Maybe one day, when I don’t remember why… my hand will.
Some afternoons, when the sun comes through the window and the ducks are out on the pond, I find him sitting in his chair, turning the ring around and around his finger. Opening the little hinge. Closing it again. Click.
And once, just last month, he slid it off his finger and held it up to the light. And he squinted at the tiny letters inside. And he read them out loud, very slowly, moving his lips over every word, like a child learning to read.
“Even if I forget,” he read. “She chose me.”
He looked up at me. His eyes were clear for a second. Clearer than they’d been in a long time.
“Who’s she?” he asked.
I sat down beside him and took his hand. His left hand. The one with the bad knuckle that never healed right.
