Tarik asked Alma what she wanted for her birthday while she was choosing detergent at the supermarket. She said she did not know. He told her to think about it and send him a link so he would not buy the wrong thing. He was reasonable as always. He never forgot the date, never begrudged the expense, and reliably ordered and wrapped whatever she chose. Yet she stood before the detergent shelves feeling a weariness that could not possibly belong to that question alone.
At home she opened several shops on her phone. Everything she really needed was already on her shopping plan. Everything that might delight her required deciding first whether she deserved the expense. Eventually she closed the screen and told Tarik that this year she wanted a gift she did not choose herself. He laughed, thinking she was giving him a puzzle. She had no secret correct answer. That was precisely what she wanted to stop carrying in her head.
He reminded her of a coat he had once bought and she had exchanged. She remembered. She also remembered how his disappointment had made it the last gift he selected himself. Ever since, they had both preserved peace the same way: she decided, he paid, and then they pretended the box was a surprise. She did not accuse him of failing to know her. She asked whether he could bear knowing her imperfectly.
On her birthday she received a large box. Inside were binoculars for watching birds and a small plain notebook. Tarik said she had stopped their walks six times the previous spring to point out birds whose names she did not know. Alma did not remember. She did when she opened the notebook and found a rough drawing of their usual route. The binoculars were heavy, too large for her small hands. But somebody had noticed something she had not yet turned into a task.
They went out that afternoon. Alma could not adjust the image and initially saw only blurred branches. Tarik offered to try together, then admitted he did not know how either. They laughed at their own serious faces beside an empty tree. Eventually they spotted an entirely ordinary crow. Alma watched it much longer than the sight deserved, pleased that nothing that day needed to justify itself with a grand result.
The following week they exchanged the binoculars for a lighter pair. Tarik went with her and did not look wounded. She kept the notebook. Instead of bird names she recorded the dates of their walks and little things that happened. The first entry said the crow had escaped before the photograph. Beneath it Tarik later added that the gift had worked after all, even though they had spent half the afternoon looking in the wrong direction.