The Wedding Ring Falls, Never to Be Picked Up

1: 1

I was dropping off a delivery at the Riverton complex when my wife called.

Babe, there's an old man who fell in unit 1502. Go help him, quick!

I took the stairs two at a time up to the fifteenth floor and found the apartment.

The old man was fine. Just a leg cramp.

I helped him over to the couch, and he looked at me, grateful.

Thank you. I don't get around well anymore. My son and his girlfriend are already on their way.

I smiled and asked to use the bathroom.

From outside the door came a man's and a woman's voices, both anxious.

Dad, are you okay?

The woman said to the man Babe, maybe we should take Dad to the hospital to get checked?

It hit me like a bolt through the chest. The woman's voice was exactly like my wife's.

I told myself I'd misheard, but when I opened the door, there was Susan Gilbert, arm in arm with another man.

The second she saw I hadn't left, the panic washed over her.

Stanley Dickerson, why are you still here?

I gave a cold laugh. You called him babe. So what does that make me?

She started to explain. I didn't look back. I just walked out.

Three years together. I'd thought our love had passed the test of time.

The bet with my father, I'd lost it.

Time to let go.

Susan wouldn't let me leave, no matter what. She rushed over and grabbed me.

Babe, let me explain. Bryce Walker and I were only pretending to be married. Nothing happened between us, I swear!

I shook her hand off and looked at her, cold.

A fake married couple. What a clean, pretty way to dress up an affair.

I noticed the ring on Bryce's finger and let out a bitter laugh.

You even put on rings. Same style as the one I've got on, no less.

Bryce's face went awkward, and he quickly hid his hand behind his back.

Stanley, Susan and I really are innocent.

I've got cold feet about marriage. No confidence in it. So I asked her to play my wife for a while, to help me build up some confidence!

That's right, son. There's really nothing going on between them.

All those times my son brought your wife over, they just had a meal with me and kept me company!

Your wife can cook, and she keeps a house spotless too. You'd better hold on to her!

The old man's words were like red-hot needles, driven one after another straight into my heart.

So every night Susan didn't come home, she'd been at this old man's place, doing his laundry and cooking his meals.

So it turned out she could do housework after all.

I looked down at the wedding ring on my hand. It felt heavy, heavy enough to crush the air out of me.

I slid it off and dropped it on the floor, light as nothing.

Susan couldn't believe it. Her eyes went wide.

Stanley, what is this supposed to mean? Are you trying to humiliate me?

Humiliate you? Where were you when I was out delivering food in the wind and rain?

Where were you when I was sick and running a fever and needed someone to take care of me?

I'd finish work, cook dinner, and wait for you to come home. I'd call your phone and it was switched off. Where were you then?

The string of questions left Susan with nothing to say.

I raised the action camera in my hand and said in a low voice:

This thing's been recording from the second I walked in. I meant it to keep me from getting blamed for something. Now it's proof that you cheated!

You say you and Bryce are innocent? Fine. I'll copy this footage and play it right outside your shop, and we'll see what the neighbors have to say!

I turned to go, and her voice cracked into tears.

Stanley, you'd ruin my good name?

When she saw it wasn't moving me, she turned straight to Bryce.

Don't let him leave. Grab that camera out of his hand!

2: 2

I never expected that pretty-boy to actually take a swing at me, and to be that good with his hands.

We fought, and I lost. He had me by the throat and slammed me down onto the ground.

I groaned in pain, and Susan crouched down over me, all tenderness, checking me over.

"Honey, are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

She used the moment to snatch up the camera and hand it to Bryce.

"Give me back that camera!"

I shoved her off and, fighting through the pain, glared hard at Bryce.

"Stanley, don't blame me for this. You're the one who insisted on blowing it up. Do it your way and you don't just ruin her, you take my career down with her."

Right in front of me, he pulled out the SD card and snapped it in two with his own hands.

The blood drained from my face. Evidence that important, and just like that it was gone.

Susan helped me up and reached out to wipe the sweat from my forehead.

"Honey, I didn't have a choice either. I'll explain everything properly once we're home. I'll cook for you myself, make you some chicken soup."

The old man jumped in too. "That's right! Young man, married folks fight and married folks make up. What's there that can't be talked through?"

"Your wife's chicken soup is really good. My son and I both love it."

I shot the old man a look and turned on my heel.

"That chicken soup, you keep it for yourselves!"

I left the Riverton complex and went home, my throat still tight, and I couldn't help dry-heaving.

After resting a while, I went back to the master bedroom and dug out the property deed.

The place Susan and I lived in was a detached house, Unit 12, Section A of Waterview Estates, worth ten million.

Three years ago, when Susan was still working at the property sales office, I fell for her at first sight.

But my father was dead set against the marriage. He was convinced Susan was after the Dickerson money.

We had a huge fight over it.

To prove that Susan and I truly loved each other, I hid who I was, didn't take a single cent of the Dickerson money, and quietly went and got our marriage license with her.

This house, I offhandedly said I'd won it on a lottery ticket.

Once he saw I'd already registered the marriage, my father had no choice but to make a deal with me: as long as Susan didn't cheat within three years, and kept a virtuous home, the Dickersons would accept her as a daughter-in-law.

And I, I couldn't work at any major company, and I couldn't make money off investments either.

I could only take on the dirty, backbreaking work to support us.

Call it my father's punishment.

I agreed.

I threw myself into the marriage, sure of it, and the result was a total defeat.

I'd made a joke of my whole life.

It wasn't until seven in the evening that Susan finally strolled back in.

The living room was pitch dark, thick with the sting of cigarette smoke.

She felt around in the dark and flicked on the light, and there I was, sitting on the couch in the corner, smoking one cigarette after another.

I'd lost count of how many I'd gone through; the ashtray was already heaped with butts.

Seeing the smoke that filled the living room, she frowned, came over, and pulled the cigarette out of my hand.

"How did you smoke this many? I remember you hardly ever smoke."

She wanted to lose her temper, but her voice went soft fast.

"Honey, are you still angry with me? Hiding it from you and playing fake husband and wife with someone else, that was wrong of me. But Bryce is different."

"He was hurt by the family he grew up in, that's why he's always been afraid of marriage. He's so young, so talented. If he let his whole future slip away over some psychological hang-up, that would be too sad."

"I just wanted to help him. To show him not every woman is like his mother, gambling herself into the ground, throwing family and blood aside."

Listening to her made me sick. I slammed my hand on the table and stood up.

"Susan, aren't you just a saint. Of all the women in the world, you couldn't help any of them, but you, a married woman, had to grovel to help him."

"I'm out there breaking my back to earn money, and behind me you're carrying on with another man!"

"You love helping so much, so if he told you to get on your knees for him, told you to sleep with him, you'd have said yes without a second thought too, is that it?"

3: 3

My outburst made her eyes redden in an instant.

"Stanley, how can you talk about your own wife like that? You're the one I love!"

"Bryce is just a lounge singer at a bar. Sure, he's good-looking and he can dance, but what part of him could ever measure up to you?"

"You've got a mansion worth millions. Why would I ever betray you?"

My breathing came heavier. What had I just heard?

Ever since we married, Susan had switched careers and become a real estate agent, renting a little office in the city.

I never asked about her business. Who she met, who she sold houses to, none of it was anything I knew.

But it had never once crossed my mind that she'd go to a place like a bar.

"So that's where you met that pretty boy. You told me you were busy with work every single day. Turns out you were busy chasing a thrill at some bar."

The more I said, the more worked up I got, but she just looked at me, calm, her voice without a ripple.

"Sweetheart, believe it or not, Bryce is a client of mine too. That secondhand place his father lives in, the one you went to today, I'm the one who sold it to him."

As she spoke, she pulled a ring from her pocket and held it out to me.

"I brought the wedding ring back. I've explained everything. If you're still angry, then go ahead and hit me."

She closed her eyes, and two tears slid down from the corners.

My face darkened and shifted, dark then uncertain.

After a struggle, I still took the ring from her hand, my tone easing just a little.

"You really never did anything to wrong me?"

She didn't answer. She only lifted her face and waited for my slap to land.

"Fine. I believe you, honey. I wronged you."

Her eyes opened, and at last a smile broke across her face as she threw herself into my arms.

"Thank you, sweetheart. You're so good to me."

"I promise you, from now on I won't see Bryce again. I won't play his fake wife anymore. I belong to you and you alone."

I nodded and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.

Dry wood to open flame, the two of us tangled together in the bedroom, and afterward, keeping her promise, she went to the kitchen and made chicken soup for me herself.

For the whole month after, Susan stopped throwing herself into work and took over every bit of the housework at home.

Not only did she cook every day with her own hands, she kept the house in perfect order.

Her gentleness pulled me all the way out of the bad feeling from before.

Three years married, and she and I had always used protection.

With the deadline my father had set drawing close, I decided to come clean and ask her for a child.

But I'd just gotten home from work, and I was about to open my mouth, when Bryce showed up at the door on his own.

He carried a basket of fresh fruit, and cradled in his hands were white carnations, which he held out to Susan the moment he walked in.

"What are you doing here?"

I braced like a man facing an enemy and frowned at him.

"Stanley, I came to apologize for what happened last time."

"Because of me, you and your wife had a falling out, and you even ended up throwing punches."

"I really couldn't let it sit, so I picked today to come by in person and ask for your forgiveness."

My face stayed cold. A weasel wishing the chickens a happy new year is up to no good.

"I get it. I'm not holding it against you anymore. Leave the stuff and you can go."

But my wife wasn't having it.

"Sweetheart, Bryce came all this way, and you won't even let him have a cup of tea before you send him off? That means you still won't forgive him in your heart. How's he supposed to feel settled going home like that?"

"Then what do you want?"

"He's already here. Let Bryce stay and have dinner with us, let everyone get to know each other again."

"We're out of beer at home. Go buy a couple of cases and we'll drink together."

And with that, the two of them looked at me at the same time.

4: 4

I stared at the two of them for a long moment, hesitated again and again, and in the end I still nodded.

"Fine, I'll go buy it."

By the time I got back with the liquor, the table was already set with a spread of good dishes.

Bryce came over grinning to carry in the bottles, the happiness on his face impossible to hide.

We were supposed to be drinking hard and having a good time, but the whole meal tasted like nothing to me.

Every time I lifted a bottle to my mouth, out of the corner of my eye I could plainly see Susan and Bryce trading looks on the sly.

Only when she noticed my face darken did she finally start putting food on my plate.

Besides the few dishes I liked, the table also held braised eggplant and scrambled eggs and tomatoes, two things I didn't like.

No need to guess. Those were made for Bryce.

After dinner, Bryce used digesting his food as an excuse and lingered in the living room, watching TV with Susan, refusing to leave.

I sat alone at the table, drinking to drown it out.

I can't hold my liquor, but tonight, of all nights, I put away fifteen Heinekens in a row.

My head went hazy, and before I knew it I'd fallen asleep right there at the table.

When I woke, my head was splitting and my stomach churned like it was on fire.

I couldn't even manage to throw up. My eyes went to the living room on instinct, and both of them were gone.

That cleared my head fast.

"Baby, where are you?"

"Susan, where are you?"

No one answered. I stumbled into the living room, then back to the bedroom to check, and she was nowhere.

When I saw the clock hand pointing to two in the morning, my breath caught and my head throbbed like it was being torn apart.

I pulled out my phone and called Susan again, and again it said the phone was off.

I dropped back onto the couch and gripped my hair with both hands.

This late, where in the world could she be?

I didn't want to keep thinking about it, and I had no idea where to even look for her.

The whole night I couldn't sleep at all, and at dawn a message from Susan suddenly came through.

I opened it. It was a photo taken in bed, Susan sound asleep with her arm around a man's shoulder.

The person who sent it was Bryce.

The phone clattered to the floor.

I'd waited the whole night, and this was what I got?

I should have seen it coming. I'd just forced myself not to think about the worst.

She'd lied after all.

I was surprisingly calm. No roaring, no smashing things.

I picked the phone back up. The photo had already been deleted in a second.

Was this her getting a thrill out of me, betting I hadn't woken up to see it?

But in that gamble, everyone lost.

At seven in the morning, I contacted the real estate company and sold this ten-million mansion off cheap, no questions asked.

From the buyer sending people over, to inspecting the house, signing the contract, and handling all the paperwork, the whole thing took less than two hours.

The moment the door of Unit 12 in Section A was sealed with a notice, I wheeled my suitcase out, ready to leave Waterview Estates.

Outside the courtyard, Susan came back in a taxi.

She saw the seal on the door at once, and her voice trembled.

"What on earth happened? How did our mansion end up like this?"

"Honey, where are you going?"

She grabbed hold of me, her face awful, more lost than I had ever seen her.

"I sold the mansion. Let's get divorced!"

As I said it, I threw a set of divorce papers into her hands.

Outside the courtyard, the Rolls-Royce the butler had driven over was already waiting.