"Gosh." She writes this all down.

He fills in great-grandparents for her. "Aitim's family is green and mine is blue."

"But Aitim is blue because of his hair?"

"Aitim is blue because it was sort of ambiguous and he really didn't want to be green and convinced everyone to let him be blue instead. It was very stresssful and complicated but now we're pretty sure it worked."

"Why was it ambiguous?"

"Caste is patrilineal. So that would make Afen blue, because his father was. But Afen is not very blue at all and ran away from home and pretended to be green and bought green credits for his children. So Aitim had an argument for being either, really, but he wanted blue and not green."

"What if Aitim was green, you are still both dads."

"It would depend who contributed genetic material to the baby and probably we would not be eligible to adopt a blue baby or a green one."

"Why wouldn't you?"

"Lots and lots of people want to adopt. Two blues will probably be better at raising a blue child than a blue and a green, and two greens probably better at raising a green child. There is not much reason to give children to people who are even a smidge less likely to be able to raise them."

"Because there aren't very many basket children."

"Very very few."

"You asked for my basket, right?"

"We did. No one has delivered it yet."

"It's not really important but it's the only thing I had."

"I understand. I bet they'll bring it today or tomorrow."

"Okay."

"They updated the Tapa book to mention the war," he says to Aitim as he walks into the room.

Sigh. "I suppose that makes sense."

"It didn't use to have that?"

"The war was last spring and summer."

"Gosh. I was alive somewhere already then."

"Yeah."

"I wonder where."

"We might find out someday but we might not. Since you speak Tapap I think some people are thinking Tapa."