By Anthony Rowe
I’ve told The Ring Story many times. Before I begin the story, I always ask someone from the audience to try and pull my wedding ring off. No one has ever been able to.
That’s an important piece of information.
It was the summer of 1992, and Audree and I were on our honeymoon. We were traveling through the northeastern United States. We had stayed at bed and breakfasts in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine; and now we were visiting Audree’s college roommate, Ally, in Providence, Rhode Island.
Nine months before our visit, Ally’s brother Michael had died of cancer at the age of 34. Shortly after Michael’s death, Ally moved in with Michael’s wife, Marty, to help out with Michaela and Eva, Marty’s and Michael’s two young daughters. We knew the facts of this story but hadn’t really thought much about it until we arrived at their doorstep.
The night we arrived was so much fun for us. Ally was the first person we had seen who had attended our wedding since we left for our honeymoon, and we were excited to share stories and pictures with her. Marty, Michaela, and Eva looked on and listened as we went on and on in our excitement.
It became late, and it was time for everyone to go to bed. Marty led us toward the stairs to the second floor. I paused at the foot of the stairs to look at a collection of photographs on the wall. Michael was in many of them. There was Michael’s mid 70’s high school tux picture. Michael in mid-air diving off of a cliff. Michael smiling and posing with Marty, Michaela, and Eva. As I turned away from those pictures and walked up the stairs, I felt the presence, and the loss, of Michael for the first time.
We reached the second floor, and Marty led us into the master bedroom and told us that we would be sleeping there. It was clear that the room had been Michael and Marty’s room. Being the polite guests that we were raised to be, we told Marty that we couldn’t possibly take her room. Being the polite host that she was raised to be, Marty insisted that we sleep there. We told her again that we couldn’t impose. She insisted again, and we finally relented. We said goodnight to Marty, Ally, Michaela, and Eva, and then we were alone in the room.
On the nightstand next to one side of the bed was a wedding picture of Michael and Marty. On the other side of the bed was a less formal picture of the two of them. I walked to the bathroom to brush my teeth, but in order to get to the bathroom, I had to pass through the closet. On the right was Marty’s side of the closet, full of women’s clothing. The left side of the closet was obviously Michael’s. Nine months after he had died, Michael’s clothes still hung there. Looking down at the floor, I saw Michael’s shoes lined up in a row, waiting patiently for him to return.
After spending some time in bed talking about Michael, and Marty, and the room, Audree and I finally said goodnight and turned off the lights. The house was in a newly built sub-division and there were no streetlights, so the room was pitch black. I had trouble falling asleep. I kept tossing and turning throughout the night. It felt like I hadn’t slept at all, but I must have slept because I woke up.
I lay in bed for a while until Audree woke up. I told her about my fitful night. She said that she also had trouble sleeping, and we agreed that there was a strange feeling in the room. When we finally got up, we left the night behind us and took in a day of tourist attractions in Providence.
That evening, back at the house, Marty and Ally treated us to a lobster dinner. We continued to share stories about our wedding and our honeymoon adventures. After dinner, Audree and I volunteered to clean up the kitchen while Marty and Ally put the girls to bed. The plan was that we would meet in the basement for a game of pool when we were all done.
Audree and I finished the kitchen and headed down to the basement. Ally came down soon after and asked us where Marty was. We told her that we hadn’t seen Marty. Ally went upstairs to look for Marty but soon came back down and said that she couldn’t find her. So Audree and I headed upstairs to help look for her. As I was looking in the kitchen, I noticed that the sliding door to the porch was open. I walked toward the door and pressed my nose up against the screen in order to look outside. Rain was falling gently but steadily on the porch, and I scanned the porch from right to left. At first I didn’t see anything, but then, on the far left corner of the porch, I saw a shadow. As I focused on the shadow, I realized that it was an umbrella. Then, over the sound of the raindrops, I heard sniffling, and I understood that it was Marty outside, sitting in the rain, crying.
Up to that moment I hadn’t thought about how our visit might have affected Marty. Our wedding stories and our newlywed happiness were obviously painful reminders of Michael. I quietly stepped away and went downstairs. I told Ally where I had found Marty, and Ally went upstairs to see if she was okay.
Audree and I played a half-hearted game of pool while we waited to see what would happen next. Soon Ally came down, followed by Marty. Marty apologized to us, and we told her that we were the ones who should apologize. Marty insisted that she should be the one to apologize, and we knew enough to not say anything more. So the four of us played pool and pretended that everything was fine.
After pool, we all went to bed. Audree and I were sleeping in the same room, with the pictures, and the clothes, and the shoes, and the uneasy feelings. There was also thunder and lightning outside to add to the mood.
It was another restless night. Once again it felt like I hadn’t slept at all, but I must have slept because, again, I woke up. Audree and I talked in bed for a few minutes, sharing the details of our restless slumbers with each other. Then I got up, and as I stood up I looked down at my left hand and noticed that my ring was gone.
I turned to Audree, held out my left hand, and told her that my ring was gone. She asked me if I had checked the bed. So we did. No ring. We also checked the floor. No ring. Audree thought that I might have lost it when I was doing laundry the night before. So I headed to the basement to check. The basement door was next to the kitchen table, where Ally and Marty were having breakfast. They could obviously tell that I was troubled because they asked me what was wrong. I told them that my ring was missing and headed down into the basement where I checked the washing machine and the dryer. No ring.
I climbed back upstairs and told Audree that it was not in the washing machine or the dryer. She, of course, didn’t believe that I had looked closely enough, so she headed to the basement to check for herself. On the way down, she ran into Marty, who was making coffee. Marty asked if I had found the ring. After Audree told her that I hadn’t, Marty responded. “You know…Michael lost his ring on our honeymoon. It was in the bed.”
Audree headed down to the basement, and Marty continued making the coffee. Finally Audree returned to the bedroom to inform me of what I already knew – the ring wasn’t in the washing machine or the dryer. We checked the bedroom one more time to make sure we couldn’t find the ring, and then we had to decide to carry on with our day. Of course we were sad that the ring was gone, but we didn’t know what else we could do. Our one hope was that it would turn up, and that Ally would send it to us.
We were scheduled to leave Providence that morning and go off to visit friends in Connecticut, so we began packing. As we were packing, Marty and Ally appeared in the doorway, dressed for work, and Marty, concerned, asked if we had found the ring yet.
Without saying a word, Audree responded to Marty’s question by walking to the bed and pulling the bedspread off and throwing it aside.
No ring.
Then Audree pulled off the loose sheet and tossed it aside.
No ring.
Next, she bent over to the corner of the bed and pulled up the fitted sheet and tossed it to the side.
No ring.
Now all that was left was the white mattress pad. Audree stepped toward the bed, bent over, stretched the elastic of the corner of the mattress pad, and pulled it away…
And there…in the center of the bare mattress…was my ring.
Marty turned white, put her hands up, and backed out of the room saying, “I don’t want to know.” Ally stood in the doorway with her mouth open. And then they both left.
Audree and I didn’t know what to do. So we quietly kept packing. At one point, Audree had to leave the room to get something and passed by a visibly shaken Marty leaning against the wall in the hallway.
Soon enough, we said our goodbyes. It was clear that Marty didn’t want to talk about it, so no one did. Marty drove off with the kids. Ally headed off to work. Audree and I packed up the car and headed toward our next destination.
Audree and I were silent in the car for about ten minutes before I turned to her and said, “What… just… happened?’
Neither of us had an answer on that day, and we still don’t know for sure what happened, but there are a couple of things that we are sure of. Audree and I have been married for 18 years, and my ring hasn’t fallen off my finger since. We are also certain that ten, fifteen, 20, 30 years from now, my ring will have only fallen off once – on my honeymoon…in the home of a grieving widow… in the bed that she had shared with her husband…a husband who had lost his ring…on his honeymoon…and it was in the bed.
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