said to her, �That's all for me. I'll be back here watching you if you need me.� Then he walked in to his office and closed the door.
Harriet's hand brushed against her pocket as she reached up to put a coin in the dryer, and all her thoughts of the ring came flooding back. That ring! What was it doing there? Wouldn't someone have come back by now in search of it? Now that she thought about it, maybe the man didn't even want it anymore. Maybe his wife had mistreated him, and he was gone for good. He had had it; he took off his ring, and walked out the door, and that was that. Harriet pictured what he might look like. A man so daring, so sure of himself, must be good-looking. Not to say her husband wasn't attractive, of course; he was, for his own part. Though she could never help thinking, while they made love, Harriet wrapping her arms tightly around his solid body, that his shoulder blades poked out a little too far, reminding her of a bat.
The man with the ring, or, rather, without the ring, was perfectly proportioned. His hair was soft and majestic, not cut short and ruff. And he had a steady job � a normal job. An accountant maybe. A number cruncher. A nine-to-five-then-you-come-home-and-play-baseball-with-your-son job. Or maybe no son. Just a lover. Together they would travel to who-knows-where and see great things. They would go out to eat at fancy restaurants, and he would order for her � only after asking what she wanted of course � and he would do it in Italian. Then they would go home, not her home or his, but theirs, somewhere on the beach, and they would make love all night long, lying there for hours in bed holding each other close looking into each others eyes, speaking without saying a word. He would know how to please her � breakfast in bed, massages, and taking out the garbage before it became a mess. He would know her favorite color (�No, it's blue, Joe�), he would make it home for supper (�Sorry, hun, it went into overtime�), and if he didn't, he would bring her a card and some flowers (�I hate Daisies�). They
had purchased the week before.
would be happily married. Or maybe not. Maybe they would leave metal out of it this time. Just unadulterated love for the rest of their lives.
Harriet wasn't completely against the idea of marriage, of a wedding. There was something romantic about it all, something spiritual and bigger than this world. Their priest had told them it was God who held Joe and her together. Like a rope, He would bind them close and tight. But Harriet didn't much like the metaphor. It was too restrictive for her. Too claustrophobic. She liked to think of it as an umbilical cord � supplying them with the love they needed � a direct line. And they would submerge themselves in the warmth and safety of His Lifeblood, feeding and living off it. But that wasn't always it either. Sometimes the love inside her was like a terrible storm, powerful and violent. It would well up inside her until it found some way to escape. It was that love that she encountered on their honeymoon, and even for the first year or two of their marriage. Like the pressure in a rocket, the enormity of God and His Love packed into such a tiny, finite space, it would come exploding out with awesome force, spilling over both of them, as they rocked together in unison, throbbing, beating as one pulse. One being. One Love. It was that love that Harriet missed.
Joe still insisted that they went to church, so they did. He drug them every week to mass because, he said, they needed it. Needed God and the church in their lives. He said things felt distant to him now, like they were worlds apart. He said he wanted to fight for them and their marriage. Harriet hadn�t known they were in the midst of a war, and she wondered who it was he would be fighting. Nevertheless, she couldn�t have