Chapter 10 - The Ringless Hand
Three years later.
The spring thaw had finally reached the coast of Maine, turning the pine forests a brilliant, vibrant green and filling the air with the sharp, clean scent of damp earth and blooming wildflowers.
In the village square of the small coastal town three miles down the road from the Victorian house, the Saturday farmers market was in full swing. Stalls piled high with fresh strawberries, artisanal cheeses, and homemade bread lined the cobblestone square, laughter and music drifting on the salt-scented breeze.
Lucia walked down the sunlit sidewalk, holding the hand of a three-year-old girl with dark curls and hazel eyes that missed absolutely nothing.
Sophia was wearing a bright yellow cotton dress, skipping along beside her mother and chattering happily about a wooden sailboat they had seen in the window of the toy shop down the lane.
“Mommy, can we get the red boat? The one with the white sails?” Sophia asked, looking up with her father’s intense, searching gaze.
“We’ll see, sweetheart,” Lucia smiled, squeezing the small hand in hers. “Let’s get the strawberries first.”
They stopped at a wooden stand piled high with bright red berries, the sweet aroma hanging heavy in the warm air.
As Lucia reached into her canvas tote bag for her wallet, her left hand caught the bright morning sunlight.
The ring finger was bare.
There was no gold band. No heavy diamond. No symbol of a contract signed in a Chicago office building six years ago.
For a brief, fleeting second, as a tall man in a dark trench coat walked past the edge of the square fifty yards away, Lucia paused.
The man stopped.
He didn't turn around. He stood beside a stone fountain, his broad shoulders squared against the spring wind, looking out toward the ocean as though he were searching for a ship that had sailed away long before he reached the shore.
Lucia didn't call out.
She didn't freeze.
She simply looked at him for one calm, measured heartbeat—the distance between them wide as an ocean, cold as winter, and final as a slammed door.
May you like
Then she turned back to her daughter, picked up a basket of fresh strawberries, and smiled.
“Come on, Sophia,” Lucia said, her voice clear and bright against the morning air. “Let’s go home.”
