1: 1
Six years married, and my husband never once forgot my birthday or my sister's.
He was always traveling, somewhere across the world for work.
Every time he came home, he brought us two navy notebooks, identical on the outside.
I had always believed that meant he treated us the same.
Until this year, when the bookshop mixed up the shipment.
The one I received had a cover of vegetable-tanned leather he'd brought back from Italy.
Its pages held washi paper from Boston, papyrus from Cairo, and photograph after photograph, each one labeled with where it had come from.
On the flyleaf, in his own hand, he had written:
"To seeing the whole world with you."
I called to ask, and the clerk said:
"Mr. James brings us different materials every year and asks us to bind them into a journal for Ms. Nadia Matthews."
"The other is our standard model. He ordered six of them at once."
So it turned out he couldn't be bothered to choose something new each year.
He had already bought my next six birthdays wholesale.
That evening, Neal James came home.
I set both notebooks on the table.
"Which one is mine?"
He picked up the plain one without thinking and handed it to me.
"This one. You don't like anything fussy or over-decorated, remember?"
I opened Nadia's thick travel journal, and all at once I understood.
It wasn't that he had no time to put his heart into it.
It was that his world had never once thought to bring me along.
1
When Neal pushed the plain notebook across the table toward me, I didn't take it.
It skidded over the surface and knocked over the gift box beside it.
He glanced at me.
"What's wrong?"
I opened the custom journal and turned the flyleaf toward him.
"Did you write this?"
Neal's eyes swept over the line. His expression didn't change.
"The bookshop mixed up the delivery. I'll have them switch it back tomorrow."
I held the page down.
"I asked you. Did you write it or not?"
He finally looked up.
"Willow Matthews, it's your birthday. Are you really going to make this into a fight over two notebooks?"
I asked, "Then where's mine? What did you write for me?"
Neal was quiet for a moment.
"What would you even do with that?"
I smiled a little.
"But Nadia would do something with it?"
His tone dropped.
"She's a journaling influencer. Millions of followers are waiting for her next post. She's launching a new travel series next week. Those materials were always meant for her."
The dinner I'd made was still on the table.
He'd just gotten back from overseas. I knew he was particular about food and had a bad stomach.
So I'd come home early on purpose and cooked his favorite, sweet-and-sour glazed ribs.
Now the food had gone cold.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Nadia.
She'd sent a photo of the plain notebook.
Beside it were the stickers she had ready for her livestream.
"Neal, did the bookshop get it wrong? This one looks like it's Willow's."
Neal replied right away.
"Yours is with her. I'll bring it back."
Nadia sent a voice message next.
"She won't take it the wrong way, will she? Or just let her keep it. I know those materials are the theme of my next video, but my little sister being happy matters more."
Neal listened to it, then looked at me.
"Your sister is still thinking of you."
I stared at him.
"Would she really be willing to give this one to me?"
He frowned.
"Willow, why do you always assume the worst about people?"
That was the first time I learned that a single question from me was enough to make me the one who was always against my sister.
I pulled out the photos tucked between the pages.
A café on a corner in Rome.
An old paper stall in a Cairo market.
Red maple leaves outside a temple in Boston.
All these years, every time he came back from a trip, I would ask him what he'd seen.
His answer was always the same.
"Nothing much."
So it wasn't that he hadn't seen any of it.
He'd simply never thought to tell me.
I asked, "Do you even know what kind of notebook I like?"
Neal looked at the plain one on the table.
"Navy. Simple. Nothing extra on it."
"Who told you that?"
"You take it every year and never once said you didn't like it."
Our first year married, he gave me this same notebook.
I noticed Nadia's had thicker paper and a softer cover.
But back then I was afraid he'd think I was petty, so all I said was that it looked lovely.
Every year after, he gave me the same one.
So being understanding once meant I never needed to be understood again.
Neal got up and came over.
"Stop this. Tomorrow I'll have the bookshop bind a new one for you."
I pulled away from his hand.
"Don't bother."
A flicker of impatience crossed his face.
"It's just a journal. What more do you want?"
The doorbell rang right then.
Neal opened the door.
Nadia stood outside, the plain notebook cradled in her arms.
Her makeup was flawless, as if she'd just come off a livestream.
"Willow, I came to swap the notebook."
She handed me the plain one, but her eyes stayed on the custom journal on the table.
"Neal spent so long collecting those materials. Still, if you really love it, I can let you have it."
Neal stood behind her.
"Nadia came all this way herself. Don't embarrass her."
I looked down at the flyleaf.
I tore the page out.
Neal's face went cold.
"Willow, what has gotten into you?"
I ripped the page in half and shoved it back inside the journal.
Then I dropped both notebooks into the cardboard box together.
"If they were both sent wrong, then neither of us gets one."
Nadia's eyes went red at once.
She turned and left.
Neal didn't go after her, but he didn't say another word to me all night.
Before bed, he stood in the bedroom doorway.
"When you've calmed down, we'll talk."
