Speaking of rings, what to do with the old wedding rings once the ink on the divorce papers is dry? If you can believe it, the teenage girlfriend stole mine. I had left it by the sink in order to wash dishes. But I still had his. Ha! I took it down to the local pawn shop and got $30 for the gold in it. This was the beginning of a beautiful relationship between Mr. Ivan Coffman (the shop's owner) and me. He had the most beautiful jewelry. I couldn't help looking. And oh my blessed soul, I spotted this carved ivory ring set in Victorian filigree with a butterfly on each side. I was stone cold broke except for the a fore mentioned $30.

      I didn't know I had it in me, to cry over something so beautiful that I couldn't have. But that's what I did. I told Mr. Coffman all about my divorce and how embarrassing it was. And about how I'd just moved to this small town and how everyone now knew everything about my private life; the big crystalline tears just welling forth. “Wel-el (he always says 'well' in two syllables),” he said, “I guess we can just call this here transaction a trade.”

        As I handed back the crumpled twenty and the ten, he wrapped the carved ivory ring in tissue and put it into a pink bag that looked just as if it were newly printed in 1950 saying Feather River Jewelry and handed it to me. Nothing that good had happened to me in a long time. I have bought many special pieced of jewelry from Mr. Coffman since, but the ivory was the first and it was a gift.

       

      This is by far my oldest ring. It came to me in a strange way. My Great Aunt lay on her death bed with me in attendance when suddenly she reached for my hand. “Save Clippy’s ring,” she said. “Look under my bed.” Then she fell back asleep, my hand still in hers. Sometime later, my first cousin Jim, once removed, came to spell me, and I returned to my Aunt’s room where I was staying, to get some needed rest, but I kept hearing my Aunt’s words. Reluctantly, I looked under the bed where I found all manner of boxes and clutter. 

      I reviewed what I knew about Clippy. She had been my Aunt’s dear friend and my Aunt had been her paid companion for many years. My Aunt already openly possessed many of Clippy’s things having inherited her choice of worldly goods when Clippy died so many years ago. I also knew all my Aunt’s considerable collection of jewelry having visited it and heard the stories behind each piece. Everything was made elegant by her touch. In fact it was funny how forlorn her shoe box full of rings was without her there to animate them on her long elegant fingers. And I knew there were no rings from Clippy. Clippy’s daughter had gotten all her mother’s jewelry. Which is what made this whole request so strange.

I went through all the stuff under the bed. After much effort, I unpacked a box that contained another and so forth until I found a tiny ring sized box. Inside was a ring wrapped in newspaper. I thought, at the time, the old piece of newsprint was keeping the crystal stones shiny because old newspaper has a high level of rag content. But then I smoothed out the paper and saw it was an obituary from the early ‘60s. The man was handsome and a war hero and married to somebody else.

      My Aunt was too ill to ever tell me anything else. I took the ring home and wear it on special occasions, and I’ve never seen anything that comes close to being as breathtaking as this ring. I always get compliments. My Aunt was a keeper of other peoples’ secrets, some of which she shared with me[LW1] .

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 [LW1]