“My mother’s health has wiped me out,” he told us one Sunday over lunch. “I’m covering her care. Every extra penny goes to her.”
Katherine reached for his hand at once.
“He’s under so much pressure.”
He gave her that grateful look. “I don’t want to burden you.”
Then she paid for lunch. Last Tuesday, Katherine called me, sobbing.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“I left it by the bathroom sink while I showered after the gym. I came back, and it wasn’t there.”
“Did anyone else have access?”
There was a pause. Then she said, very quietly, “Matthew was home.”
Then she said, “He said I’m always forgetful.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“He said that?”
“He wasn’t even mad. That was the weird part. He just said, ‘Oh, sweetheart, you probably left it at the gym.
Just be more careful next time.'”
“That ring mattered to you,” I said. “No,” I said. “You feel hurt.”
“Come have tea tomorrow.”
“Maybe I really did leave it there.”
“Katherine.”
“What?”
“You loved that ring.”
She looked down.
“I know.”
I wanted to say, ‘He took it.’
But if I had said that then, she would have defended him. Not because she was foolish. Because she loved him.
So I waited. A few days later, Katherine had to go out of town for work. Just two nights.
Before she left, she hugged me and said, “Don’t worry so much about me.”
I smiled and lied. “I never do.”
After she left, I made up my mind to do something small and loving. I had my own engagement ring tucked away in a velvet box.
My late husband gave it to me in 1972. I thought perhaps I could offer it to Katherine when she got back—if she wanted it. Replace the hurt of the lost ring with something real.
Something from family. Something that meant commitment, not theater. I was on my way to their building with the ring in my handbag when I saw him.
Walking toward the entrance like he didn’t have a care in the world. And on Matthew’s arm was a tall blonde woman in a red coat, laughing with her head tipped back while he kissed her temple.
