The Sunday Table

Every Sunday, Maya helped her grandmother set up a small table at the neighbourhood market. The stall sat between a flower cart and a quaint secondhand bookshop whose owner still wrote prices in pencil. Maya loved the crooked shelves and the smell of old paper; the whole street felt like it belonged to another decade.

Her grandmother arranged the table slowly, laying out lace doilies, chipped cups, and a blue teapot she refused to sell. Customers often asked about it. Each time, she would smile and reminisce about the winter she received it as a wedding gift, back when the city still had trams and the bakery gave away yesterday's bread.

"That teapot is an heirloom," she told Maya. "It has poured tea for three generations. Some things you keep, not because they are worth money, but because they hold people."

Maya had a knack for talking to strangers. While her grandmother counted coins, she chatted with a shy tourist, helped an elderly man find a book of poems, and convinced a hesitant teenager that a scratched record was still a bargain. By noon, the table was nearly empty.

A well-dressed collector stopped and offered a surprising sum for the teapot. He was cordial, even charming, but her grandmother shook her head gently and thanked him for the kind offer. He laughed, tipped his hat, and wished them a good day.

On the walk home, Maya asked why she had refused so much money. Her grandmother squeezed her hand. "Because one day it will be yours," she said, "and then you will understand."

Maya did not fully understand yet. But she held the teapot a little more carefully after that, as though it were already listening.