Lost Promises

Helen stared at the ring on her bedside table in shock. It was a large gold ring with an emerald in the center. On one side of the emerald, there was an emblem of the head of a ram, on the other side the year 1964 was embossed in onyx. Though it had clearly been battered since the last time she saw it, she recognized it right away. It was her boyfriend’s class ring, her most prized possession. She had not seen it in months.

She smiled as she remembered the night Bryce gave it to her. He had invited her over to meet his parents for the first time, a little late in their relationship in her opinion. She had been so nervous that night, she barely touched the rack of lamb Bryce’s mother had prepared. Afterwards, Bryce took her to the drive-ins to see The Sound of Music. There, as Maria and the Captain begin their first dance, Bryce gave Helen his class ring and asked her to marry him. She was over-the-moon. That was until he told her he was going to Vietnam. It was both the best and worst day of her life. 

Helen accepted Bryce’s proposal anyway of course. She did not mind waiting for him, though she knew would miss him desperately. She loved Bryce more than she ever thought she could love. He was everything to her, her perfect match, her soulmate. Bryce promised they would be married as soon as he came back. Then, they would move to the local base together and be a family. Helen often looked forward to this promised future as the days and months since his deployment went by.

When Helen had lost the ring during her recent move, she had been devastated. She begged her new roommates to help her find it, but none of them took her plight seriously. They told her it would turn up one of these days, she just had to stay calm and try to remember where she put it. Helen hated her roommates. They were always telling her to calm down, as if she were a child. She was not a child, she was a young woman about to marry the love of her life! She needed that ring, it was a symbol of Bryce’s promise to her. They just didn’t understand the power of love, they did not have a man as perfect as Bryce to sweep them off their feet and carry them into the sunset. In fact, they probably stole her ring out of jealousy.

Now that the ring had been magically, or shamefully, returned to her, Helen was overcome with joy. She decided she would have to write another letter to Bryce, this time to let him know that she had found their ring. They had been writing to each other almost daily since he left last year. Every morning she would rush downstairs to collect his letters, which were full of his promises and adventures. In her favorite letter, Bryce promised to build her an oak dining table big enough to fit all five of their future children at. She had read this letter so many times, the paper had become translucent where she held it. However, Bryce had not sent her a letter since she told him she had lost his ring. She wrote to him week after week, but he never responded. The pain she felt was unbearable, sometimes, she thought she would die from the ache in her heart. But now that pain would be gone forever. She would write to him, tell her she found the ring, and one day, when they were sitting around their big oak table,  they would laugh about this silly mishap.

Helen finished writing and quickly stuffed the letter into an envelope. Then she stopped. 

“What if he doesn’t open this letter?” she wondered. He was obviously angry with her for losing their ring, maybe he hadn’t been opening any of her letters. Maybe that is why he wasn’t writing back, he never read how sorry she was. Just for good measure, Helen wrote “I found the ring!” in big letters across the back of the envelope. Now he would open it for sure, she thought.

Helen walked downstairs to bring the precious envelope to the front desk of her apartment building. She liked the front desk woman, she was one of the only roommates that truly seemed to care about Helen’s feelings. 

“Marcy, I found the ring!” Helen announced as she neared the front desk.

“Oh how wonderful, Sweetie! I knew you would.” Marcy took the letter and placed it on a stack of letters beside her. “I’ll mail these out to Bryce first thing tomorrow morning, don’t you fret.”

“These?” thought Helen. She stared at Marcy confused. Helen looked at the stack of letters in front of her. She took the first off the stack and turned it around. 

“I found the ring!” it said. She grabbed the whole stack of letters and turned them each around. To her surprise, each letter said the same thing.

“I found the ring!”

“I found the ring!”

“I found the ring!”

Helen put the letters back on the desk. She turned around and walked back up the stairs to her apartment, not hearing Marcy calling after her. She went into her room, shutting the door behind her. She was confused. She did not remember writing any other letters to Bryce that day, she knew she hadn’t. She sat on her bed to catch her breath. That’s when she saw it sitting on her bedside table.

Helen stared at the ring on her bedside table in shock. It was a large gold ring with an emerald in the center. On one side of the emerald, there was an emblem of the head of a ram, on the other side the year 1964 was embossed in onyx. Though it had clearly been battered since the last time she saw it, she recognized it right away. It was her boyfriend’s class ring, her most prized possession. She had not seen it in months.