54: Coincidence

The ring felt heavy in his pocket, like doom in metallic circular form, like a bad dream you couldn't shake, like an old bruise from a fight you couldn't win and never should have gotten involved with in the first place, like scar tissue, like two day old bread, like the shit end of the stick. The ring jangled against his keys, and sounded all of this with every shining tinkle.

She had said no. Not only no, she had taken one look at the ring, grabbed it from his hands, peered into the inside of the band, and looked at him as if he was a stranger with heinous intentions. Raping intentions.

Where did you get this?

He didn't answer right away. Who wants to admit that they got a wedding ring from a pawn shop? Who wants vegetables over cake?

Where did you find this ring?

Zales, I think.

You think?

Yeah, I forget the name of the place. Are you ok? Do you not like it? We can take it back, we can get anything you like.

She paused, considering him for a while. The crazed look faded from her eyes, replaced by..pity? Apathy? The look an adult gives a wayward child with a hand caught in the cookie jar?

I'm going to ask you one more time where you got this ring.

Can I ask you why you care so much?

No you can't.

More staring. More seconds ticking by like so many commas, so much perfunctory punctuation of time.

I don't remember.

Then I don't want to marry you. I don't want to ever see you again. Ever.

It wasn't until he was outside on the doorstep that he thought to look again at the ring, to investigate what initially caught her attention so vigorously.

Then he found it. The inscription.

The inscription to Anna, from her former husband who died what, five, six years ago?

He had bought, in a pawn shop, Anna's old engagement ring.

And now. What now? Return it? Pawn it someplace else, hope for at least settling even?

The worst part was that her first husband, Rob, had been a great guy, a love to end all loves. Even getting a date with Anna had been hard going. The first year felt like a constant seventh grade dance; always circling each other at arm's length. Even when they slept together (which was good despite the distance), it was more like he was making love to a half person, an idea of a woman, than a whole one.

This kept him interested. What was the whole Anna like? Like in bed, like making coffee, like swearing in traffic, like walking through the snow with her breath in foggy swirls around her face? Better than? More than?

Better than. More than.

It took him three years to find the better, the more. And now? Now nothing but a jokingly horrible coincidence jingling in a pocket on the way to a pawn shop.