My Sister Promised My Grandmother’s China to My Niece—Then Asked Why I Needed to Keep It at All
PART 1
Erin Bell knew her sister had promised away the china when Sophie said, “Mom told me not to unpack it again.”
They were standing in Diane’s dining room after a bridal shower that had required fourteen women, three kinds of tea sandwiches, and enough pink tissue paper to insulate a small attic. The last guests had left twenty minutes earlier. Sophie was collecting ribbon. Diane was in the kitchen arguing cheerfully with the dishwasher.
Erin had just finished wrapping the last of twelve blue-rimmed dinner plates in the soft white sleeves she kept with the set.
“Why wouldn’t you unpack it?” Erin asked.
Sophie looked up from the box.
“For the move.”
“What move?”
“My move. After the wedding.”
Erin waited.
Sophie’s face changed.
It was a small change, but Erin had known her niece for twenty-nine years. She recognized the exact moment Sophie realized two adults had not had the same conversation.
“Mom said the china was coming to me,” Sophie said.
Erin put the plate she was holding flat on the table.
The china had belonged to their grandmother, Ruth Bell, but not in the vague family-story sense where everybody remembered it and nobody remembered who owned it. Twelve years earlier, when Ruth moved from her house into a smaller apartment, she had called Erin over, opened the dining-room hutch, and said, “You use dishes. Diane displays dishes. Take these before your sister builds them a shrine.”
Diane had received their mother’s silver tea service. Erin had received the blue-rimmed china. Their cousin Paula got the glass punch bowl nobody wanted until Christmas.
It had not been a ceremony. Ruth had wrapped cups in old newspapers while complaining about the price of moving boxes.
Erin had taken the china home.
She had used it at Thanksgiving, Christmas, two graduation dinners, Diane’s sixtieth birthday, and now Sophie’s bridal shower because Sophie had once loved the little covered vegetable dish with its ridiculous knob shaped like a rosebud.
Nobody had ever discussed giving the entire set away.
“Sophie,” Erin said, “the china is coming home with me.”
Her niece went pink.
“Oh.”
From the kitchen Diane called, “What’s oh?”
Sophie closed her eyes briefly.
Erin almost felt sorry for her.
Then Diane walked in carrying two champagne flutes by their stems.
“Did we lose something?”
“Sophie thought the china was going to her apartment.”
Diane stopped.
Not surprised.
That was the part Erin noticed.
Diane set the flutes on the table. “I told her she could have it after the shower.”
“You told her she could have my china.”
“It was Grandma’s china.”
“It was. Then Grandma gave it to me.”
“I know that.”
“Good.”
Diane’s mouth tightened.
Sophie said, “I really don’t need it right now.”
“This is not about whether you need plates,” Erin said.
“I know.”
Diane pulled out a chair and sat down like someone preparing for an unreasonable meeting she had not scheduled.
“Erin, come on. She’s getting married.”
“I attended the shower. I noticed.”
Sophie made a helpless noise that was almost a laugh.
Diane did not.
“You have service for sixteen,” Diane said. “You barely use the whole set.”
“I barely use my winter coat in July. It remains mine.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“Why?”
“Because this is family china.”
Erin stared at her sister.
There were phrases that sounded normal until somebody used them to explain why your belongings were available without your permission.
Diane folded her hands.
“I thought you’d be happy Sophie wanted it.”
“I would be happy if Sophie wanted it. I might even give it to her someday. Those are both different from you giving it to her today.”
Sophie put down the ribbon.
“Mom, you should have asked.”
Diane looked wounded by the obviousness of that sentence.
“I was trying to do something nice.”
“For whom?” Erin asked.
“For Sophie.”
“Then use your dishes.”
“That’s childish.”
“No. Childish would be licking every plate so nobody else can have it.”
Sophie laughed before she could stop herself.
Diane gave her a look.
Erin began stacking the wrapped plates into the large plastic storage crate she had brought that morning.
Diane stood.
“You’re seriously taking all of it back tonight?”
“Yes.”
“I thought we could save you the trouble.”
“There is no trouble. I have a car.”
“The boxes are heavy.”
“I have arms.”
Sophie stepped forward. “I’ll carry one.”
Erin handed her the lighter box of cups and saucers.
Diane followed them through the foyer.
The late-afternoon air outside was warm enough that Erin regretted the cardigan she had worn because bridal showers always seemed colder than necessary. She opened the hatch of her small SUV.
Sophie put the first box inside.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
“You did not promise yourself my dishes.”
“I should have checked.”
“You had no reason to think your mother invented the offer.”
From the front steps, Diane said, “I did not invent anything.”
Erin looked over the roof of the car.
“Then whose offer was it?”
Diane crossed her arms.
For a second nobody spoke.
Erin slid the second crate beside the first, tucked a folded blanket between them, and closed the hatch.
The blue-rimmed china was going home with her.
