<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I noticed it when he reached for his glass of water. A pale strip of skin circled his left ring finger. It stood out against the sunburn covering the rest of his hand. The edges were clean and even. The width was unmistakable.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A wedding ring mark.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I slowly put my fork down.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mark hadn’t worn his wedding ring in twelve years.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“What’s that?” I asked.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He was still chewing. He glanced up at me, then followed my gaze toward his hand.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For a brief moment, he went completely still. Not a movement. Not even a blink. Like someone caught unexpectedly in the headlights.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Then he chuckled.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Huh,” he muttered.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He turned his hand around and examined it as though he’d only just noticed it himself.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Must be from holding the fishing rod. Had that thing in my hand for three straight days.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“From holding the fishing rod?”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Yeah. You know how it goes. The sun gets everywhere except the part of your hand wrapped around the handle.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He picked up his glass and took a drink.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“This chicken tastes great, Lena. Did you change something?”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“No. It’s the same recipe.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Well, it’s really good.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I didn’t question him any further. I simply picked up my fork, moved a piece of potato around my plate, and watched him continue eating.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I’d been married to Mark Ellison for twenty-six years. I knew that man better than I knew myself. I recognized the expression he wore when he was exhausted, the one he made when pretending to enjoy my sister’s lasagna, and even the look he got when he was trying to hold back tears during a movie.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But I’d never seen the expression he had just given me.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That sudden freeze. That startled look.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He was keeping something from me.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For nine years, Mark had gone on the same fishing trip every summer. The same three friends always went with him. Dave, who had worked alongside him in construction since they were twenty. Ray, Dave’s brother-in-law, who never stopped talking or laughing. And Tommy, the quietest of the group, who had stood beside Mark as his best man at our wedding.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They always visited the same place: Loon Lake, about three hours north, where the pine trees grew so thick that the roads seemed dark even in the middle of the afternoon.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They stayed at the same inexpensive motel near the water. The same terrible phone reception. The same three-day trip, from Friday through Sunday, during the second weekend of August.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nothing ever changed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Every year, Mark returned home sunburned, smelling of insect repellent and lake water, carrying a cooler filled with fish that nobody particularly wanted to clean. He always had a dozen stories about Ray falling out of the boat.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He would kiss me when he walked through the door, tell me he’d missed me, and hand me a jar of wild blueberry jam from the little farm stand outside town.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He remembered that I liked it because I’d mentioned it once, nine years earlier, and he’d never forgotten.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But this year, there was no blueberry jam.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He walked through the front door on Sunday evening at seven-thirty.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He gave me a quick hug, barely using one arm, keeping his face turned away from mine. Then he picked up his duffel bag and headed straight upstairs without stopping.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“How was the trip?” I called after him.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Good,” he answered from the staircase. “I’m exhausted. Going to take a shower.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Did Ray fall out of the boat?”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He hesitated.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Twice,” he replied.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But there was no laughter in his voice.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At dinner, he barely said anything. I asked him about the fishing, and he said everything had been fine. I asked how Tommy’s new knee was doing, and he said it seemed to be holding up. I asked whether they’d visited the diner for their usual pie, and he first said yes, then changed his answer to no, before finally claiming he couldn’t remember because everything had become a blur.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Then he reached for his glass.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That night, I stayed awake listening to him breathe.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mark had always been someone who could fall asleep in about four minutes. It was one of his most frustrating habits. I’d lie beside him worrying about the bills, our daughter away at college, or whether I’d remembered to turn off the oven, while he would be fast asleep as though someone had switched him off.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tonight was no exception.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By ten-fifteen, he was already snoring quietly.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I turned my head and looked at the hand resting on top of the blanket.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Even in the darkness, I could make out the pale mark.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Perhaps it really was from holding the fishing rod.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But I’d held fishing rods myself. My father used to take me fishing every Saturday when I was growing up. I’d returned home with blisters, sunburn, and dirt beneath my fingernails.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Never once had I come home with a wedding ring mark.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Holding a fishing rod might leave a tan line across your knuckles or a pale patch on your palm. But it wouldn’t create a perfectly even circle around the base of one finger.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Only a ring could do that.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes and remembered the day Mark had stopped wearing his.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It had happened twelve years earlier, in March. The weather was cold and rainy, and Mark was working as a foreman on a construction project downtown, where they were building a parking structure.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A steel beam had swung in the wrong direction from a crane. Mark had raised his hand to guide it, and somehow it trapped his left hand against a concrete column.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I received the call at work.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was Dave. His voice was trembling.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Lena, it’s Mark. He’s going to be okay. He’s okay, but you need to get to the hospital.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mark’s ring finger had been broken in three different places. Before the doctors could properly treat the fractures, they had to remove his wedding band using a small cutting tool.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I sat beside him in the emergency room while they carefully cut through the gold band. He squeezed my other hand so tightly that I thought he might break that one too.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When they finally removed the damaged ring and placed it in a little metal tray, Mark looked down at it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Damn it,” he whispered.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He wasn’t talking about his finger.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He was upset about losing his ring.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “We’ll have it repaired. They’ll put it back together, and it’ll look just like before.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And that’s exactly what we did.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A few months later, we took it to a jeweler, who managed to repair the broken band. Unfortunately, Mark’s finger had healed badly. The knuckle was now thick, crooked, and stiff.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Getting the ring over it became a struggle. Even when he managed to put it on, it pressed against the swollen joint and caused him pain.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He tried wearing it for a few weeks.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Then, one evening, he came into the bedroom, walked over to me, and placed it in my palm.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“I’m sorry, Lee,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That was what he called me. Lee.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nobody else had ever used that name for me.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“It hurts like hell. I just can’t keep wearing it.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“That’s okay,” I replied. “It’s only a ring. I know you’re married, and you know you’re married. That’s what matters.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
After that, he placed it inside the little wooden box in the top drawer of his dresser.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was the box his grandfather had made, with a pine tree carved into the lid.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And for the next twelve years, it stayed there.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I knew it was still there because I dusted that dresser every Thursday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Mark on His Finger I noticed it when he reached for his glass of water. A pale strip of skin circled his left ring finger. It stood out against the sunburn covering the rest of his hand. The edges were clean and even. The width was unmistakable. A wedding ring mark. I slowly put…<\/p>\n