The stars appeared beside some dates and not others. A collector assumed they marked unusually high tides and wanted the notebook for an exhibition. The keeper's son, Emil, checked the figures and found ordinary water levels beside every star.
The dates were birthdays: his own, his sister's, then grandchildren added in later years. His father had worked away during long stretches and placed the family dates in the book he opened most often. Some stars had tiny numbers recording ages; others had reminders to post a card.
Emil remembered the cards as evidence that his father never forgot. The notebook showed how much deliberate effort remembering required. Beside one late card was an irritated instruction to himself, underlined twice. His son recognized the same impatience he used when repairing equipment.
The exhibition borrowed the book with a revised caption. Visitors saw tides and birthdays sharing a page without one being mistaken for the other. Emil kept copies of the family dates. They did not excuse every absence, but they complicated the old idea that distance meant his father had stopped keeping track.