With This Ring

The ring was more than a strip of gold. It symbolized the worst mistake of her life, and the best choice she ever made. Rated TEEN for language.

The elderly couple sits at the only other occupied table in the restaurant, gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes. The husband holds his wife’s hands in his own, connecting their bodies, making them one. Across the table, Bill sits with his eyes glued to his phone, sending some pointless e-mail to a client he doesn’t really care about. That’s the price of being the wife of the most respected lawyer in Seattle. There are no children; he claimed so long ago that they wouldn’t get his full attention because of his demanding career. The lie could have been read on his face by a blind man. Children cost money, and the more he spent on them, the less he had for himself. It was juvenile, the way he behaved sometimes. The issue was raised once, and his word was final. 

On the other side of the restaurant, the old couple are feeding each other bites off their forks. They smile, they laugh, their years together for sure have made them teenagers again. Bill curses as service - and all that vital information - is lost. He looks as if someone had shot his mother and she lay there dead in his hands.

“Where the f**k is the waiter?”

He raises his hand and snaps his fingers as if expecting a server to materialize in front of him. The young man appears several seconds later, looking less than amused. 

Bill orders all in one breath. “I’ll have the lobster and a martini, extra dry, and two olives, and she’ll have the salmon and a red wine, and leave the bottle.” 

As the waiter leaves, Bill lights a cigar. “You’d think they’d have a better handle on their employees.”

Bill goes on and on about the importance of running a well-oiled machine in businesses, and some crap about having employees wear shock collars. He is tuned out immediately, a defense mechanism, for it always turns into a rant about marriage and wives. 

Our drinks arrive, and Bill downs his in one sip. The wine doesn’t even look very appealing; but instead more like watered down blood. It wavers as the glass is tipped, threatening to spill out over the tablecloth, clean clothes. The woman in the liquid’s reflection is beautiful, full of flaws that don’t matter. She doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t deserve her. Why is she still trapped in this glass, looking out at something better?

“Is something wrong with your wine?” He says from across the table.

The old couple walks by us on their way out, their arms linked. It’s a small sight, an insignificant one to the untrained eye, but sweet all the same. The husband holds the door open for his wife, and they are gone. What were they like as a young couple? Did they fall hopelessly in love, as I thought I had? 

“Babe.” It’s s a statement, a command; the name of a pig. He’s getting angry.

Good.

“Helen. Helen. I am paying good money for that drink. What the hell is wrong with you?”

His eyes are made of fire. And then it happens, all at once.

“I am sick to death of you pushing me aside like I’m your f*****g toy. You’re a self-righteous prick who couldn’t give two s***s about what is going on around you. Did you think that this is what our life would be like? You sitting there on your throne, being waited on hand and foot by your perfect little Stepford wife? You couldn’t last two days without me, I know it, and I f*****g hope for everyone’s sake, that you don’t.”

I don’t realize that my voice has raised to an almost Banshee-like screech, but who cares, we’re alone in this place. Caught up in the moment, adrenaline coursing through my veins, I pick up the wine and splash it over his three thousand dollar suit. And off comes the wedding ring, as symbol of that hellish marriage, into the hand of our poor waiter. “Hock it, buy yourself something nice.” 

I walk out of the restaurant, closing  the door behind me.

I don’t look back.