Whenever he thought about his lineage, he rigidly stood on his four legs and proudly faced the opposite wall. Like any other china hutch, the factory he was assembled at granted him the honor to serve as a hold for porcelain and crystal tableware, an indispensable part of every self-respecting household. And ever since the day he saw light, he faithfully executed his duty for three generations: he overlooked the living room towering above all the chairs and the wooden folding table, which could show its glory only when the family was preparing to meet guests, and reflected the sun rays that were coming from the window to the left every afternoon onto the wall in front of him. Every morning he carefully watched the window for any sign of clouds or rain, and if he didn’t notice any, he would stand at his usual place fully prepared to glow. Mother loved to praise her cupboard every time her rather antiquated friends came over for a cup of tea, and he relished every moment of being put on a pedestal and serving his duty to the fullest. After all, he was the veteran of this house: each renovation gradually altered the guise with newfangled furniture, leaving him alone surrounded by mere objects with no history. What the cupboard scoffed at most were the rowdy glowing boxes Father brought in every couple years. Each time they appeared thinner, louder, and sometimes china hutch wondered whether Father was just struggling to find a painting that would cover the wall.

Today was indeed a sunny April day. The windows were free of the viscose curtains Mother used at night to cover the room from strangers’ eyes and streetlights, and sunlight gently pierced through, filling every corner of the living room. He could almost feel the warmth on his upper drawers. A singing starling landed on the windowsill, drawing the cupboard’s attention. The little bird ended its single act and swiftly flew away, carrying his attention away on its tail.

The serenity of the moment was halted by the cat that lazily shuffled into the room, wagging its tail from side to side. Daughter brought the stray from the streets when she was younger and the cat had stayed with them ever since. Father was furious that evening but after a while ended up spending the most time playing with the animal. Unfortunately, everyone just accepted the creature despite it shedding fur every spring all over the magnificent carpet the cupboard stood on.

His flow of thoughts was interrupted as the cat bared its claws and started scratching his bottom drawer and the base of his already rickety leg. The china hutch was more than sure it was a doleful sight: once pure white and now slightly greyish paint was losing its coating in some places, showing off brown wood. Its gorgeous casing with a pattern of heavenly blue irises was covered with slight and deep scrapes in places within the sinister cat’s reach and the carving desperately needed restoration. These were the traces of time, his physical state was out of his command and the cupboard knew it. Every day he silently asked his owners why they couldn’t stop fussing about all the replaceable shallow pieces like Father’s light boxes but never raised a finger to take care of him. Nevertheless, he never showed any sign of frailty; how could he? After all, if he didn’t serve his purpose, what kind of house would this be? Over his dead body would this room be left without remembrance of past greatness. He was certain of his importance to the household, so he endured this daily torture looking upon everything around him, as usual. His torturer finally retracted its claws and started grooming itself, and then it snuggled comfortably against the china hutch and fell asleep, purring.

The cupboard returned to his routine watch, which he was rudely cut off from by the nine-inch monster. Suddenly he heard a rattling motor and turned his gaze to the window. An unfamiliar car drove up to the house. In a small cloud of dust he noticed a shiny dark-blue door open. Two people got out. The man he had seen several times at the house offered Daughter his hand to help, but she jokingly took him by the hand and pulled the man back into the cabin, the man falling into her arms for a hug. The china hutch was already fed up with the unceasing nonsense this girl talked about her admirer: at dinners with her parents the boy quickly became her only topic of interest, and every day she spent hours on the phone prattling and hurting his ears.

Daughter was smiling and giggling at the man next to her, as he slammed the door too hard, thereby irritating the driver who yelled at them before driving off. But the couple didn’t seem to mind and the man pulled the girl closer for a kiss on the cheek. The cupboard kept watching them approach the main door, and the next scene he encountered would almost have him collapse on the floor if there wasn’t a wall behind him to lean on: the boy put his hand on Daughter’s waist and pressed the girl against the door, kissing her on the lips. “Oh, if dear Grandmother saw this filthiness she would roll in her coffin! How low the standards have fallen, what a scandal!” – he thought to himself – “She would never dare to behave so unreservedly when she was your age.” The two figures vanished from his sight, and the moment after that, he heard Daughter call her parents to gather in the living room, followed by a cheerful “Mom, Dad, I have wonderful news.”

The wedding day was set to be in three weeks. Father was not content with Daughter’s choice; the old couple sat by the folding table in the living room when the fiancés left the house holding hands.

“Christ, Margarita, the guy’s a kid. Wants a family but is barely out of diapers,” Father grumbled as he walked from the kitchen, a mug in each hand. The china hutch deemed the porcelain teacups he stored more appropriate for the occasion but kept the thought to himself.

“He’s not a child, they work in the same office. Maybe he doesn’t have the means to pay for the wedding but his job looks promising. Besides, she may look like a girl to you, honey, but she’s a woman, and if she doesn’t get married soon, who would want her when she’s older? If my mother would still be with us she would have gotten her a man years ago.” Mother reached for a mug and gestured to Father to sit back.

“I still don’t trust the boy. He should have asked me first before proposing – look me in the eye and show respect.”

“Yes, and if he did, he would run away from that grim look on your face. Or worse, run away with our daughter by his side.” There was something else in her eyes. “Let her live her life, and let me have my grandkids. Honestly, this place is starting to look like a nursing home.”

“That’s ‘cause of all the old ladies you bring to our house, for God’s sake!” Father raised his eyebrows with sincere inability to fathom the woman in front of him.

Their conversation was interrupted by the cat that quietly made its way to the china hutch to whet its claws. Mother groaned at the sight and pulled the cat into her arms.

“I bought you a scratching mat; what more do you need?” She put the animal on the chair between her and her husband and patted it on the head. The cat at once jumped on the table and then on top of the cupboard. From there it looked around the room with a bored expression, curled up into a lump and closed its eyes. Mother’s gaze returned to the cupboard.

“We should give the china hutch to our daughter as a dowry. My mom did that as well as my grandmother. It would make a fine wedding present,” she said as her eyes locked on the refined piece of furniture and she dodged her husband’s comment.

These words parted the cupboard’s life into what was before and what was now ahead of him. After the news about the wedding broke, the china hutch spent his time imagining the long-awaited day he would be in the spotlight of the celebration and all the guests; that it would be like in the old days. But now, he couldn’t stand the thought of being brought to a household where he would not be needed, not be valued. Children no longer honored the manners their forefathers had. Three generations had grown up in front of his eyes, and now marriage didn’t mean a thing. The other day an old lady came to see Mother and complained about her foolish son divorcing his wife and abandoning their three children! These people have no morals, and their parents are to blame. They should have whipped that rebel spirit out of them before they learned how to speak. And now he had no choice but to be a part of this delirium.

#

Mother was delighted by the idea of being in charge of the celebration, as now she could keep herself busy with something actually meaningful: she needed to orchestrate the preparations, which mostly consisted of cleaning up every corner of the house, choose the recipe for the wedding cake and, most importantly, collect the dowry to settle the marriage. Every day the china hutch watched Mother spend hours on the carpet beside him composing a guest list or sorting out the presents the family was gifted in the past for a chance of re-gifting to the young couple. When she wasn’t doing this, she moved around the room wiping off  nonexistent dust. Sometimes Father would come up stroking the cat in his hands to ask if she needed anything, but her answer was always the same: “No one ever helps me in this house, so at least don’t bother me, Someone HAS to manage this,” and he would walk away with a confused expression on his face. And when the door closed she would joyously return to whatever she was doing and the cupboard silently observed her work.

The evening before the wedding, Daughter came to the house to check on the progress.

Her fiancé and she wanted to arrange the wedding at a resto-bar across the road from their new apartment, but last Monday Mother insisted on holding the reception at the family house. The guest list Daughter left last week was also altered beyond recognition: half of their close friends were replaced by names she could vaguely recognize from her childhood memories. Mother’s cousins she had hardly spoken to and their children she’d never seen were invited instead of her college mates. Once the conversation shifted to the topic of dowry, the china hutch found himself in the middle of an argument.

“We’re gonna live in a two-room apartment; there’s no place to put the cupboard there. It’s gonna fill half the room!” Daughter stopped to catch her breath and looked at the china hutch, “It is already loose; I don’t want this thing to fall on us one day.” She took another deep breath and continued.

“And why would we need a china hutch full of porcelain crap if we have everything in the kitchen anyway?” he could sense notes of tension in her voice.

“Because it’s tradition. My grandma passed it to my mother as a sign of goodwill,  my mother gifted it to me, and I don’t plan on breaking this chain. What do you expect me to do, tell the relatives you don’t want it? How would it make me look?” Mother was adamant in her decision.

“I don’t care and it’s only between me and him now. You can’t tell us what to do!” Daughter cried out, too irked to continue this senseless argument. For half a second Mother looked at her in disbelief but then quickly changed her expression, her eyes now unreadable. A loud slap followed.

“Don’t raise your voice at me like that. I am paying for your wedding, so you better show some respect tomorrow. And don’t cry, your eyes will look red and puffy.”

Daughter crumbled to the floor with tears in her eyes, covering her cheek with both hands. End of discussion, the cupboard reckoned. Daughter’s behavior wasn’t new to him, what puzzled the cupboard was that in every fight there was one truth she couldn’t grasp. She is Daughter, she simply doesn’t have the authority to stand against those who are older. This is what the china hutch conceived after almost a century in the house: a family is a hierarchy, where titles come with time. One day she will be in charge of the family, but for now, all she needs to do is what’s expected of her. As for the quarrel, he found himself unsure of the outcome. If earlier there had been the slightest chance of things remaining the same, now it was certain he was moving in with the couple. And from what he just heard, there wasn’t going to be enough space for him to be admired by others. It was a dead-end; if they took this away from him, what would he  do? A quiet sobbing cut off his flow of thoughts. Mother had already left the living room, and now he was left alone with Daughter sitting in the same spot.

“You know, if Mom wants you with us so much, I’ll take you. But after the wedding – you're trash.” She kicked the cupboard with her right leg. “You are falling apart, so I’ll just tell her you broke.” She finished speaking to herself, rose to her feet and left the room, leaving the hutch horrified.

#

It had been an hour since the last guest arrived, and the living room was crowded with friends and relatives of the family. The sweet smell of roasted beef came from the kitchen. Mother outdid herself, as there was not a spot on the tablecloth that wasn’t occupied by food plates. She spent all morning pulling the cat away from the treats and from the cupboard, as today its claws seemed to be particularly itchy. Annoyed, the cat jumped on top of the china hutch and watched the bustle from above until it fell asleep. The tables were visibly divided by a twenty-something-year gap; while the elder people sat and complimented the parents on their excellent upbringing, the younger part made up a circle with the groom and the bride in the middle. The china hutch was not so great: the owners’ friends and relatives were fascinated by the nostalgic feeling the cupboard conveyed, yet it felt like he was enjoying this for the last time. No one would ever make him feel this way again and he knew this.

“I propose a toast,” the loud voices gradually quieted as Mother raised her glass of champagne in the air, “to my beautiful daughter who is now on her way to becoming a woman.” A low cheering followed but was cut short by Mother, “And to help the young couple start a new family together, we have gathered some presents.”

The china hutch envisioned the grim prospects of his new life. Overwhelmed by this feeling, he started panicking as Mother’s speech went on.

“I prepared some of the most important things to start with: kitchen appliances, silk bed sheets, and some other small things. Now, to breathe life into the new home, I want to pass you our ancient china hutch that my mother once passed on to me,” his mind raced as he looked over the living room. He was ready to fall through the ground if it would stop this moment from happening. There was nothing he could do, was there? He had lived a long life faithfully serving his owners, doing what his creator designed him to do, but this  was too much. He had no meaning now.

Everyone looked at the once gorgeous cupboard as Mother pointed her champagne glass in its direction. “To the newlyweds!” she finished her toast.

I can have a choice.

Woken up from its sleep by the rising noise, the cat groomed itself a little and jumped off straight onto the ground. The jolt caused the base of the cupboard’s weak leg to fracture and it started to fall forward. He looked around him for the last time, assured of his decision.

If I have to stand this, I’d rather die!

A loud rumble swept across the room followed by people screaming from all sides.

The wedding present shattered into splinters, but nobody was injured, including the furry culprit that quickly ran away from the crime scene.

The floor was now strewn with events long past.

#

Daughter and her husband happily moved in together in their new apartment in the city. After the wedding, she felt an almost comical relief as everything was left behind. It was a hassle to collect all the sharp pieces, so they relocated the wedding to the resto-bar.

Everyone went home drunk and pleased, and the collapse quickly became a story of yesterday, for all except one.

Mother was restless for a couple of days. Now that the china hutch was gone, the white sofa directly faced a substantial void next to the dining table at the end of the living room. The clear contour of the cupboard’s silhouette on the wallpaper that developed after years of fixedness also contributed to Mother’s malaise. The carpet ended right at the foot of the gap too.

The first day after the wedding Mother spent cleaning out every crevice in the room. Periodically she let out a couple of tears, mourning the loss and promptly wiping them away with her napkin. The next day she tried to rearrange the living room by giving orders to Father on where to move the TV set. Each attempt seemed to worsen the situation with Mother becoming more agitated. The cat lazily watched the fuss from the sofa, its eyes occasionally meeting with Father’s exhausted ones. When the rearrangement didn’t work, Mother chucked the two pals out of the living room and tried to find something in the house to replace the cupboard. Nothing fit: the chairs didn’t cover the shadow of darker wallpaper on the wall and the painting wasn’t wide enough to fill the void.

The morning of the third day was rather dull for Mother. She locked the living room and avoided looking at it as she went by. That was until the newlyweds, Daughter and her husband, arrived for a small visit after Father requested their help the day before. One could say it was more of a plea that followed a pause a bit too long, as Father found himself short of the small talk he had gone through in his head before calling. Armed with wood blocks of different sizes and a toolbox, Daughter’s husband went ahead to implement his rather plain plan. By the evening of the same day, his simple construction was ready, and when Mother walked into the room a scream of joy followed. The stains on the wall and the gap next to the carpet were now covered by a modern bookshelf: the minimalistic design consisted of just wooden blocks attached to the wall in a geometric pattern. The family put up some books, a medium-sized clock and a coal-black vase to fill the space on the shelves, completing the overall look.

“Come see me and your mother more often now. And you too, Son,” said Father.