I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.
“So I keep writing it,” he said. “Every time I read it, I add something. So it’s all in there. Everything I want to say. Before I can’t.”
The ring was ready September fourteenth.
Dave drove Mark up to Birch Falls to pick it up. I wasn’t allowed to come. “It’s tradition,” Mark said. “The bride doesn’t see the ring before the wedding.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s the dress.”
“It’s the ring too. I’m making it a tradition.”
When they came back, Mark walked straight upstairs without letting me see. He hid the little velvet box somewhere in the bedroom. I didn’t look for it.
That night, I found him sitting on the edge of our bed holding the old wooden box with the pine tree carved on the lid. His grandfather’s box. He had the lid open. He was looking down at the old ring inside. The scratched gold band with the soldered seam.
