The Wedding Ring

The Wedding Ring

by

Gillian Murray Kendall

#ReedsyMagic

Douglas Hampton taps his wedding ring against the steering wheel. Almost home. Tap tap tap. Off the freeway. Tap tap tap.

It's bitter cold, but he's warm in the car. Comfortable. Secure. He takes exit 25, enters the round-about, swings off onto Conz street and makes his way to the high school, where he picks up Nonotuck street.

Tap tap tap.

A good day, he thinks. It’s been a good day. Four dogs placed, plus, on the passenger’s seat, sits Lancelot, Doug’s favorite, coming home from the Dakin no-kill animal shelter to be fostered for a while. Lancelot is a good smart mutt. He isn’t a golden retriever or lab or terrier or little yapper that fits in a purse—he is something else entirely, something eccentric, a look all his own. He is large and noble and sad. Douglas sees this. He can’t adopt another dog, it’s just too much, but he and his wife can foster one for a while, and so there Lancelot sits, his tongue lolling out and a doggy smile on his face. He has spread his great bulk all over the front seat as he curls up to sleep. Now he sighs a big doggy sigh, and Doug wonders what Lancelot is dreaming.

Tap tap tap.

The wedding ring is Douglas’ only piece of jewelry, and he’s still a little self-conscious about it. He and Marian got married just a month ago. It’s different being married, but marriage agrees with Doug. He used to think a lot about his dead-end job as an assistant caretaker in the Dakin no-kill shelter for dogs and cats, but now nothing feels dead-end. Everything seems new and bright and filled with potential—and part of it is Marian’s doing; she takes him seriously in a way that nobody else ever has. She listens to him.

Tap.

Doug takes a right onto Spring Street, past the Elks Club, and a left at the fork. Lancelot stirs.

“Good dog,” says Doug. Lancelot begins unfolding himself and makes as if to stand. Meanwhile, Doug bears left and onto the bottom of Chesterfield Road.

“Sit,” says Doug. “Sit and Stay.” Lancelot stands, tamps the seat a few times, turns in a circle and then sits.

“Good dog,” says Doug. He’s the one who taught Lancelot some basic commands. Doug knows that all dogs like a few rules, and he doesn’t want Lancelot standing up in the car and distracting him—so the current rule is ‘sit.’.

Chesterfield Road can be a little tricky. During the day, cyclists take the long hill fast, sometimes dangerously fast, sometimes recklessly so. At night, the occasional truck finds itself on Chesterfield Road and careens down, the driver blaring the horn to get the occasional deer out of the way.

Doug is going up Chesterfield Road, not down, but it’s a good place to drive defensively. He stays a little below the limit. He starts humming a song.

She’ll be coming ‘round the mountain when she comes.

Doug doesn’t know how the song got into his head, probably something about Chesterfield Road put it there, but whatever the reason, he can’t get rid of it. An ear worm.

She’ll be coming ‘round the mountain when she comes.

Tap tap tap.

Doug sighs. Lancelot heaves a great big doggy sigh with him. They’ll be home soon. Marian will be waiting for him. Then Lancelot stands up. He presses his nose against the side window, as if asking Doug to unroll it so he can stick his head out. He thwacks his happy tail.

And Doug forgets to say ‘sit.’ In front of him he sees the landmark blind driveway that marks one of the tightest curves on the road. At the end of that driveway, sticking a little bit into the road, there’s a car stopped with the front door open. Doug automatically moves his car a little more to the right, and at the same time, Lancelot’s tail catches him full in the face. He almost loses control, and the car wriggles into the left lane.

Several things happen at once. And they happen fast.

Doug says ‘sit’ and unceremoniously pushes Lancelot’s rump down. The car continues to drift left; they are well over the center line. Doug over-corrects. His headlights scatter over the car in the driveway, and now Doug sees a woman standing by the mailbox there, as if she had gotten out of the car to get her mail. She lifts her head and looks out at Chesterfield Road, and it seems to Doug that she’s looking directly at him. That she’s seeing into him.

Lancelot gets up again.

This time, Douglas Hampton doesn’t notice Lancelot. He wrestles the car back into the right lane until he has it under control. But a moment later, the car gives a skid, and its rear-end goes to the right. Black ice.

Doug remembers to steer into the skid, but, as he does, he encounters more black ice, and a moment later the car is spinning across Chesterfield Road; He’s going to hit the woman by the mailbox, a woman who is guilty only of wondering if, perhaps, she got any mail today. He can’t allow the car to hit her. If it hits her, she will die. Douglas Hampton knows this. As his car spins, Doug catches a glimpse of her in the flailing light of the headlights; and he sees the woman know what’s going to happen to her. She puts her hands to her mouth in an expression of horror. She has no time to move, no place to go.

Doug’s car plows into the car in the blind driveway and then flips sideways, taking down the mailbox.

The loud sick noise of metal colliding with metal. The small slap of metal connecting with flesh. The airbags deploy. A gout of flame in the night.

Douglas untangles himself from his seatbelt. He fights the airbag and tries to kick the door open, again and then again. He falls. After a while he feels Lancelot sniffing at him and then licking his face. Doug pushes Lancelot away and realizes he can use his arms and he can feel his legs. Relief floods him.

Lancelot whines and nudges at Douglas.

Douglas feels his body protesting now, and it feels good; it means he’s alive. His cheek is pressed against the cold ground, but that’s okay.

Then he thinks of the woman by the mailbox. He thinks of the way she put her hands to her mouth. He thinks—he thinks the image will never leave him; she will haunt him on his death bed.

She put her hands to her mouth. She knew he was coming.

Doug never prays. Never. But now he whispers into the darkness a kind of prayer—that the woman will be all right. That his life can be what it was before this moment. That what’s done can be undone. And then he knows what to do. With his right hand, he reaches over and touches his wedding ring. It’s the only magic thing he has.