When my mother died in 1983, I inherited Grandmother’s china. I, too, used the set on many special occasions, and I, too, wondered what had happened to the missing box.
I love to prowl antique shops and flea markets, hunting for treasures. It’s great fun to walk up and down the aisles early in the morning, watching as the vendors spread their wares on the ground.
I hadn’t been to a flea market in over a year when, one Sunday in 1993, I got the itch to go. So I crawled out of bed at 5 A.M. and drove an hour in the predawn darkness to the giant Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena. I walked up and down the outdoor aisles, and after a couple of hours I was thinking about leaving. I rounded the last corner and took a few steps down the row when I noticed some china strewn on the macadam. I saw that it was hand-painted china... with forget-me-nots! I raced over to look at it more closely and gingerly picked up a cup and saucer... forget-me-nots! Exactly like Grandmother’s china, with the same delicate strokes and the same thin gold bands around the rims. I looked at the rest of the items—there were the cups! The saucers! The bowls! It was Gran