The dust is gathering on the shelf around me, and I really wish someone would open a window. No one’s opened me in months. I worry I’ll forget what it’s like to be looked at. I’m not in the shape I used to be.

It wasn’t always like this. Usually, at least three or four times a week, her hands would pull me by my leather binding. Right when I got off the shelf, she would use her other hand to support my pages. She would blow the dust from off my cover each time, even if she had taken me out earlier in the day. She would hug me to her chest, cross her arms over me, and carry me to the orange velvet couch.

My first memory is with her. It was dark right before I met her, too. She ripped the paper from my face and smoothed out my leather. Her hands were soft and warm. “This will be perfect,” she smiled.

Soon afterward she filled my first page and started opening me daily. “This is his first time eating solids,” she started saying. She would touch her hand to my pages, careful enough not to leave a strong print. She would giggle. “Isn’t he wonderful?” Then, “He’s a great big cousin. Look at that!” Then, “His English teacher said he never would, but I knew better!”

True, during that other stretch of time when she didn’t open me, I learned to get used to the silence. Or so I tried. Luckily, one day, she took me out and smoothed her hand over my leather again. She opened me, and this time there was a young girl there who had never been in my pages. “This is his first time eating solids,” she smiled, pointing once again. She laughed. “He asked me not to show you the ones of him in the bath!”

The young girl pressed her finger to my page. “That’s you?” the young girl giggled at him. He nodded, his cheeks flushing red. They flushed the same color on their first date. “He was so nervous,” she would say when she showed that one. “Aren’t they just adorable?”

She started to fill me with images of the girl and the boy. Soon, the girl wasn’t a stranger anymore.

And then, “This was their first dance! He swept her right off her feet.”

And then, “He looks just like his father! Look at the way he curls his toes!”

Her hands started to feel colder on my pages. Still, every time, she would blow the dust off of me and smooth out my leather.

The last day she took me out, it was more slowly than usual. Her grasp was weaker, and her hands were shaking. “This was his first time eating solids,” she sighed. Her voice was shaking too. “Wasn’t he wonderful?” The girl, older by now, leaned over me and a drop of water fell on my page. Then she closed me and pushed me back on the shelf. I’ve been there since.

Except I feel something on my spine now—is that a hand? Yes, it’s her hand! She pulls me out with two hands, takes a deep breath, blows the dust from my cover, crosses her arms over me, and carries me once again to the orange velvet couch.