“Are you sure that’s your ring?” she asks Shannon. “Could it be . . . a similar ring?”
Shannon looks at her in surprise. Izzy pulls an apologetic face, cupcake pouched in one cheek.
“Sorry. We have a bet,” she explains, swallowing. “If it’s your ring, I lose.”
“Ah. Well, sorry,” Shannon says. She spreads her hands. “But if it’s any consolation, every loss can be a win, right?”
Izzy absorbs this, then turns to me.
“Can I have a word?” she asks, tugging me into the corner by the drinks trolley. “She hasn’t proven it’s hers,” she whispers.
“This is very undignified, Izzy,” I say, enjoying myself immensely. “Perhaps you should learn to lose with grace.”
“She could have just ordered the same ring from the same jeweller!”
“And stayed at the hotel at the same time as someone else with that ring, who also lost it?”
“Yes!”
I fold my arms and look down at her. Her hair is mussed beneath her ridiculous hat, and for a moment, her relentless competitiveness doesn’t seem irritating—it seems charming. She just cares so much.
Then her shoulders sag. “Shit,” she says.
She looks genuinely gutted. I look away. Winning doesn’t feel quite as good as I thought it would.
“Today is about fresh starts,” Shannon says as we return to her side. “Wiping that slate clean. If that means anything to you two, you’re welcome to stay for the party.”
I check the time on the clock above the kitchen door. We should be getting back. Ollie is on his own at the desk, and technically our work here is done.
“We should go,” Izzy and I say to each other in unison.
There is a pause. And then I find myself saying, “Perhaps we could stay for a short while. An hour or so.”
Izzy stares at me, mouth slightly open. I feel a small flash of triumph at having surprised her.
“You want to stay at the party?”
“We can leave if you would prefer,” I say as Shannon puts the finishing touches on her cake.
“No. I want to stay. Ollie’s expecting to cover the whole day anyway,” Izzy says, and then stands on tiptoe to plonk a hat on my head. “I need cheering up. And I’m pretty sure anyone we work with would say that you and I could do with a fresh start.”
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
I now see why Shannon was so keen to get the ring back today. We are gathered around a man wearing goggles and heavy-duty gloves, setting up mysterious pieces of equipment on the floor of Shannon’s living room. In the centre is a large slab, on which rests the wedding ring.
“Shannon, if you would like to say a few words first,” the man says, gesturing for her to take his spot.
“Thank you,” she says, stepping forward in a pair of Perspex goggles. “We are gathered here today to celebrate a union, not of two people but of a whole community.” She smiles. “You have all been here for me for every step of the last five miserable years. You are the ones who told me that it’s not failing to give up on a love that isn’t healthy—because that’s not love. Without you all, I wouldn’t be standing here today.”
Everyone claps. A small, curly-haired woman beside me wipes away a tear with the back of her hand. There are couples here, too, and they seem just as moved as everybody else.
What a strange event. I don’t know how I feel about this. I want to believe that marriage is forever. When I choose to marry, that’s what it’ll be.
But there is something undeniably special about this, too, and as I glance at Izzy, I see how completely this has captured her. By nature, she is much more open-minded than I am. Usually that tendency strikes me as over-idealistic, but right now I feel a little envious of the way she meets new things.
I look back at Shannon and try to see her the way Izzy would: without judgement. I try to imagine what that ring means to Shannon now, and I can see that there is something beautiful in what she’s saying. We are all misled and misdirected from time to time. Perhaps there really is no shame in that, as long as we wake up to it before it’s too late to change.
“Today, I want to let go of the past,” Shannon announces. “I want to always remember the fact that if you burn a diamond . . . it only gets tougher.”
With that, she kneels and blasts the blowtorch at the wedding ring resting on the slab.
The gold melts fast—faster than I would have expected. With some careful support from the man in the goggles, Shannon splits the ring down into a heap of diamonds and a small ball of gold.