Tonight was no different. He was snoring softly by ten-fifteen.
I turned my head on the pillow and looked at his hand on top of the blanket.
Even in the dark, I could see it. The pale stripe.
Probably from holding the fishing rod.
I’d held a fishing rod before. My dad took me every Saturday when I was a kid. I’d come home with blisters and sunburn and dirt under my fingernails.
I’d never come home with a wedding ring mark.
You don’t get a clean, even band all the way around one finger from holding a fishing rod. You get a tan line across your knuckles, maybe. A white patch on your palm. Not a perfect circle at the base of one finger.
Only a ring does that.
I closed my eyes and thought about the day he took his off.
It was twelve years ago. March. Cold and wet.
