I read it out loud without thinking.
“Always?” Milo asked. “Like, forever?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly, something tightening in my chest. “Exactly like forever.”
I stood there in my cramped laundry nook, water still dripping from the washing machine, holding someone else’s wedding ring while my three kids crowded around me.
And I’d be lying—absolutely lying—if I said my brain didn’t immediately go one ugly, desperate place.
Pawn shop.
I could picture it clearly: walking into one of those places on Pacific Avenue with their neon signs and barred windows. Putting this ring on the counter. Walking out with cash. Not a fortune, probably, but enough. Enough to buy groceries without checking my bank balance first. Enough to get the kids shoes that didn’t have holes. Enough to pay the electric bill on time instead of waiting for the disconnect notice.
Enough to breathe for just a minute.
I stared at the ring, my thumb running over the worn engraving.
Someone had saved up for this ring. Someone had proposed with it, probably nervous and hopeful and certain this was the person they wanted forever with. Someone named Claire had worn it for years—decades, based on how worn down it was. Taking it off to do dishes, to garden, to shower, then putting it back on. Over and over. A ritual. A promise made physical.
This wasn’t just some random piece of jewelry.
This was somebody’s entire story.
“Dad?” Nora said quietly, watching my face with that too-perceptive look she got sometimes.
“Yeah, honey?”
She studied the ring, then looked up at me. “Is that someone’s forever ring?”
The way she said it—forever ring, like it was a special category of object that deserved reverence—hit me harder than I expected.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice rough. “I think it is.”
“Then we can’t keep it,” she said, as if this was the most obvious conclusion in the world.
I looked at her—my eight-year-old daughter in a too-small sweater and jeans with a patch on one knee, standing in our cramped apartment where the washing machine was held together with hope and duct tape—and felt something crack open in my chest.
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