Playing With Matches

I’ve been happily starring at my diamond ring all day. 

I went to get my eyes checked this afternoon. The doctor says I have 20/15 vision. I’ve worn glasses for years — but somehow, he says, my vision has improved so much that I don’t need them anymore.

Can that happen? I asked. Am I a super hero?

Maybe it’s the ring. Didn’t the ring in Lord of the Rings improve vision? I texted my friend Sue.

Yes, Bilbo, she texted.

It gets prettier every time I look at it, I texted.

Soon you’ll rule the world, she wrote.

(Weirdly, my brother wanted to inscribe his wedding band with, “One ring to rule them all.”)

I stopped at the jewelry store on my way home from the eye doctor and asked the jeweler to look at the ring. 

He said the stone was cut before 1900, and then re-cut at the turn of the century (right when Great Grandma got married). It’s a little over a carat. And the side diamonds are so sparkly because they’re single-cut.

“They don’t make those anymore,” he said. “It’s a good stone.”

I felt like I was on Antiques Roadshow.

I love this ring. I think maybe I wanted a diamond ring more than I wanted a husband. 

“Now you can marry for love,” Mom said. “Unless, maybe, he has a 5-carat stone.”