The Boxer in the Cupboard

Amy has had the mug for more than sixty years. It has a boxer on it: a fawn dog with cropped ears and a black mask, the word BOXER printed beneath him in small capitals. No one in her family was especially fond of dogs. The mug came to Amy around the turn of the 1960s, and for most of her childhood her mother set it at her place every morning, filled with milk.As a child, it had been her favourite breakfast mug. Now it serves a new function, standing on her kitchen table in Ontario, holding pens, pencils and paper clips.It is not a valuable piece, at least not in terms of market value.Mugs from the same series turn up online for about fifteen dollars, and this one was never kept for display: the inside is crazed and stained from years of use, and there are rust-coloured flecks around the foot.When Amy left home in her twenties, the mug stayed behind with her mother. It went into the kitchen cupboard and stayed there, and it never came out when Amy visited, not even for a cup of tea.…