Chapter 4
Morning light cut across the dresser and hit the gold band. It sat where Graham had left it when we got home, next to his watch and his keys. I hadn't moved it. He hadn't either. My ring was still on my hand. I could feel its weight when I turned over in bed.
Graham stood at the closet with his back to me. He'd already showered. His hair was still damp. He pulled a shirt off a hanger and didn't look at me.
"You left it on," he said.
I sat up. The apartment on Central felt too quiet after the nightclub. No blue lights, no chatter. Just the AC humming and the traffic outside on the street below.
"I didn't take it off," I said.
He turned then. He wasn't stern like in the booth. He looked tired and flat, like he'd been rehearsing something.
"That ring was never a gift, Celeste," he said. "It was a loan. From my mother. For the marriage."
The words landed wrong. My chest tightened. I pressed my left hand against the sheet without thinking, same way I'd held it in the booth.
"A loan?" I said.
"Her grandmother's ring. You know that. She let us use it because we were getting married. It belongs to my family."
I stared at him. The diamond caught the light from the window. I remembered him on one knee in our old apartment, the tiny box open, his hands shaking. He had not said loan then.
"When did a loan become conditional?" I asked. "When did you decide that?"
He buttoned his shirt and tucked it in. He didn't answer right away. He picked up his wedding band from the dresser, looked at it, and set it back down exactly where it was.
"When you lied about where you were and who you were with," he said. "That changed things."
I got out of bed and went to the dresser. My jewelry box was on the top drawer, but I didn't open it. I opened the drawer under it where I kept photos. I pulled out the envelope from the year we got engaged. The drugstore prints. I flipped through until I found it.
In the photo Graham was on his knee in our living room. The rug was the cheap gray one from our first apartment. I was standing in front of him in a sweater, my hand over my mouth, eyes wet. The ring was on my finger in the picture. On the back, in my handwriting, it said He asked — I said yes — 11/18.
I held it up.
"You didn't say loan that night," I said. "You said it was yours to give. You said your mom wanted me to have it."
He glanced at the photo and then away, toward the window.
"My mom wanted her granddaughter-in-law to have it," he said. "My wife. Not someone who makes me chase her to a nightclub to see what's going on."
"That's not what happened," I said. My voice was low. "Maya was there. Landon was there because we all work together. We were just talking."
"I told you what I need," he said. He zipped his work bag. The sound was sharp in the quiet room. "Bring it to Sunday dinner. Give it back before we eat. My parents will be there. It'll be clean."
Sunday. Three days away. He said it like it was already decided.
"And if I don't?" I asked.
He picked up his watch and put it on. The gold caught the same light as the band on the dresser.
"Then you make this bigger than it is," he said. "You make my mom have to ask for her own ring back. You want that?"
I didn't answer. He looked at my hand one more time.
"Just think about it today," he said. "Don't wear it around like nothing happened."
He left the bedroom and then the apartment. The door clicked. I heard his steps in the hall and then nothing.
May you like
I stood at the dresser a long time. The photo was still in my hand. The gold band was still on the wood. My ring was still on my finger, warm against my skin. The light moved a little higher on the wall. I didn't take the ring off. I put the photo back in the drawer and closed it.
The deadline sat in the room after he was gone. Sunday dinner, his parents' table. I had three days to decide what the ring was and what we were.
