He glanced toward the papers on the bedside table.
“I want it all there. While I still can.”
I kissed him.
And didn’t ask to read another word.
—
The new ring was ready September fourteenth.
Dave drove Mark to Birch Falls to collect it.
Mark wouldn’t let me see it.
“Wedding tradition,” he declared.
“I’m fairly sure the tradition is about the dress.”
“I’m creating a new one.”
That evening, I found him sitting on our bed.
He was holding the little wooden box with the carved pine tree.
Inside lay his original wedding ring.
The one the doctors had cut off twelve years earlier.
He turned it slowly in his fingers.
“Do you remember what your dad said at our wedding?”
I sat beside him.
“He gave about twenty minutes of advice. Which part?”
Mark smiled.
“The part about the ring.”
I thought for a moment.
