The China Teaset

This gift is very fragile, my mother said, eyes all wide and serious.  They were warm hazel-green eyes all flecked with gold. 

Fragile.  I nodded seriously.  You had to be very careful with it.  Careful, yes, I knew what that meant.  Fragile.  Easily broken.  Use gentle hands.

 

You have to take care of it, she said, keep it clean and be very gentle with it at all times.  It's real china, and that means it can chip, or get broken, and there are lots of parts.  If you're not careful you might lose one. 

She showed me then: a tiny little teaset.

I looked at it and thought about what chipping meant: breaking the paint, breaking the pattern.  I didn't like chipping.  No chipping.  And no getting broken, no breaking the set.  It was a tiny little teaset with a platter the size of real tea saucer which all the other tiny little pieces sat on: a tiny teapot with a slender spout and a separate little lid; two little cups with delicate handles painted gold, and more gold around the rim, and one gold-rimmed platter for each for them to sit on.  I noticed that the gold-lined rose was on everything: the tiny teapot, tiny cups and tiny saucers, the tiny little pitcher for cream (also with gold handles) and the tiny little sugar pot, with its own tiny little lid.  A lot of tiny little pieces, in white china with gilt handles and tiny little gold-outlined pink roses.  I treasured each of the pieces instantly: delicate prized possessions.  My first collected piece of art.

If you lose one... Look at me now.  Her warm eyes serious but pleased.  If you lose one, it can never be replaced.  Never.  It comes from a far away place and once it's gone, it's gone forever.

Forever.  If I lost a little piece, it would be gone forever.  No buying a new one at the store, not even in the city.  Not even in the Hat.  No making one.  No finding one by luck.  Gone.  Gone forever.  The sudden gravity of Forever making my heart drop, heavy and aching.  I shook my head.  I wouldn't lose any.

*

You used to play with that teaset all the time, my mother said, thirty years later. 

I did, I said.   I’d loved this little teaset.  I was washing it, rinsing every tiny piece very carefuly in warm soapy water,  letting it air-dry before polishing it with a soft cloth.  I tried to be very gentle with it.  Was there a time when not all the set fit on the tiny little platter?  I wondered if there didn't used to be four little cups perhaps and four saucers.  It all seemed even tinier now.  Amazing that there is still a complete set: teapot, two teacups, two saucers, cream pitcher, sugar bowl,  two tiny lids and the matching service platter.   All in white china, gilt edges, with a simple gold-bordered rose motif. 

Exactly like my mother's.