Coffee at 2 AM

She always made coffee at 2 AM. Not because she couldn't sleep, but because that was the only time the world was quiet enough for her thoughts. I'd find her in the kitchen, wrapped in that old blue robe, staring out the window at the empty street.\n\nFor three years, I joined her. We'd sit in silence, two cups of black coffee growing cold between us, and watch the occasional car pass by. Sometimes she'd cry. Sometimes she'd laugh about something from her childhood. Most times, she'd just sit there, and I'd sit with her.\n\n"She's gone," she said one night. Flat. Empty.\n\nI didn't ask who. I knew. Her mother had been fighting cancer for two years.\n\n"I know," I said.\n\n"I don't know what to do with all this silence now."\n\nI reached across the table and held her hand. "We fill it with memories."\n\nWe stayed until dawn, and I told her every story I could remember about her mother. The way she laughed at her own jokes. How she always over-seasoned the Thanksgiving turkey. The time she taught us to dance in the rain.\n\nThat was five years ago. She still makes coffee at 2 AM some nights. And I still join her.