“I barely slept last night,” he continued. “I kept thinking about what Mom would have wanted. I kept imagining our wedding, my sister sitting at home refusing to come, and the possibility that I would lose another part of my family.”
He rubbed his eyes.
“Then I thought about you. I thought about how happy you were when I proposed. I knew that taking the ring back would hurt you, but I convinced myself that I could explain it later. I thought you would understand once I told you the truth.”
I stared at him.
“You thought I would understand?”
He nodded miserably.
“I was wrong.”
For the first time since entering the café, I had no immediate response.
The woman I had seen taking my ring was not his lover.
She was his sister, a woman grieving the loss of their mother in a way I had never fully understood.
