My phone buzzed on the nightstand at 11:42 PM. It was a message from a number I didn’t recognize, and I almost didn’t open it because honestly, who calls that late? But I did. It was a short note from Sarah, Patricia’s daughter.

She was asking if I had any photos of her mother from the summer of 1979. She said she was trying to put together a memory book for the anniversary of her passing.

I sat there in the dark for a long time. My heart started thumping against my ribs. I knew exactly why she wanted photos from that specific year. It was the year Don proposed to Patricia. I thought about the ring sitting in my top dresser drawer, wrapped in a scrap of velvet, and I felt sick.

I didn’t answer her right away. I couldn’t. I just stared at the screen until it went black and reflected my own face back at me. I looked tired. I am tired. It has been a long eight months since we buried her.

Everything about this whole mess feels like a bad dream that just won’t end. I remember the day I walked into that pawnshop on Main Street. I wasn’t even looking for jewelry. I just went in there to see if they had any old cameras, because I like to tinker with things.

The place smelled like dust and old coins. The man behind the counter was busy polishing a watch. I was just browsing the glass cases when I saw it. A diamond solitaire on a thin, delicate gold band. It looked so familiar it made me dizzy.

I asked the clerk if I could see it. He fished it out with those little tweezers. I held it in my palm.

The light caught the diamond and it sparkled, but that wasn’t why my hands started shaking. I turned the band over.

There it was. The tiny engraving. “D.M. to P.R., June 1979.”

My breath caught in my throat. Those were Patricia’s initials. I knew them by heart. I had seen that ring a thousand times on her finger while we sat on her porch drinking iced tea and talking about everything under the sun.

I looked up at the clerk. “Where did this come from?”

He didn’t even look up from his work. “Came in a couple of weeks after the funeral. Fellow needed cash fast. Didn’t ask questions.”

I knew exactly who that fellow was. Don. Her husband. The man who had stood at her graveside just two weeks before, crying into a handkerchief while the rest of us tried to hold ourselves together.

I felt a heat rise up in my face. I didn’t say a word. I just pulled out my wallet and paid the three hundred dollars he wanted for it. I didn’t care about the money. I just knew that ring didn’t belong in a pawnshop glass case.