Ring Cycle
“’See, a ring on your right hand would just be in the way,” said Mike. He worked the shovel while Jenna extracted from a hole river rocks the size of fruit—oranges to pomelos. It was citrus season. Their hands were red with cold.
Even though Mike and Jenna were married, they wore masks because Carol was with them volunteering on the Raptor Walk. As a palliative doc, Carol was tested frequently and, just the day before, had received negative COVID results, but this pandemic hung on, as Carol said, “like a creepy ex with a knife—you want to give him stuff that isn’t even his just to get him to leave you alone.” Carol’s mask pictured a moth, like Silence of the Lambs. It had been eleven months, and the curve had yet to flatten. Of the 400 thousand deaths in the US so far, almost ten percent were in California.
Fishermen and families came out to the river even during quarantine; in fact, since children weren’t able to go to school and playgrounds were closed, a trip to the river was a good option for parents with stir-crazy kids. Dating during the pandemic? The river was a safe and lovely option. Conservancy volunteers kept working in groups of 2 and 3 to tend the trails, bag trash, and paint over graffiti. Jenna, Mike, and Carol were planting trail signs describing hawks, osprey, and other raptors who flew overhead oblivious to the human crisis below.
-O-
Over breakfast that morning, when Jenna had mentioned that their 15th anniversary was coming up, Mike tried to hear what his wife really wanted. They weren’t ceremonial or materialistic people; gifts weren’t their love-language, either of them. Jenna asked Mike if there was something he would like for their anniversary. His answer—a new barbeque—was not the sort of commemoration she had in mind. She said she’d like a ring for her right hand.
Mike studied his wife. Her blue eyes defaulted to mirth. “You’re not much for adornment,” he’d said tentatively. Especially since they’d retired, Jenna wore jeans or yoga pants all day and a ponytail, her hair uncut since the pandemic shuttered salons. She only did her eyebrows for Zoom calls. “A ring,” he reasoned, “won’t matter any more than what you wear below your waist.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Mike watched her run her thumb under her wedding band, identical to her husband’s, a simple river pattern, a single wave of yellow and white gold, no gems.
“We’ll both benefit,” said practical Mike, “from a new barbeque.”
Jenna looked away. “Everybody wins.”
Mike felt a need to convince her. “We can grill on Sunday.” Even during the pandemic, they’d invite another couple to sit ten feet away on the terrace for salmon and chimichurri, wild rice and arugula, blood orange with Cointreau drizzled on top. Other people had it worse, they knew, in the time of COVID.
Did Mike not notice, though, that over the years she had taken to wearing bracelets to bangle about her boney wrists? Three beaded strands from her sister rested against her FitBit on her right wrist, and on her left, two silver bands, one from her children, the other from her late husband, from a trip to Mexico a lifetime ago. Every morning, even in quarantine, her earrings matched her yoga top. Did he not notice that, when she did go out, she color-coordinated her mask to her ensemble, no matter how casual? She wasn’t jealous of her mother, her sister, even her daughter, but she did notice their stunning rings. She and Mike hadn’t commemorated their 10th anniversary, but this morning she’d pointed out it was their 15th.
An egret, with white feathers fancy against the dusky sky of gloaming, headed upriver toward the rookery.
An intern, an Eagle Scout, had dug the preliminary holes in the rocky ground with a shovel and bar, so Jenna, Carol, and Mike only had to clean the holes out before setting the posts and pouring in Quikrete. What with COVID and the weather and Thanksgiving, which kept people close to their families on Zoom, it had been weeks between the scout’s digging and the sign-planting today. Jenna hauled a plastic bucket of water up from the river while Mike held the post level and Carol stirred with the shovel. They affixed sturdy signs with double-sided mounting tape--color photographs with descriptions of the raptors in English, Spanish, and Hmong.
They saved the bald eagle for the last sign, which explained that juvenile eagles weren’t bald until a year after they fledged, and the females outweighed the males by a third. Although not visible through the trees, and deep in private land, the eagles’ aerie bulged in the branches of a massive sycamore. One pair lived there year-round. They hosted visitors in winter, even this year when no one else was allowed to travel.
The sun was sliding down the hillside, casting a hint of rosy trim on the clouds in the west, but they were determined to wrap this project up. This last hole, though, had been carefully refilled, and a two-handed rock rested on top. Four-handed it turned out. Jenna’s left hand slipped when she tried to lift it by herself, so the rock dropped on her right ring finger, the nail of which turned red and slowly purple, throbbing, Jenna said, in an oddly sensuous sensation.
“Looks like you’re going ahead with the ornamentation, no matter what,” Mike said, holding her right fingers gently. Encircling her shoulders, he whispered, “Happy anniversary, Love.”
When she winced and looked away, he wished he could have unsaid it.
He and Carol lifted the rock, and Mike tucked his shoulder to shovel out the sandy dirt and gravel, but, “Hey,” Mike said, tapping into the void. “There’s something metal.”
What Mike finally extracted and handed to Carol, who brushed it off with her gloved hand, was an urn. Not the two-handed, mantel-candy variety--only 6 inches high with three reddish birds in a raised design flying heavenward in front of a once-white cloud, but clearly a receptacle for cremains. Carol passed it over to Jenna, who rotated the urn, listening to the thin scraping noise within.
Mike looked at Jenna quizzically. He knew it was not her first ash canister.
“There’s always an id tag in the ashes,” Jenna explained. She wondered whatever had become of the tag after she’d scattered her late husband’s ashes teaspoon by teaspoon into his favorite fishing holes. “Take, eat,” she’d said to the fish with sacramental seriousness.
“It obviously can’t stay here,” Carol said, hands on hips, “on public land.”
Jenna wasn’t so sure and said so.
Mike’s compromise was logical, to bury it deeper, further from the trail. Carol still wasn’t convinced. Tonight, they’d take it with them, they decided, figure out what to do with it later. There was barely enough time to plant the last sign. Even so, they needed their iPhone flashlights to avoid stumbling over river rocks on their way out.
Jenna set the urn on the bookshelf, and they fixed dinner, talking of other things, but Mike kept looking at the brassy metal vessel. “Why would someone bury an urn there in our signpost hole?” Mike finally asked.
Jenna shrugged, but she had some ideas. “Maybe they didn’t want to look at it all the time.” She handed him the parmesan. “Certainly, it was easier than digging through the rock and cobble themselves.” She sat down with her back to the urn and twirled her fork in the pasta. “Bon appetit.”
“What if it’s stolen?” Mike persisted, looking past his wife to the shelf behind her. “Someone robbed the house, say? realized what they’d filched, had misgivings?”
Jenna shook her head. “That’d take too much effort. A burglar would have ditched it in a dumpster.” She pushed her food around her plate, sipped some pinot. “I think I’ll read in bed ‘til I conk out.”
-O-
Gilbert, having finally hung up with the insurance company, found himself standing deep amongst the dresses, hanging like silky curtains in Ruby’s closet. He inhaled the smell of his wife, his prom date 32 years before, who died just before Thanksgiving. Cancer, not COVID, but the pandemic meant he couldn’t have any kind of funeral. Not that it would have been big—he and Ruby had never had kids, her parents were gone, and his languished in assisted living in Texas. It’s not like he hung out with the guys from PG&E, where he drove a truck from meter to meter. For Thanksgiving dinner he microwaved tamales Ruby had frozen last Christmas. It was almost Christmas again. He should get a dog.
The phone rang in his hand, and he emerged from the closet to look at the number. He couldn’t think who Vivian was, but he hadn’t been thinking so clearly lately. He cleared his throat and answered.
It was Vivian from The Neptune Society letting him know Ruby’s cremains were ready. Vivian had typed her name into his phone contacts for him when he stood dazed at the front desk where she was helping him fill out cremation paperwork. He couldn’t really remember what she looked like since they were both wearing masks, but he thought she was younger than he was. He wasn’t sure how much younger. “I can meet you any time,” said her voice from the receiver, “but I’m mostly working from home.” She paused a beat. “Where do you live?”
“Clovis,” he said, “Near Old Town.” He picked up Ruby’s ring and absent-mindedly slipped it on his pinkie finger.
“Me too,” said Vivian with unsettling vitality.
The ring stubbornly refused to budge from his finger.
They decided to meet that afternoon at the coffee shop on Clovis Avenue that still had outdoor seating. Gilbert spun the ring on his pinkie finger. It was Ruby’s wedding band, but, for their 15th anniversary, he’d had the jeweler encircle the small diamond with rubies.
Gilbert sat at a corner table furthest from the door and watched the people standing in line for their essential coffee—too close, he thought, with masks drooping below their noses or no masks at all. He could practically see the virus droplets spraying six feet in every direction, showering from one customer to the next. Gilbert adjusted his mask, tucked his black hair behind his ears, and looked towards the street.
A maroon-haired woman filling out a tan sweater dress and boots stepped from the crosswalk onto the curb carrying a pink Victoria Secret bag and a pink leather purse. She waved at him from the corner and came to the railing around the café sidewalk-seating. Gilbert stood. Unsure of what to do with himself, he bowed at the waist, then felt silly about that. Vivian laughed and cocked her elbow in his direction. He matched her elbow tap across the railing, and they smiled behind masks.
“Do you mind if I sit down?” Vivian asked. Her eyes followed the path she might take to get past the barrier to Gilbert. She set the bag on Gilbert’s table.
Gilbert was flattered by this woman’s blithe attention, but wasn’t sure it was proper. What was proper? As Vivian navigated her way around, he thought he should have asked her if she wanted coffee, but he really didn’t want to brave the line. When she sat and moved her chair safely back, he unconsciously shook his head as he asked if she wanted anything.
“Oh no,” she laughed. “I can’t drink coffee in the afternoon. Keeps me up. As I close in on 50, y’know.” Vivian nodded her head at the bag, and Gilbert pulled the bright metal urn from it. “I like the birds.” Vivian said. “I’ve never seen them in red. It’s unique.”
Gilbert set the urn between them and tugged at the ring he still hadn’t been able to wrest free from his knuckle. “My wife’s name was Ruby.” That past tense was took some getting used to. “My…ex-wife? former wife?”
Vivian looked at the ring. “Your late wife?” Her genial glance met Gilbert’s. “That’s the way most widowers say it.”
Widower was another word Gilbert would have to sift into his psyche. Vivian didn’t wear any rings or any adornment at all besides her mask. “This was Ruby’s ring,” he said, extending his hand then retracting it.
Regarding the ring closely, Vivian asked, “Are you wearing it on your finger in remembrance?”
Gilbert tugged on it helplessly, “Oh no, it’s just stuck. I’m sure I can get it off with soap later, but…”
Vivian extracted hand sanitizer from her purse. “Here.” She squirted the goopy clear gel all over Gilbert’s pinkie finger, rubbed some between her own palms, and gently twisted the ring back and forth. “This may smart a bit,” she warned as she rocked it over the knuckle and off. She wiped it off with a Kleenex and handed the ring back to Gilbert.
Gilbert held it between finger and thumb. “What do I do with it?” He really wanted to know. Sometimes, lately, he just wanted someone to tell him what to do.
“Oh, that’s entirely up to you, Mister…may I call you Gilbert?”
“That is my name,” Gilbert said, smiling.
“Some people,” Vivian said, “put a memento inside the urn.” She looked at the canister on the table between them. The afternoon sun glinted on the red gilt birds.
Gilbert eyed the urn suspiciously. “Isn’t that bad luck or something? To open it up?” Gilbert watched Vivian lift her eyebrows, maroon like her hair. He wondered if they were tattooed, and decided he didn’t mind if they were.
“It would be disrespectful,” Vivian answered, “to open it because you were just curious or wanted to do something improper with them, but people open them all the time. To scatter them or divide them between siblings or children.”
“I don’t have any of either,” Gilbert murmured.
“What would Ruby have you do?”
“I can’t ask her. I keep thinking she’ll say something,” he said, “but she’s not talking.”
Vivian shrugged. “I don’t believe in ghosts,” she said softly.
Gilbert didn’t suppose he did either. What would Ruby say? What would she have him do about this woman who made him feel suddenly less sad?
“You must have been very handsome when you and Ruby were young,” she said, smiling. “What was she like?”
He thought about Ruby in the hospital bed. He had sat beside her as they leafed backwards through the photo album. “When we were married, she wore her hair up like a crown.”
“That’s nice,” Vivian said, laughing. “I’d like to see pictures. “
“She had a beautiful laugh.”
Vivian smiled and laced her fingers together in front of her.
Gilbert sighed, inhaled deeply. He nodded. “I think I will. I’ll put it in the urn with her.”
-O-
Jenna had gone to bed to read, and by the time Mike finished the dishes, she was sound asleep. He gently lifted the book off her chest, slipped off her glasses, and turned out the light. He poured himself a Scotch and started the crossword. He kept looking at the urn on the bookshelf. He imagined it was glowing, even though it was still grimy from its time underground. He strode over, picked it up, and brought it to the kitchen sink. With a rag, he rubbed and burnished. He thought of a genie, three wishes. He wished he could make Jenna happy. He used his thumbnail, then the scrub brush Jenna kept in the sink, to clean around the reddish birds.
There was that knocking as he spun it around with the rag. Jenna had mentioned a metal tag. Maybe the tag had identifying information? Maybe he could return it to its rightful owner. He tested the lid, which twisted more easily than he’d thought.
Mike looked in and saw the flakey white ash. That’s a whole person, he thought. He sniffed, but there wasn’t much smell. It smelled like Scotch.
He tipped it back and forth and saw something half-buried like a treasure chest in a pirate’s tale. He tipped it again. He didn’t want to touch it. But the metal clink was clearly not just a tag.
They kept chopsticks in the back of the silverware drawer, so he set the open urn in the sink and reached for a chopstick and the long spoon for stirring tall drinks. Fishing around, he did see the tag Jenna had mentioned, but there was also something shiny. With the wild-eyed care of a prisoner stealing the keys from the sleeping small-town sheriff, he balanced the treasure between a chopstick and the swizzle spoon.
It was a ring, not just any ring. A circle of gems, a small diamond in the middle with red stones ringing round the rosie. Ringing round the rosie? What was he doing?
He tweezed the tag out and dropped it on the counter. It was embossed like his father’s army dog tag, but the string of digits revealed no more than the ruby ring about the origin of this urn or its owner. The tag made a little poof when he dropped it back in the urn.
Dangling the ring from the chopstick, Mike ran tap water over the jewels. Jenna generally preferred the idiosyncratic, and this was definitely that. He imagined it on her right ring finger. He considered the ring’s rightful finger. He took a sip of Scotch and came up with nothing, a cold case.
His reflection peered back at him from the kitchen window. He cocked his head and whispered, “Why not?” He shrugged back. What was the point of secreting it away in this little sepulcher? In the morning they were going to bury the urn deeper, he and Jenna, over by the pioneer cemetery, which backed up to the Raptor Walk. No one would know where they’d buried it. No one would know the ring wasn’t there. He envisioned the circumference of Jenna’s finger and thought it was about this size. He slid the ring into a rag to dry it off, then into his pants pocket.
-O-
It had been some weeks since Gilbert had received the urn and as many weeks since he’d seen Vivian, of course. But he woke up thinking of her maroon eyebrows floating above her mask, and her kind eyes. All week at work, he’d seen exactly no one. He still checked meters, but they were supposed to do all their paperwork via email. He hated email. The freezer was empty, and, with the shelter-in-place orders, most restaurants were closed. Last night, he’d made himself one-bean salad.
He pulled his keys from his pocket and sat back in his truck. Grocery Outlet at Clovis and Shaw was the closest market. He didn’t think Ruby had shopped here, but he just needed cereal, milk and dinner. The jaunty jingle “Grocery Outlet-Bargain Market” rang out from the ceiling as he wandered up and down the aisles. Past the pathetic Christmas decorations were all sorts of lotions and potions and make ups on one shelf, with toys and coloring books on the opposite. In the produce section, he told himself to pick up a bag of apples for his health, and he grabbed some orange juice, over by the milk. In the freezer section smack in the middle of the store, he chose eight Amy’s enchiladas because they looked safe. Against the back wall he found cookies and chose eight of those as well. On his way to the checkout stand, behind the vast wine display, Gilbert noticed other bottles. Gilbert wasn’t much of a drinker, but when he drank, he drank tequila. The price wasn’t bad, he thought. Gilbert was pleased when the checker had rung up his items and circled a number at the bottom announcing his savings: $25.60. It’s like she gave him tequila for free!
Gilbert carried the plastic bags into the kitchen and spread the frozen dinners out like a menu on the counter. He lifted the cheese enchilada package and read the directions on the back. While the oven was preheating, he poured some OJ in glass and tipped in a bit of tequila. Sometimes he and Ruby had gone into Los Tres Anillos for Mexican food and margaritas. On the wall were photos and posters and calendars of dancers in traditional costumes, the men in black pants, boots, and hats, the women in full white skirts ringed with colorful ribbons. They sat at a table against the wall under one of those full skirts displayed as a decoration. Ruby might have two drinks and get a little giggly, but he only had one if he was driving.
He wasn’t driving tonight. The pre-heat button beeped. He poured another Jose OJ, and placed the enchiladas on a cookie sheet as the instructions told him to do, and set the timer for 45 minutes. So far, he had avoided sitting at dining room table where he had set Ruby’s cremains almost a month ago, but every time he walked past he stalled and stared, expecting something to happen. He could have had her buried. That’s what she would have done, but Gilbert thought having Ruby’s ashes in the house would prompt her to speak to him, to tell him what to do next. What to do now?
But, nothing.
Vivian had said she didn’t believe in ghosts.
Gilbert found another glass in the dishwasher and poured a drink for Ruby. When she’d had a little tequila, Ruby liked to talk, and she laughed her deep, throaty laugh. He brought both glasses to the table and sat down. He waited. He scrolled through some photos on his phone. Most of the pictures were old, and they seemed so long ago. The timer still said 20 minutes. His drink was half-empty.
His desire to know just what Vivian did believe in overtook him. He opened his contacts and pressed send.
“Gilbert! I was just telling my mother about you. After two weeks of self-quarantine, they let me come down to my mother’s retirement village.”
He asked if she wanted to meet before he could second-guess himself.
She’d love to meet the next weekend. For a walk?
The oven timer buzzed as they said goodbye.
“See you Saturday, then,” she said. “Two o’clock Old Town Park. Stay safe.”
Gilbert stood, a little wobbly, but a little elated. He had finished his drink and started Ruby’s. With an oven mitt, he slid the enchiladas onto a plate. “What do you think, Rubes?” he asked the can of cremains.
Ruby didn’t answer.
-O-
When Mike woke up, Jenna was gathering laundry. He panicked as she reached for his work pants. “Hey, I’ll wear those again today,” he said, causing her to turn around. He flashed a sleepy grin. “I’ll just be getting them dirty again.”
“Are we going to bury that urn then?” She looked at her watch and set the pants back on the chair where he’d carefully buried them last night under his work boots.
“I think it’s best, don’t you? We don’t need to tell Carol until she asks.”
“Yes. Good. I feel guilty harboring a spirit.”
“A spirit? You don’t…”
“Just kidding. Still, it doesn’t belong with us.”
“I’m up,” he said, standing. “I’ll get dressed and let’s go.”
Mike and Jenna veered from the Raptor Walk over towards the pioneer cemetery, a collection of toppled tombstones securely surrounded by chain link. In fact, when Jenna’s children were toddlers and she needed a break from watching their every step, Jenna set them loose within the enclosed graveyard to play with their toy trucks and dinosaurs while she leaned against a headstone with her laptop.
The soil was soft and loamy as they walked further from the river.
“It’s peaceful under the oaks. A fine rest,” said Jenna. The morning sun shone on the urn. “You cleaned it up nicely.”
Mike regarded the ground and swung the shovel towards a spot under the oak trees just outside the fence. “It was the least I could do,” he murmured and started digging, his adrenaline accelerated by his niggling self-doubt.
-O-
Gilbert awoke early, dry of mouth, but thirstily anticipating next Saturday with Vivian. Teeth brushed and rehydrated, he loaded the drink glasses from last night into the dishwasher. He let the enchilada plate soak. He wished today were a workday, so he could get doing something.
When he opened the cabinet, he realized he’d forgotten to buy cereal. He piled a handful of chocolate chip cookies in a bowl and poured milk over the top. Elbows on the dining room table, he drew the spoon to his mouth and stared at the urn.
“Are you happy here, Ruby?’
He didn’t think so. He raised another spoonful. In this form, she wasn’t doing him any good, that was for sure.
“Where would you rather be?” Gilbert asked.
He remembered taking a walk with Ruby once along the river. There had been fishermen near the bridge, but as they walked further down the shore, they were alone.
“You loved that spot where we saw the eagle,” Gilbert said, his mouth full of soggy cookie. “And the white egrets standing on the rocks, leaving rings of ripples when they thrust their beaks into the water.” He smiled at the memory. He knew now what he was doing today.
Gilbert tucked the urn and the tequila bottle into a backpack. It was still misty in the morning, fingers of fog caressing the hills, green now that they’d had a smattering of rain to revive their slopes. He used the shovel as a walking stick. The early-morning fishermen didn’t look up as he passed the first rocky beach. At the next, the only one fishing was a great blue heron, who lifted her massive wings, tucked his legs and flew downstream. He should bring Vivian here. As if the large blue bird was leading him, the heron landed in a tree, Gilbert approached, it flew further, luring him on.
Gilbert couldn’t help but notice, every so often, a hole covered by a cross-hatch of sticks. Around each hole was a collection of round river rocks, red, white, gray, orangey-brown.
Two teenagers bait-fished from a log protruding out into the river, so he kept going. A fly fisherman in waders stood in a shallow cascade up to his knees. Gilbert watched the arc of his pole and line shimmer in the morning light.
The heron flew beyond a thicket of blackberries. In a grassy spot below a sycamore, Gilbert thought he’d found the place where he and Ruby had watched the eagle circle. He didn’t remember all the cow pies, but it had been a long time ago.
Gilbert set down the pack and dug in his shovel. He hit a rock, so he moved over a few feet. More rocks. He made a divot or two, tried a sandy circle, but that ultimately led to rocks as well. He sat down on the veneer of grass that he now knew barely covered cobble and stones the size of melons. Water soaked into his pants.
Gilbert considered the pre-dug holes. The last was near the fly fisher, but the fisherman was intently facing the north shore, intentionally casting his shadow above his target. Any trout he caught, he released.
Gilbert didn’t know what the holes were for, but whoever dug them was more capable than he. Gilbert lay on his side to lower the urn into the bottom of the pit. Sitting up he emptied the tequila bottle into the cavity with a brief benediction for both of them: “To laughter.”
He had piled in stones and shoveled in the dirt that ringed the hole, rolling one last large rock to rest on top, just as the fisherman waded up to the bank. Gilbert didn’t know if he should feel guilty, if the fisherman knew why these holes were here. The man looked at Gilbert, the tequila bottle, Gilbert’s wet backside, shook his head, and said finally, “Thanks for burying it, man.”
-O-
Before they left for the river, Jenna glanced in the mirror and saw her grandmother’s skinny figure. Gran had also been widowed young, but she never remarried. She’d given her wedding ring to Jenna, so once, Jenna had had a ring for her right hand, but Jenna had lost it kayaking. She shrugged at her reflection. Maybe she didn’t deserve a ring. Still, she resented Mike’s resistance. She didn’t need it, but a gift, something pretty, would be nice. She didn’t feel that old, but the mirror haunted her. No amount of yoga could keep the wrinkles from her neck. Mike was right, a ring wouldn’t help a bit unless, like Gollum’s precious, it would make her disappear.
She saw Mike materialize in the mirror, carefully carrying a cup of coffee for her. Jenna decided a picnic at the river together would be lovely.
-O-
After Gilbert and Vivian’s first date, walking the Old Town Trail in Clovis, which they extended with takeout from Scoop’s Soups[HR1] , eating in the park oblivious to traffic on all sides, Vivian suggested they self-quarantine for two weeks so they could drive in the same car and maybe be inside together. She cooked an al fresco dinner for Gilbert in her back yard the next weekend. She’d been married before, she told Gilbert, no kids. Her ex was a drunk, still alive, as far as she knew, and remarried, residing in one of the Dakotas. He’d been a mean drunk, violent. She couldn’t abide [HR2] alcohol. “I’m why they always have sparkling cider at weddings,” she told him. Gilbert became a teetotaller on the spot.
-O-
Jenna packed champagne and plastic flutes, barbequed chicken, mandarins, and chocolate kisses into one backpack and stuffed an old bedspread and the binoculars into another. She penciled her eyebrows carefully and put on lipstick. Mike slipped his hands around her waist from behind and kissed the side of her cheek.
“Am I dressed up enough for the occasion?” he asked.
Jenna laughed and turned to put lipstick on him, but he held her back. “You just need a little touching up,” she said.
“I’m okay with touching, but I thought we had an outing. I saw champagne in the pack.”
“Maybe we can multi-task,” she said, raising her eyebrows, then shrugged one shoulder. “It’ll be lovely,” she cautioned, “but don’t get too excited. I’d hate for the surprise to be anti-climactic.”
Mike fingered the ring in his pocket, too pleased with himself to ponder the compunction he might later feel.
For their anniversary, Jenna had chosen just to take a picnic to the Raptor Walk. The day was clear, the river low. Pretending they were appreciating the trail for the first time, they walked from sign to sign and were pleased with their work. At the trail’s end near the eagles’ aerie, they spread out the blanket and their feast. Jenna untwisted the metal basket on the top of the champagne. Without letting the cork fly, she caught it and held her hand out to Mike. “Happy anniversary, Love.”
Mike reached into his pocket and held out his hand. “For my beautiful, sexy wife.”
Genuinely surprised, she stared at the ring without moving, but she was clearly moved. “It’s so…unusual.”
“Don’t worry. It wasn’t expensive. Still, I think it’s real.”
She slid the ruby ring on her finger. “It fits.” Jenna laughed, delighted. “I doubt there was a choice of sizes!” She held her right hand at arms distance. “When did you do this? A pawn shop can’t be the safest place in a pandemic!”
Mike hadn’t considered the ring’s backstory. Pawn shop. Good one.
-O-
Their two weeks of quarantine up, Vivian drove to Gilbert’s house. She wanted to see the new Raptor Walk she’d heard about on Public Radio, and Gilbert couldn’t think of a good reason to object. While he waited for her to arrive, he twisted his wedding ring and watched out the kitchen window, which faced the street. He squirted sink soap on his finger and ran the tap, twisting the ring off and letting water rinse away the bubbles. As Vivian’s Prius slowed at the curb, he slipped the ring into his pocket and practically jogged out to meet her.
He slid into the passenger seat, and set a hand on each of his own thighs. “You look nice without a mask,” Gilbert told her.
She took his left hand and ran her thumb across the white skin where his ring had been. The sensation was intimate and new. “You look nice without a ring.” She smiled. “How does it feel?”
“A little weird,” he answered. “But good.” He smiled at Vivian. “It feels good.”
As they drove east from Clovis, she remarked how smooth the hills were, how they looked like bodies with folds of skin, knees and hips, how they nestled against the Sierras.
Gilbert had never looked at the hills that way before, but now that Vivian mentioned it, he could see the curves. He was a fan of curves.
He liked the curve of Vivian’s lips and the musical way she talked. He liked that she always knew what to say.
Vivian had never been to the Raptor Walk, and Gilbert hadn’t ever seen the signs. She read them aloud. Gilbert told her she should be a singer. He loved the sound of her voice. Her laugh was like a song. They watched the mallards coast in for a landing, and Vivian laughed when the mergansers submerged, and Gilbert said, “Duck!”
At the last trail sign, the eagle, Gilbert glanced about, the hole he dug would have been right about here, he thought, but kept walking when Vivian did. Maybe it was further down. Maybe it didn’t matter.
Walking side-by-side, they approached a couple picnicking. The woman was pointing beyond the treetops. The man trained binoculars skyward. Gilbert and Vivian slipped their masks behind their ears and followed the woman’s gesture.
“That’s the female,” Jenna said, including Gilbert and Vivian in her pronouncement when she saw them.
“A bald eagle!” Vivian exclaimed.
To Gilbert, the eagle was a clear omen, a joyful message from Ruby.
Mike wiped the binoculars and handed them to Vivian. “A pair lives just beyond the berry thicket here.” He looked at her pink mask and frowned. “Sorry we don’t have masks,” he said. “It’s our anniversary.”
“As if that excuses us!” Jenna laughed, “But it’s our fifteenth.” She extended the ring for them to admire.
Mike smiled with bashful pride at the strangers’ overt fascination with his purloined anniversary present.
Vivian looked at Gilbert, her maroon eyebrows raised. He shook his head quickly, and glanced back at guileless Jenna. “It’s beautiful,” Vivian said. “So…unique.”
Jenna’s laughter was contagious, despite their masks.
“One of a kind,” Gilbert agreed and took Vivian’s right hand with his left.
Something shifted, and Mike felt a cool pressure, a quiet qualm in his chest, but he laughed as well. To sustain the levity, Mike asked. “Would you like some champagne?” He reached for Jenna’s glass and poured.
Gilbert shook his head. “No thanks.” He smiled at Jenna and Mike. “You two look very happy.” He nodded, “Fifteen years?”
Mike raised his glass, but saw Gilbert and Vivian exchange a glance that unearthed in him a remorse he’d buried, and not deep enough. They couldn’t know. It came from an urn. In the ground. Someone had already let it go.
“I used to come here with my late wife sometimes,” Gilbert said. There was an eagle then too.
Jenna nodded and looked deeply at Gilbert. “I’m also a widow.”
This pleased Gilbert. Still holding Vivian’s hand, he asked Jenna, “What did you do with your wedding rings?”
Mike paused mid-sip and swallowed audibly.
Shrugging, Jenna said, “I gave my late husband’s to my daughter when she married. I gave mine to my son.” She puffed a little sigh. “His marriage didn’t last. The ring’s with his ex now in Bakersfield--c’est la vie.” She raised her glass. “To life.”
Jenna stood because she spied something in the sky. Vivian followed with the binoculars. “It’s the male,” Jenna said to Vivian, “and he’s got romance on his mind.”
Gilbert chuckled, thinking Vivian’s pretty laugh might have raised a pitch at Jenna’s suggestion. He smiled generously at Mike and squatted down to Mike’s level. “You dug the holes?”
Quieting his own qualms, Mike nodded, “a group of us.” He inhaled, raised his eyebrows and looked at Gilbert, who nodded slowly. “We had to relocate the urn.”
Still nodding, Gilbert asked, “Where is she now?”
“Near the cemetery,” Mike said quickly, “under a beautiful oak. I can take you.”
Gilbert looked over at the two women standing at river’s edge, closer than six feet apart, but Gilbert had a good feeling about this. He shook his head, softly, no. “To life,” he said, repeating Jenna’s toast. “Take good care of her, man,” and he extracted his own ring from his pocket and handed it to Mike.
Stunned, and certain only that he couldn’t refuse, Mike said, “I don’t know what it is yet, but I’ll find a way to repay you.” He put the ring on his right hand. “Is there something you want?”
Gilbert looked at the women, who now were sitting on the bank, each tipping her cell phone towards the other. “Laughter, my friend. There’s nothing else I need.”
Mike exhaled, “to laughter, then” and, just like that, both women laughed and looked their way.
The men laughed too, their gratitude mutual and full.