AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She’d seen the ring that hung there several times. It had been his grandmother’s on his father’s side. She was his favorite figure from his childhood. She watched him while his mother worked and had practically raised him until he started going to school. He credited her with almost all of the good things in his life. When she’d been dying, on her deathbed, she’d given him the ring. He’d worn it around his neck ever since.
“Don’t take it off,” she said as his hand slipped out of hers, and he reached behind his neck.
“It will work. Actually, it’s perfect. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it when we were getting married.”
“You didn’t think of it because...” Her voice trailed off. She wanted to say because it wasn’t a real marriage. But if they were planning on staying married for the rest of their lives, it kind of was. Except, they were just friends, rather than romantic partners.
“No. That’s not why.”
“How do you know what I was going to say?” she asked, trying to sound cool but sounding curious and a little sad.
“You’re going to say because it was a fake marriage. But it’s not.”
He didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t say anything more either. Wasn’t it? If they were still just friends, it still was a fake marriage. Kind of. Except neither one of them were planning on ever trying to get out of it.
That made it real. Surely there were plenty of other people who were friends rather than more, who went through life together.
She kind of doubted it but realized that it was quite possible.
It didn’t matter. Whether there was a precedent, whether there wasn’t, she and Mark needed to do what worked for their relationship. Which was, suddenly, the most important thing.
She’d already had one marriage that didn’t work out. She didn’t want her fake marriage to not work out either.
But it didn’t feel like there was a huge chance of that happening as Mark pulled the chain from around his neck and carefully allowed the ring to slide off it.
“I haven’t taken that off since the day of her funeral,” he said as he allowed the ring to fall into his hand.
“I don’t feel like I’m worthy of this.”
“I always intended for my wife to wear it. That’s you.”
She lifted her eyes to his, and he was staring at her, his face serious.
She forgot about the mud and the cold and even the pain of her muscles as she looked into his eyes.
She was his wife. Even yesterday when the judge had pronounced them man and wife and then told them to sign the papers and pay the receptionist on their way out, she hadn’t felt as married as she did at that moment.
Mark was her...husband.
It seemed impossible to believe and a little bit surreal, but he took her hand without breaking eye contact and pulled it up.
“I don’t have a ring for you,” she murmured, even though that wasn’t what she wanted to say. She wanted to tell him that she understood how much that ring meant to him, that she knew how much he had loved his grandmother, that she was honored that he was putting it on her finger, that she would try to live up to the example that his grandmother had set, but none of those words came out. Just the wrong words. But a smile ghosted over his lips.
“I think that’s a little less important.”
“Maybe it’s good that I don’t have some man’s ring sitting around my house.”
“I wouldn’t want to wear your ex-husband’s ring. It doesn’t seem to have any concern for vows and keeping them.”
“No. I’m not even sure what he did with it. It’s probably in some landfill somewhere.”
The thought made her sad. They’d been so happy the day they’d gone ring shopping together. She’d been so sure that he was the man that was going to stand beside her for the rest of her life. She eagerly looked forward to their life together and had put that ring on his finger with all of the dedication and determination in her heart. Maybe it was just as well that it was in a landfill.
That felt a lot different than this, as Mark slid his grandmother’s ring onto the third finger of her left hand.
“With this ring, I thee wed,” he said as it slid into place, slightly tight but still a perfect fit.
She didn’t know what to say to that. Maybe there wasn’t anything to say.
