Copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Delayne
Sarah sat at her kitchen table. She pressed a hand to her stomach, where wings of butterflies fluttered. What was she going to do?
She turned her hand over and gazed at her fingers, thinking of Jack. His hand fit with hers like an unbroken link.
There was a quick knock on the kitchen door and it opened immediately with its usual squeak. “Sarah?”
Jack’s sister, Jamie, stepped in and shut the door behind her. She knelt down in front of her friend. “What’s wrong, honey? I couldn’t understand a word you said over the phone. Is it Jack?”
Instead of answering, she held up her ringless left hand.
“Oh honey,” Jamie murmured on an expelled breath, “he didn’t—”
“No, I did. I lost it. I can’t find my ring anywhere.”
Jamie stared at her a moment, then let out a quick, relieved laugh. “Oh,” she said, placing a hand to her heart, “for a moment there I thought you were telling me the wedding was off.”
“Not yet, but when he finds out—” tears that she had been fighting so hard to contain blurred her vision. She reached up with her ringless left hand and brushed the tears away.
“Jamie, what am I going to do?”
“Well, first of all, you’re not going to panic,” she said practically and pulled a chair around to sit beside Sarah. “Do you think Jack’s going to call the wedding off because the ring’s missing? You got to have more faith in him then that.”
“It’s not just a ring, Jamie. It’s your mother’s ring.”
“Sure—and he got off fine and dandy saving the money that he did by not having to purchase a ring on his own.”
“Jamie—”
“I’m just kidding,” she said quickly when the tears started again. “It is a special ring, and it’s special to both of you. Now, have you prayed about it?”
“No—”
“Then let’s pray now. To stay calm, to find wisdom, and for Jack’s understanding, just in case. Okay?” she glanced at Sarah and waited for the nod of agreement that came slowly. “But first, let’s pray that we find it.”
* * * * *
Sarah slumped in the aged recliner in her living room and started at the sunny rays streaming in, feeling as gloomy as a cold, rainy day. She and Jamie had both called in emergency leave at work and had spent the entire morning turning the house upside down. She listened as Jamie shifted things around in the kitchen, looking one more time.
She ran her thumb under her ring finger where her ring should have been and she grieved.
For our family, Jack had said the moment he slid the ring on her finger. For the family they both lost—her parents to a car wreck when she was a child, his mother to cancer when he was in college. He had enough grandparents, his mother and father’s parents, and his stepmother’s parents and in-laws, for both of them. There were dozens of cousins from any side of the family, two other sisters besides Jamie and a brother collecting dust in his sixth year at the college on the edge of town. He had two step brothers and a single step sister. They were now up to three nephews and two nieces.
At Christmas the room at his father’s house had been full of children and promises, Sarah thought, as she glanced at her empty ring finger.
Jamie was right. Jake wasn’t going to call the wedding off because the ring was missing, but she wasn’t quite sure what he would say—or what it would make him feel.
The car in the driveway startled her, but she recognized it’s sound before she glanced out the window. Jack shut the driver’s side door and dashed toward her, toward the house, toward the news she would have to tell him.
Oh hi—surprise, I’m not at work. I’m at home because I lost my ring. You know the one that belonged to your mother? I lost it and you’re not even legally mine yet . . . .
The door opened without announcement and Jack stopped in the door frame, his body a silhouette to the sun rays that came in with him. His hand rested on the doorknob.
“You okay?” he asked quietly as he took in her appearance. She’d pulled on an old pair of jeans and a tee-shirt after Jamie came over, but she’d done nothing with her hair since getting out of the shower. It was a tangled mess. She wore no make up and her eyes were puffy from silent tears.
Jamie stepped in from the kitchen and glanced at her brother before she looked toward Sarah. She hadn’t found it. Sarah had known she wouldn’t, but she had hoped. She slid her left hand underneath her, and prayed for the right words to tell him.
“I’m going to go now,” Jamie announced and left quietly.
Jack shut the door and walked around to kneel before her. She pulled her hand out from under her and balled it into a fist. It was so like the night he asked her to marry him that tears pooled all over again in her eyes.
“You’re not at work,” he said quietly and reached for her right hand. There was worry in his eyes and a fear she didn’t understand. “I went by to take you to lunch, and you weren’t there. They said something unexpected had come up.”
“Jack, I—” she swallowed past the lump in her throat and held up her ringless left hand much as she had done for Jamie. His eyes traveled over it, then he reached up with his right hand to trace the empty spot before his eyes met hers. “I can’t find it. I got up, took a shower and came down for breakfast before I realized that it wasn’t on my hand. Jamie and I have been all over this place, and we can’t find it. I’m so sorry, Jack.”
“Oh,” he said quietly, “I thought . . . it was like my mom. She started to miss work to go to doctors’ appointments that she didn’t want my dad to know about. When I stopped at your office and they said it had been an emergency and I didn’t know . . . it just took me back.”
Sarah sighed gently, and forgetting her own fear and grief, reached up to trace his jaw with her hand, “Oh, Jack, I didn’t think to call—I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“You weren’t supposed to know about lunch,” he said and attempted a chuckle. “I—we’d never talked about it,” he sighed and turned to sit on the floor with his back to the chair. She slid down beside him and tightened her hold on his hand. “My mom said that she was waiting for God to fix her and she just kept waiting, not wanting to worry my dad when she was sure everything was going to be okay.”
“But things weren’t okay.”
“No, and by the time by dad found out, she was really sick. It wasn’t long before she was gone. He was unprepared for the loss. I don’t know if knowing would have changed things or not,” he turned his head, glanced at her, his eyes sad and weary. His hand squeezed hers, “If you’re ever afraid of anything being . . . wrong, you’ll tell me?”
“Yes,” she promised and squeezed her left hand into a fist.
“I want us to be together, in sickness and in health,” he reached across with his right hand and waited for her to place her left hand in his. He held it up between them as he turned it toward the light. The breath he took with deep and a little shaky. “We’ll just have to work through this.”
“Jack, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have . . . I should have been more careful.”
“I’m not angry. Disappointed, but not angry.”
He glanced around the room that she was preparing for them to share together in less than a month. “How about I go pick us up something for lunch while you get ready? I’ll call, take the afternoon off. We can talk or search or whatever.”
Sarah smiled a soft smile, “That sounds good. Really good.”
She watched him go and listened to the smooth motor of his car start before she forced herself to stand and move toward her room. Just last night she had listed her blessings in her journal, several of them because of Jack.
The thought made her stop as she stepped into her doorway. She’d taken off her ring and held it to the light as she prayed with her eyes open, thanking God for the miracle of her love for Jack and his for her. The diamond had sparkled, the small rubies on either side glowing with quiet warmth.
With Jamie’s help, she’d already taken off the sheets, pulled the mattresses off the bed and shifted the frame around. They’d carefully felt for the rings in the mattress’s creases and searched the edge of the carpet with flashlights. Her night stand drawer had been emptied and everything returned to its place.
By the time she heard Jack’s car turn into her driveway, she was dressed. She dashed out the door and threw herself into his arms, giddy with happiness.
“You found it,” he surmised after she kissed him.
Sarah held the ring out to him, her eyes sparkling, “It was in the pages of my journal where I had been recording my blessings last night. I thought it was only fitting that you put it back on my finger in remembrance of our promises.”
Jack glanced at her, his eyes suddenly serious as he took the ring, then her hand, “This is for our family,” he said as he had the first time, “the family I want to start with you, the life we’ll share together—”
“In sickness and in health,” she added faithfully.
“In sickness and in health,” he repeated, “eternally.”
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