Chapter 24 - THE WEDDING RING
I kept Ethan’s ring for twenty-two years.
In a drawer.
Not sentimentally.
I simply never decided.
At fifty, I found it while moving.
Rose sat on the floor.
“You still have that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want it?”
“No.”
“Sell it.”
“It’s not worth much.”
“Then recycle it.”
I looked at the plain platinum band.
There had been good years.
Sunday breakfasts.
Rose’s ultrasound photographs.
Road trips.
Ethan learning to make my mother’s soup from a recipe Richard hated.
The marriage was not fake.
It became unsafe.
Those truths could share metal.
I took the ring to a jeweler.
Had it melted.
Not into revenge jewelry.
Into a small pendant shaped like nothing symbolic.
A circle.
I gave it to Rose only after asking.
She said:
“That is weird.”
“Agreed.”
May you like
“I want it.”
Also fair.
