Stories I Don't Want to Tell

Last month I did something that I regretted almost immediately: I sold my parents' wedding ring to a pawn shop. I found myself in the position of suddenly needing money -- faster than I could access it from another account -- and I took in some scrap gold I had. I grabbed the ring at the last minute. An hour after I got home, I called to see if I could come in and buy it back. The clerk told me I would have to wait until it was put out to sell; I would then be able to buy it back at whatever price the store had set. I felt really bad; at first, I didn't think I cared. The ring itself is nothing special, but it has an inscription, my parents' wedding date.

Today I went back to the shop, hoping it hadn't been sold or sent to another branch store. I found it, and while we were there (my son had gone with me), we found an electronic guitar. It didn't work with the power cord the store had, but the clerk assured me he had played it recently and it worked just fine. I said that if he dropped the price -- a lot -- we could take it off his hands and we'd be the ones rolling the dice. My oldest son had one just like it in the late eighties or early nineties, so it struck a chord (so to speak) with us. He looked up what he had paid for it (I'm guessing that was probably ten or fifteen bucks, maybe less) and said the lowest he could go was twenty-five. I said I'd give him twenty. He agreed. We bought batteries on the way home, and the guitar worked just fine. And, by the way, I got the ring back. I felt like the good deal on the guitar sort of offset the amount I had to pay to get the ring.

But that wasn't really the story I didn't want to tell, and someday I may tell it here. Now I don't feel like it. The wedding ring sparked a discussion with my son about my parents. I don't think my youngest son ever met my father, and he was asking about him. I told him a long story in a short time, and afterwards I was emotionally drained. He -- my son -- had never asked much before, so I hadn't said much. He listened with a compassionate ear. And I don't want to talk about it any more today.