Margen
At the second-hand bookshop, the novel came with a cloth bookmark at page twelve. Clara left it where it was and started from page one.
The next morning, the bookmark was waiting at page twenty. She was on page nine. She assumed it had slipped out and she'd put it back in the wrong place. That night she wedged it tightly between the pages. When she woke up, it was at thirty-one.
She read all week to catch up with it. Every night she closed the book a little closer; every morning the cloth had moved on a few pages, unhurried, like someone out for a stroll.
She caught it on Saturday, in the final chapter, and waited with her finger on the last line. Nothing happened. On Sunday, the bookmark woke up at page twelve again.
Then she understood, without being able to explain it, that it wasn't marking her reading: it was marking someone else's. Somewhere, somebody was rereading.
She left the book open on the bedside table and turned off the light. This is how they read now: she by day, the other one by night. They keep almost the same pace.