"That's really weird."
"It's a dying tradition. Like I said, she never got one for any of us kids."
I put the last shirt away in my husband's drawer and shut it, my hands lingering for a moment before falling to my lap where I am kneeling between dresser and clothes basket. Sita is right, that is how the books are made, randomly arranging predetermined bits of information. But it suddenly sounds so much like my life in a way I'd never noticed before. And I'd never talked to my kids about the book, always reading the page in the morning when I was alone. Where had Sita learned about it all?
For that matter, I don't remember taking her with me when my father died. Those are the last of my memories when my days came in order. The boys were not quite two, the girls just infants. Sita must b
