The Napkin Ring

“The Napkin Ring”

He chose four of the napkin rings from the basket in the dining room, to shine up. No particular reason, but there was a chance Niles and Amanda might be coming over for dinner and maybe a game night, and he thought it might be fun. Amanda liked history and old things and those rings were pretty old. Some probably hadn’t seen polish for a hundred years. The first shined up easily, bright as a new dime. Its design was etched, not raised. He rubbed it with his thumb and the tarnish gave way. It glowed with the luster of old silver. He wiped the foam away with a rag and examined it. Funny little animals in clothes marched around the ring. From a nursery rhyme, he figured. The ring clearly was a child’s, at least when it was new, a special Christmas present perhaps. A space in the animal parade was left for the child’s name. Clara. He didn’t recall any Claras from the scattered pieces of family lore that had stuck with him, but the ring, a tangible, if ambiguous, link to someone in his family somewhere in the distant past, was now a part of him. It felt warm under his touch.

He put the ring at Amanda’s place and returned the others to the basket. Too much work to brighten them up, and pewter ones would serve as well.

“Why on earth did you put these out?” Maggie asked when she saw he had set the table. “It’s not Thanksgiving.”

“Just for fun. Amanda likes old things.”

“People don’t use napkin rings with paper napkins, and I’m not putting out cloth ones.”

“No need. It’s just a bit of fun, that’s all.”

As it turned out, Niles and Amanda did show up for dinner, though they were not able to stay for games. Amanda was instantly intrigued by her napkin ring.

“Oh, I love this! A funny little soldier; and look at his big hat and moustache! Is it old?”

Niles recognized the ring. “Ancient. It was my dad’s when he was a kid. It’s a Hessian soldier from the Revolution. It’s pewter.”

Later, when Niles and Amanda had gone, he asked Maggie, “Did you switch the napkin rings? How did the silver one end up at my place?”

“Of course not. Why would I do that? You must have switched them yourself when you were in one of your fogs. You and your old things. You live as much in the past as here and now.”

“Maybe Niles switched them. Maybe he thought Amanda would like my old Hessian.”

“Niles was bringing things in from the car. Amanda went straight to the table with flowers. Does it matter?”

He left the ring by his place while they cleaned up.

The next morning, he waited to get up until he heard Maggie leave. Now that he was retired, he knew she needed her space in the morning to get up and out. The cats underfoot were enough obstacle for her. He took his coffee into the library and for a moment stood in front of one of the bookcases, staring, forgetful of the coffee. He glanced back into the dining room. Everything was as they had left it last night. Except, Clara’s silver napkin ring was not on the table. It was beside an old leather bullet pouch and some Union and Confederate lead soldiers on a shelf in the library, in his Civil War section. Directly in front of one book, in particular.

“I see you are reading The Twentieth Maine.” His grandmother’s voice came to him. He was ten. “There’s a picture of one of your ancestors in there.” She took the book from him and flipped through pages. William H. Owen, a Sergeant in the 20^th Maine, the caption read. The man in the photograph wore his uniform coat unbuttoned except for the top button. Three stripes on his sleeve, maltese cross corps insignia stitched to the left breast of his coat, a small, dignified moustache. “He was my grandfather,” Gran said. That moment had triggered a train of events that followed him through decades.

Having an ancestor whose picture was in a book fired his imagination. He learned everything he could about the regiment, the role it played in battles, Will Owen’s place in the regiment, the village he came from, the friends he wrote to and about. Over the years he acquired all the known letters, there were 129, written by Will and saved by his sisters. He had two photographs of Will, including the original of the one in the book, and Will’s 1864 diary. He published the writings and pictures, with his own commentary, in a university press. But there was a piece missing.

Will had children. That was clear, because one of them, Abigail, became Gran’s mother. But in all the material gathered there was no mention of Will’s wife and their marriage.

That night, he re-read the parts of the book quoting passages from Will’s letters. There were fourteen. When he turned out his light he left the book on his bedside table and the napkin ring on top of it. In the morning, both were gone. He found the book back in its place on the shelf in the library. The ring took a little longer to locate.

He found it in the library, too, on a small chest where Gran’s things had been placed when they moved her into a nursing home. He wouldn’t even ask Maggie when she got home if she’d moved it. He knew she hadn’t.

“I think it’s time you looked.” The voice came from behind him. At first, he thought Maggie hadn’t left yet for work and was still in the kitchen. But the voice wasn’t Maggie’s.

“Gran?” He turned around. He knew she was there, but he couldn’t see her. “Gran?”

“I think it’s time you looked,” she repeated. “Look in the chest.”

He pulled the chest away from the wall and began lifting out its contents, spreading them around on the floor. Most, he had put in there himself twenty years ago. If he hadn’t, they probably would have been thrown out. Some interesting stuff, he reflected, remembering each item vividly from earlier years. Postcards his grandfather had sent to Gran from France during The First War. A bundle of letters from 1917 labelled “That Gal o’ Mine,” a block of salt-water soap wrapped in waxed paper. His grandfather’s navy-blue sailor cap with a black silk ribbon lettered USS Chester. There was a lump under it and as he lifted the cap out, he was startled to see the silver ring. He looked behind him at the items scattered over the floor. He shifted some. Clara’s ring was not where he had left it among them. It was in the chest, and beneath it was a yellow envelope.

He took the envelope into the dining room and set it on the table. Two chairs at the foot of the table were pulled out. The silver napkin ring was on the table opposite where Amanda had sat.

“I don’t remember seeing this envelope, Gran.”

“No. It isn’t mine. I just took care of it.”

He opened the envelope and pulled out a framed photo. It was poorly focused and grainy. An elderly woman standing in the driveway in front of an old farmhouse. The metal frame was cheap, gilt coating worn off in places. “Oh, wait,” he said. “I do remember this. It used to be on your dresser in the house in Connecticut.”

“My grandmother. The only picture I ever had of her.” He turned it over. Penciled faintly, Clara Owen, 1910, Milo.

“Your grandmother’s name was Clara?”

“Clara Johnson, until she married my grandfather.”

It only occurred to him then, that their easy conversation was odd. He could not see her, yet he knew she was there. He had always felt comfortable talking with his grandmother. He knew she was watching him, she could see him. He drew a hinged, wooden, double picture frame from the envelope and opened the two halves.

“Oh, Gran!” Will Owen, in his army uniform, but not the picture in the book, looked out at him from one of the frames. The other picture showed a small, dark-haired young woman in a modest wedding dress, high lace collar, veil falling past her shoulders from the back of her head. She faced slightly away from the camera with her head inclined toward it. Neither figure smiled. Both gazed seriously at the camera.

“Our wedding day,” a voice he had never heard spoke softly. “July 3^rd. Exactly one year after the fight on Little Round Top. He went back to the war the next day.”

“Clara?” He felt awed.

“Yes. There’s more in the envelope.”

He withdrew a bundle of letters tied with a faded ribbon. Each envelope was small, scarcely larger than a playing card, most contained a single sheet. Clara M. Johnson, Foxcroft, Piscataquis County, Maine; then, to Clara M. Owen, Milo.

“I have never seen these.” he stammered, bewildered.

Clara’s voice responded, “No. You never looked. No one did.”

28/02/2024 - 1535 words