Left

All that glitters is not gold, or so the saying goes. Marissa fiddled with the band on her left ring finger, sliding it up to the first knuckle then back again. A golden prison, but so pretty. The diamond sparkled in the light, catching the suns rays and reflecting it back like mini fireworks.

“What are you going to do?” Jane asked, her limpid eyes studying Marissa’s face with the earnest concern only a best friend could feel.

“I don’t know.” Marissa huddled in the chair she’d pulled up to Jane’s island bench, her head throbbing with the echoes of last night’s excess. Jane, however, looked fresh as a daisy. How could anyone look that beautiful after a night like last night? Marissa groaned, she just felt old.

“It’s only been two years, you don’t have to make any decisions now,” Jane assured her, as she sipped her steaming morning coffee. 

Two years since Rob passed. Two years a widow. Everyone said to give it time, but Marissa didn’t think all the time in the world could erase her guilt.

At Jane’s insistence, she’d taken the ring off last night. Her naked left finger felt forbidden and risqué. Three mojito’s later she was dancing with no inhibitions. Fun, flirty and fancy free. Grabby hands, sweaty palms, throbbing music, she’d become the centre of a sensual world, where names and faces blended into feeling and pulse. She’d kissed him. That much she recalled. He tasted of smokey scotch. Her arms had twined about his neck as they writhed to the beat in the sultry dark shadows of the chic upmarket bar.

“Did I…?” Marissa glanced up into her best friend’s face. She didn’t need to complete that sentence, Jane knew her too well.

“No, hon. You didn’t. I’m your wing woman, remember. I’d never let you get into a situation you might regret.”

It was a relief. She studied her phone on the bench, like a ticking time bomb. The screen had gone blank, but she could remember the text word for word.

-hey! I had a great time last night. Thanks for the dance. You up for coffee any time soon? -Luc

Her stomach churned. What kind of name was Luc? What had she done?

“Don’t stress it, babe,” Jane said and she reached across the table to take both of Marissa’s hands in hers. “Just say thanks but, no. Guys get rejections all the time. Just be honest. Here I’ll tell him.”

Jane snatched the phone from the table, her thumbs flicking over the keys.

“No! Wait! What are you saying?” Marissa cried, scrambling around the table to grab her phone. Jane skittered away, keeping the device just out of reach until she pressed send.

“There, done.” She smiled as she passed the phone back to Marissa.

“What did you say?” Marissa searched for the thread.

-thanks, I had a great time too. I’m sorry, I’m two years a widow. Too much baggage to start anything new.

“Jane!” Marissa gasped at the audacity of her friend. “How dare you!”

“What? Did you want to see him again?”

“No! Yes? Oh I don’t know. But you shouldn’t reply for me.”

“Hon, you’ve been staring at that phone for an hour. Put the guy out of his misery and let him move on.”

“But it was my decision to make.”

“You weren’t making a decision, you were angsting over whether or not you should wear your ring.”

Marissa nearly dropped her phone as it vibrated and a text pinged. She was almost too afraid to look.

“Well?”

With fumbling fingers, Marissa opened the text.

-I understand. I lost my partner to cancer nearly five years ago. If you ever feel like that coffee—and I mean coffee—give me a call. -Luc

At three-fifteen the following day, Marissa was certain she was going to die. She was nearly positive she had dysentery, or gastro, or appendicitis, or some combination of all three. She waited, at Jane’s insistence, seated at the back table of the coffee shop, her stomach churning. When she had arrived at three o’clock, she’d slipped her ring from her finger and tucked it into her purse. At three-o-one, she had dived madly back into the bag and jammed the gold band back onto her finger. As the minutes ticked by she fidgeted and fiddled with the ring so many times, twisting it off, pushing it on, that her finger had become red and inflamed.

“Hi, sorry for keeping you waiting.”

Startled, Marissa glanced up from her study of the diamond on her left hand. Her gaze passed a solid chest covered in a casual unbuttoned shirt thrown over a T shirt, with sleeves rolled to the elbows, skittered past a pair of lips whose texture she refused to recall, and settled on eyes that were a faded blue surrounded by a network of creases that crinkled with his smile.

“I’m Luc.” He extended his hand and she absently placed her own in his.

“Marissa.” It seemed a little odd to introduce themselves so formally, as the last time she saw this man was up close and very personal, when her lips were meshed with his.

Oh god, how humiliating.

“I’m not sure if this is a good idea.”

“It’s only coffee.”

“It’s just I’ve never…” she couldn’t finish her sentence and looked down at her fingers, surprised to see them absently twisting her wedding ring. Off… On… She still couldn’t decide.

“It’s OK. I get it. No pressure. How about you leave the ring on.”

“I…” She glanced up and was caught in his understanding gaze as he sat opposite.

“You don’t have to explain.”

“I… I just feel like I know who I am when it’s on. I don’t recognise myself without it.”

“I get it.”

He did get it. Coffee became dinner. Dinner became dessert. And dessert led to a kiss good night, which did not evolve into something more. But, for the first time in years, Marissa thought it might be nice to want that elusive ‘something more’.

She studied her reflection as she removed her earrings and wiped away her makeup. There were fine wrinkles around her mouth and eyes, but she’d like to say they were from laughing, not crying. Thirty was not old. She had an entire lifetime left. She took a deep breath. Life was for living, she decided. Rob may be gone, and he had ripped out a piece of her heart, but maybe, just maybe it was time to move forward.

Slowly she twisted the gold band from her finger examining the pretty sparkle in the harsh bathroom light. It was a beautiful ring, she loved it as much as she had once loved Rob, and it would be a shame not to wear it. With that thought, she slipped it onto her right finger. It felt heavy on the other hand, a weight there that was unusual, while her left finger felt strangely light, or empty.

Channeling her inner Beyoncé, she flapped her empty ring finger while humming the catchy “Single Ladies” chorus. It was better than the other Beyoncé song she had sung, about boxes to the left. Still humming, she opened her closet. There, packed up and untouched, were the boxes. Perhaps now she could give them to Goodwill.

Two years ago, she’d thrown items in each box randomly, unable to see through her tears as she’d torn his clothes from their hangers and tossed his personal items in one at a time. It was the night Rob told her he was sorry, but he was leaving. She’d yelled, screamed, cried and begged. Not her finest moment, but he’d left anyway.

When the police had arrived at her door later to inform her that both Rob and his female passenger had been fatally injured in a horrific accident, she had already cried most of her tears, and numbness set in. After that was guilt, had she wished him dead? Then relief that she did not have to explain to anyone why and how her marriage had failed, when she had never actually understood the reason. So for two years she lived without living, trapped in her failed marriage and enduring the condolences of her friends and family.

No more.

Life was for living. She dumped the cardboard boxes by the front door, then opened up her phone.

-Hey, Luc. Had a lovely time. Maybe we could do it again?

The response was almost instant.

-Would love to.