“I need to ask you something,” I said. “And I need you to answer honestly.”
Silence.
Then, “All right.”
I told her what David had said at dinner. I repeated his words exactly. When I finished, she said nothing for so long that I thought the call had dropped.
“He said marriage made you anxious.”
Then she said, very quietly, “He told us you were the one who didn’t want to get married.”
I closed my eyes.
“What?”
“He said marriage made you anxious. He said he didn’t want to pressure you. He said he was waiting until you were ready.”
A memory flashed through me then, sharp and ugly. Two Thanksgivings ago, his sister had squeezed my hand and said, “You’re lucky he’s so patient.” I had laughed because I hadn’t understood what she meant.
Then she told me something worse.
My grip tightened around the phone.
Elaine let out a breath that sounded shaky now.
“Oh, David.”
Then she told me something worse.
Three years earlier, he had asked her for his grandmother’s ring. He said he was planning to propose during our trip to Maine that fall. She had it cleaned and appraised before she gave it to him. She still had the receipt and a photo she had texted to her sister because she had been so excited.
I pressed my free hand flat against the table to steady myself.
No proposal came.
Whenever she asked what happened, David said I had panicked and begged him to wait. He said he was respecting my feelings. He kept saying it until everyone accepted it as fact.
I pressed my free hand flat against the table to steady myself.
Elaine said, “I’m coming over.”
“It’s after midnight.”
“I don’t care.”
When David shuffled into the kitchen in sweatpants, he stopped dead in the doorway.
She arrived before sunrise.
“I want it back from him,” she said.
When David shuffled into the kitchen in sweatpants, still half asleep, he stopped dead in the doorway.
Elaine looked up.
“Why did you tell us Sarah was the one who never wanted to get married?”
He stared at her, then at me, then at the papers on the table.
“Where is the ring, David?”
“What is this?”
Elaine held up the receipt. “It’s proof that I gave you your grandmother’s ring.”
His expression hardened. “This is private.”
“No,” Elaine said. “It stopped being private when you used her as your excuse.”
He turned to me. “You called my mother in the middle of the night?”
I said, “Where is the ring, David?”
When he returned, the ring was inside a cheap black jewelry box.
He gave a strained little laugh. “This is ridiculous.”
“Bring it here,” Elaine said.
He looked at her, jaw tight. “I was going to give it back.”
Elaine didn’t blink. “You had three years.”
When he returned, the ring was inside a cheap black jewelry box. Not the velvet heirloom box Elaine remembered. Just something plain and forgettable, like he had wanted the whole thing to become.
He had not lost it.
