Leon had spent his working life setting type. Since retiring, he had begun binding small notebooks at the kitchen table. He liked the quiet sequence: folded paper, needle, thread, a cover pressed beneath two heavy books.
The latest notebook was for the walks he took with his wife, Mira. He meant to add a ribbon to mark their place.
When he lifted it from the press, two ribbons slipped out. A cream one had caught beneath the rust-coloured strip before he glued the lining down.
“I could take it apart,” he said.
Mira ran a finger along the cover. “Does it open?”
It opened very well.
She turned to the first page and wrote the date of their next walk. Then she opened the back and began a list of things they might take: sandwiches, a pencil, the small binoculars.
Leon watched the cream ribbon settle against her list.
“Leave that one there,” she said. “You can start from your end.”
He drew a little outline of the pond on the front page. Mira added a reminder about his hat at the back.
When they closed the notebook, the ribbons hung below it at different lengths. Leon trimmed neither. He put it beside their walking shoes, with one ribbon resting across each cover.