Then no.
Then admitted he couldn’t remember.
And a few moments later, I noticed the mark.
That night, I lay awake beside him.
Mark fell asleep almost instantly, as he always did.
I listened to his breathing and stared at his hand resting on the blanket.
The pale stripe was still visible.
I grew up fishing with my father.
I’d spent countless Saturdays holding rods in the sun.
Sometimes I returned home with blisters.
Sometimes with strange tan lines.
But never with a perfectly even white circle around one finger.
There was only one reasonable explanation.
Mark had been wearing a ring.
The question was why.
And whose ring it was.
The next morning, Mark left for work at six-forty.
He kissed my cheek.
“Love
you, Lee.”
“Love you too.”
Lee was his private nickname for me.
Nobody else called me that.
As soon as his truck disappeared down the street, I went upstairs.
I stood in front of his dresser for several minutes.
Part of me felt ashamed.
I was fifty-one years old.
I’d been married for more than half my life.
And there I was, preparing to search my husband’s belongings.
Finally, I opened the top drawer.
His grandfather’s wooden box sat in its usual position behind his socks.
I lifted the lid.
Inside lay his old gold wedding band.
The tiny repaired seam was still visible.
I picked it up.
Turned it over.
And stared.
This was the ring he’d stopped wearing twelve years earlier.
It hadn’t gone anywhere.
So whatever had created the mark on his finger was another ring entirely.
I carefully returned everything to its place.
Then sat on
the edge of our bed.
For the first time, I allowed myself to consider the possibility I’d been avoiding.
Maybe there was another woman.
Maybe the annual fishing trips weren’t quite what they seemed.
Maybe the man I’d trusted for twenty-six years had a second life I knew nothing about.
That afternoon, our daughter called.
Sophie was studying nursing at a state university about two hours away.
She was in her second year and usually phoned every Monday after her anatomy class.
“Hey, Mom! Dad get back from fishing?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“Did Uncle Ray fall out of the boat?”
“Apparently twice.”
She laughed.
“Sounds about right. Tell Dad he owes me fish pictures.”
I frowned.
