They say it’s sweet, and they think that I don’t hear, but it’s my eyes, not my ears, that have failed with the passing years. I can barely see the gleam on my third finger, but I hear every whisper from my sentimental granddaughters. That’s a secret worth keeping, so I don’t argue with them. I might, if they were bold enough to call me sweet to my face, to tell me that they see all their own romantic dreams bound up that slim band of gold.
I might tell them that when I was a widow of thirty I wore it as armour, I needed armour, then. I can see how that might be difficult to believe.
I might tell them that rheumatism keeps it firmly on my hand, whatever my wish in the matter. That’s true enough, but I fear they’d say, and rightly, that there were many years of struggle separating the attractive widow from these crooked hands.
What else can I say? Only what I have told myself night after night. That the ring is nothing to me, nothing more than five grams of gold – my insurance, my funeral, my last resort, and not to be spent rashly, but nothing more than that.
I wonder if they would listen, and believe, and find their freedom in it? I doubt it, for I have never persuaded my own heart of that truth.
It persists in believing that the ring is everything these foolish children say.
I have been away from Visdare too long, and brevity eludes me. Still, it seems a shame to post nothing …
Alex Brightsmith 