Ági measured out the coffee and arranged the cookies on a tray.
'It must be something serious,' she said, telling me to serve the coffee in the bird patterned china set.
I loved those porcelain cups. I always wondered what secrets might be hidden among the hand painted sky blue flowers, the vines twisting all the way up to the tiny handles. Dreams of all those generations preserved in the spread wings of swifts, painted on the saucers rattling in discreet support. They had been there at every major turning point, linking us to the past. They knew the family stories and overheard the secrets of a first kiss, the silences of disappointments, their porcelain shine reflecting laughs and tears. They'd been a wedding gift to my grandmother, from my great-grandmother. Some of their gilded rims were chipped, but they still looked lovely.
Who will the last woman be to take coffee from these cups, I wondered, my daughter perhaps? My niece? A granddaughter?
I picked up a cookie, and we retreated to the bedroom.
 
translated by Dani Dányi