The Restoration Rival novel · Chapter 5 of 21

Chapter 5: Grandma's Kitchen

Thursday was four days away, so I went to work.

The studio in the arts building was open until ten.

I had the celadon bowl in a padded box under my bed and I brought it in and set it on the bench.

Four cracks. One through the whole body of it, three on the rim.

It was a good piece. Not a real Song piece, but a good copy, made by a man in the south who signed the foot with a single stroke.

I'd bought it in an alley market for two hundred when I was fifteen.

It had been in my grandmother's cupboard before that.

She'd given it to me when I was eleven with the handle already broken off.

I fixed it that summer with a chopstick and a pot of glue.

She kept it on the shelf for nine years.

Then she gave it back to me the week I left for college and said, "Fix it properly now."

I worked until the building lights went off.

Then I took the bus.

Grandma's house was two stops past the ring road, in the old quarter.

A courtyard house with one narrow room and a coal stove.

She was up. She was always up.

She had the kettle on and a plate of peanuts out on the table.

"You didn't eat," she said.

"I ate."

"You didn't eat. Sit."

I sat.

She put rice in front of me and a bowl of greens and sat down across the table with her hands folded.

"You look thin."

"I've been training."

"You've been worrying."

I ate.

The stove ticked. The window over the sink had frost on the inside corner, same as the dorm.

"Wen came by Sunday," she said.

"She told me about the competition."

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