My Wedding Ring To Ruin Them All
When a symbol of love turned into a noose.
A new life was ahead of me.
Driving west from Detroit, I saw it through the rain and the swirling charcoal-gray clouds. Through bumper-to-bumper traffic and the lane-eating orange construction barrels.
Sitting in the seat next to me, my future’s invitation. A small, robin’s-egg blue bag. Inside, a matching colored box, secured with a white ribbon, protected the engagement ring.
A month earlier, when visiting the showroom, I told the gemologist the exact halo cushion cut ring I wanted. The ring I’d been saving up for since college. Since the day I met the woman I knew I would marry.
Nothing instructed me other than my love for her. I knew her style as intimately as I knew her shampoo or favorite band or the name of her third grade best friend. I didn’t need to ask what she’d like. Sometimes you just know.
The gemologist didn’t have such a ring on hand, and only one existed in the system at its famous New York store. All other options were well out of my price range. The short, aging bald man, squinted and smiled like a happy golden retriever as he talked to me. Something about his calming, almost cartoonish mannerisms soothed me.
