familiar feel to the one that I grew up with. As sunlight streamed in through the glass, my father and I sat at the long table looking through the newspapers, waiting for our orders to be finished. 

     As I grew older, whenever my father needed my help at work, he took us to the coffee shop before we started our day. Snow descended from the skies and scattered across the pavement, piling on the side of the road. The routine became more his delight than mine, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. As he backed out of our driveway, he handed me his phone and told me to finish the online order.  At that time, I’d moved away from coffee all together and started ordering a cheese danish. Like always, he ordered a dark roast coffee. 

     At twenty-three, my father got diagnosed with cancer and his taste buds changed. He had difficulties eating, especially with solid foods. Many flavors slowly became too strong for him to tolerate. One day while I was at the store, he asked if I could pick up some coffee pods, in the blondest roast they had. I scoured the aisle with my cart for a few minutes before I picked up what I thought was the right box and went over to the register. He tried it, but the taste was still too strong. The box just sat in the back of our pantry, mostly untouched.  

     On the morning of the day that my father died, my brother set up a coffee delivery order. For the first time in years, I ordered a chocolate milk and a cheese danish. A half hour later, someone dropped it off in a paper bag. As I consumed it all for nostalgia’s sake, the flavor lost its appeal. It didn’t satisfy me like it used to. 

     For months, the box of blonde roast coffee sat in the back of our pantry until my mother unceremoniously threw it out in the sake of spring cleaning. When I’d returned home from college for the summer, while his mugs remained in the cabinets, there was nothing left of my father’s old coffee supply. The space where it was had already been filled with other food and snacks.  

     After a long day’s work at my father’s office, my mother and I pulled up to one of our old coffee shops. After years of convincing, I’d finally persuaded her to try something other than her usual latte with hazelnut. Knowing her love for malts, I ordered two blended mochas with malt powder. Despite her reluctance to try cold coffee drinks, she ended up loving it. Over the next couple months, I’d gotten her to try several other cold coffees and a few hot ones as well, with her favorite being the mint mocha that I’d loved through most of my teenage years.  

     Whenever and wherever we meet up, the coffee routine starts up again, albeit changed. The shops we go to aren’t always the same. There’s no bell above the door for me to jingle like there was when I was a child. I no longer follow my father to the register. My dad can no longer drink his coffee black. And I no longer order chocolate milk. But me and my father’s old coffee routine has shifted and changed, as all things tend to do.