Your ring.

Remember your wedding ring? I have been looking for it, assuming it was here. But I can’t find it. Must mean you have it. Or it’s been tossed.

In the photo on Facebook, she has a wedding band on. And you are covering up your left hand in what looks like to me a very purposeful way.

Just makes me wonder if you wear it to seem married. To her. Part of me actually wonders if you have gotten married. I’d like to think that wasn’t possible, but we do still have that story of Kristy’s mom floating around that I have to reconsider now. Again.

I remember talking about your ring in great detail more than once. At one point, you had left it here, I believe. You told me that you couldn’t wear it if you were driving full-time because when you had to fix stuff, it was dangerous.

It bothered me. You had always liked wearing it … or so I thought.

There was a day, I think it was around Christmas time, but I can’t be sure of that. We were discussing the holes in the story. I was feeling insecure about things. You were trying to convince me everything was OK. And I brought up the ring.

You got mad. (Your tell, as you know.) You swore that there could never be another woman … with your strong aversion to cheating. And you sent me a photo.

I was sitting in the Big Lots parking lot, I think.

The photo showed your hand, with a rubber green and black ring on your finger. It was like the same stuff they make those fundraiser bracelets out of. I think this was when you were in NC and you told me that you couldn’t wear your real ring around the machinery.

You said wearing a ring was important to you … because WE were important to you. So you had found these goofy rings, sold three for a dollar or whatever, that would tear away and not rip your finger off if you were working on machinery. You said I was so important to you that you took this extra step and the photo proved it.

Looking back on it now, I can’t understand it. Why would you go to the trouble of buying a rubber ring? Or was it really something from a keychain or something that you found in that moment and made up the story on the spot? Did she ever see your ring? Has she thrown it away? Did you? Why go so out of your way to prove to me that you were wearing a ring and that it symbolized us?

I took my ring off last week. I hate not wearing it. It’s a hard habit to break … the mindless spinning of it, the feel if it on my hand. I’m trying so hard to keep my hand out of sight because I don’t want to answer questions about it.

There was a little party for my Uncle Donald’s 90th birthday on Saturday. I had to take my mom. I was not in the mood to talk to anyone or explain anything. I tried to keep my left hand as out of sight as I could, but I’m sure a few of my cousins noticed.

Thankfully, they didn’t ask. I’d have dissolved into a pile of tears.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You should have been there.

This past Saturday was Zoe's wedding in Neenah.  I went up early on Friday to help with the last-minute stuff that surrounds events like this. You remember how it goes ... eerily similar to our trek to Phoenix when Lynda got married. Errands to run, drama to damper and divert, smiles to interject ... just trying to make this sort of high-pressure thing happens with as little chaos as possible.  There honestly wasn't much to do on Friday. Lynda and Deb had it all pretty well under control. The hotel was just a block off the main drag in Neenah, so after running a couple of errands, Rob, Lynda and I walked to a local spot for dinner as everyone else headed toward the rehearsal activities.  Sitting in that bar, full of its Friday night crowd, it was hard to not think about what you'd have ordered or if you'd have thought it was too loud. We talked about Dylan's upcoming wedding and Kati's adventures in mom-hood. Our threesome was missing a piece. You should have be...
Read more

Are you OK?

I think you're not. Maybe I need to believe that for any of this to make sense.  If you had just walked away from me, I think I could get my head around it.  But you walked away from everyone and everything that ever mattered in your life. You left with two saddles, a red duffle bag, some tools, a few deer mounts, a turkey, some guns, and the clothes on your back.  I guess you didn't arrive in my life with much more than that.  But you walked away from your daughter.  Who does that?  Please get some help ... before this eats you up from the inside out or before you do this to someone else. 
Read more

Big balls.

You know how sometimes things that seem very different from each other really aren't?  For instance, love and hate seem like opposite ends of the spectrum, but in reality, they're two sides of the same coin. You have to really care about someone to love them or hate them. There's passion involved with both.  The reality is that the opposite of love is indifference. No feeling at all.  I wonder if courage and coward are like that.  You literally started living with another woman, in another state, moved with her three times, started a totally new existence and did not tell a single soul where you were. You lied to everyone you knew. (Except for the brief period in NC when you told me about the grading company.) For all practcial purposes, you disappeared totally and fell off the face of the earth, while building a totally new life in complete hiding.  You either have the biggest balls of anyone I know or you are the biggest coward I have ever met. Or maybe it's a...
Read more