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The suitcase sits on the hotel bed , the lamp on , the craft fair quiet outside the window . Nils lifts the tin of pressed flowers and opens it . He takes out a small yellow bloom and reads the label beneath it : a field station name and a date three years prior . He sets the flower back very carefully and closes the tin . At nine o'clock he calls . From her university office , Clara looks at his suitcase against the wall . " I found a flower in the tin , " Nils says . " A small yellow one , from a field station . " I thought perhaps you pressed them for greeting cards — the kind with the flower inside . " Clara laughs , not unkindly . She explains : the flowers are specimens , collected from every place she has worked . The bloom is a record , not a keepsake . " Though I do keep them , " she says . Nils tells her about the craft fair : the paper , the tools , what a bone folder is made for . " I thought it was for leather , " says Clara . " Most people do , " says Nils . They agree to swap the suitcases next week . This time the plan is specific — a town name , a day . Somewhere halfway between them . When Clara reaches into his suitcase for a shirt , she sees the red ribbon in the outer pocket . It is still folded in its paper sleeve . She does not take it out . Later , in Clara 's office , her tin of pressed flowers sits on the desk in front of her — except that it does not . The tin is in a hotel room in another town , and the desk is bare .
