The ring was
given to me by my grandmother, a family heirloom. No one knew how old
it was. It had been in the family longer than anyone could remember;
my grandmother’s grandmother had given it to her and she’d
received it from her grandmother.
It was old.
Unspeakably so.
Family rumour
held that should the ring ever leave the family’s possession then
disaster would fall. The stories were vague on what manner of
disaster, but it would be a disaster nonetheless. Perhaps the loss of
the ring would result in a death, or the ruination of the family
fortune.
My task then was
to act as the ring’s custodian, to ensure its safekeeping. Easy
enough, or so I thought.
I had not
reckoned on the ring having a mind of its own.
The ring was too
small for my finger, so I usually wore it on a chain around my neck,
assuming it would be safest next to my skin. I would frequently find
that it had somehow slipped its chain, or that the chain itself had
come undone. The discovery would be followed by a frantic search for
my prized possession, lest I disappoint the entire family with my
carelessness. More often or not the ring would turn up within a few
hours, in my bed or the sink or in a pile of papers I’d been
looking at.
I was thankful
that it never seemed to go far.
Once the ring
went missing for an entire week, during which time I lost my job, my
father passed away and my long term girlfriend left me for another
woman. When I finally found it (down the back of the sofa) I nearly
sobbed with relief.
I made sure to
keep a much closer eye on it from then on.
But still it
would occasionally escape from me.
After the death
of my father my mother broke her silence concerning the ring. She
spoke of how grateful she was that she had been skipped over as
custodian (the ring was always passed down grandmother to
granddaughter and our family always bore daughters) and told some
stories of her own mother’s trials in keeping the ring.
It seemed that
that was part of whatever deal had been made in the mists of time
immemorial; our family would prosper so long as we could keep hold of
the ring, but the ring itself would not make that task easy. My
mother believed that a spirit had somehow been trapped within the
simple gold band and that’s what gave the ring a life of it’s
own.
When my mother
passed I misplaced the ring for a whole year during which I almost
died of meningitis. My daughter found and returned it to me. She
nursed me back to health.
Truly the day I
adopted her was the best of my life.
One day I would
pass the ring to the daughter she would undoubtedly have and our
family would continue to flourish.
