I couldn’t move.
I just stood in my kitchen staring at the gold ring while my mind pulled me backward fifty-five years.
Back to September.
Back to Thomas.
I was eighteen when he took me behind the high school football field.
It was warm that evening.
The kind of September night that still feels like summer even though the leaves have started changing.
Thomas was leaving in four days.
Neither of us said the word war very often.
We talked instead about when he came back.
Where we would live.
What kind of job he might find.
Whether we would have a dog.
How many children we wanted.
Everything was phrased as when.
Never if.
He had been unusually quiet that evening.
Finally, he reached into his pocket.
“I have something.”
I laughed.
“What?”
“Don’t laugh.”
“That guarantees I’m going to laugh.”
“I’m serious, Margaret.”
He opened his hand.
