The journal was bound in an ordinary calico print, small daisylike flowers on a purple ground. It reminded Kate of the cloth her mother had used to make her a centennial dress the year the town had observed a pageant marking one hundred years of statehood. The dresses should be of patterns common to the time, Katherine had said, sprigged calico was what they'd used. She'd made a bonnet to match, starched with sizing, and found Kate an authentic pair of antique button-top boots in brown leather. They'd owned a Polaroid Land camera at the time, a bulky, miraculous thing that developed its own pictures in square black envelopes. Kate had found one of the prints among photos in her mother's drawer when she was looking for the insurance papers—a faded silvery image three inches square. There Kate stood, ten years old, completely swathed in sprigged fabric. Faceless in the deep bonnet, holding up her long skirt to show the shoes. What had happened to those shoes, and the pearl-handled buttonhook they'd used to fasten them?

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