“Whatcha looking for? Did you drop something?” Catherine said as she saw me looking around my feet on the rug under them.

“It’s just a ring that fell off my finger. I think it’s the wedding ring your mother gave me. I found it among some odds and ends unearthed during my last move. My finger must have shrunk since I wore it last, so it fell off my finger onto the floor. I found it there. It’s 14K gold. It should be worth something,” I replied.

“Let me see it,” she said and I handed it to her. She gave the ring a thorough inspection and said, “There is an inscription on the inner surface of the ring. It says ‘love’, then there’s a blank space and then something else I can’t read.”

“That won’t affect the value of the gold,” I said.

“I want it,” she said before we could discuss the matter any further. 

“It’s yours,” I said, thinking that she had a better “odds and ends” place than I could come up with. She might even have a special place to keep special treasures.

“What happened to the inscription?” she said.

“Now that’s a sad story, I said. “A bunch of young bucks, mostly a little younger than I, signed up to play in a Church softball league. They convinced me to join them. ‘It would be fun, you know.’ I had played in a softball game only a few random times before, in friendly games of course.

The games were scheduled once or twice a week after work. In our first game I learned that these were not your typical friendly games. My first time at bat had me wondering how in the world a guy could get so much speed on a ball pitched underhanded. Needless to say I struck out a lot. My work at fielding the ball bore similar results, never mind that I didn’t have a glove. It got so that I hoped for rain before game time.”

“Why did you keep on playing the game if you didn’t like it?” she said.

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess to quit would have been more embarrassing than bad play. I thought I had improved slightly and was really getting into the game, but maybe not. I was playing in the infield, the batter hit the ball at me, I almost caught the ball but it hit my finger and bent it toward the back of my hand. The offended finger was the one wearing the ring that should have been removed before the game started, but you live and learn.”

“I’ll bet that hurt.”

“I’ll bet you’re right! But I put the pain out of mind and went on with the game until the end. It wasn’t until maybe 2:00AM that the injured finger started to really bother me. That’s when the throbbing pain woke me. The knuckle had swollen so that the ring couldn’t be removed. Well, it had to be removed which meant cutting the ring to open a way out. I found a triangular file and sawed though the ring, gold dust flying. The inscription didn’t survive the cut. At any rate I was able to get it off my finger and allow the knuckle to swell unrestricted. It took several days for the knuckle to return to almost normal size. Many months later it looked as if I could wear the ring again so I brought it out of hiding and took it to a jeweler who repaired it, sans inscription.”

“I’m glad you got it repaired and continued to wear it”, she said, “What happened to your softball games after that?”

“Of that I have no recollection,” I said.

I supposed that Catherine had found a good place for her new treasure, and was about to ask her about it, but that turned out to be unnecessary when I discovered the ring on her middle finger.