Love Is Gone, So Am I novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Merriam Stone
At their seventh anniversary dinner Davis asks Willa to give his family's heirloom ring to his first love; she refuses, walks out, drives north and sells it, and the old jeweler says she made that ring for herself.
On our seventh anniversary, my husband asked me to take off my ring so he could give it to his first love.
He asked nicely.
We were in the private dining room at Merriam House, his family's hotel.
The white peonies on the table were mine. I did every flower in that hotel. Seven years of arches and bouquets and centerpieces.
Nobody ever put my name on a single one.
Davis's mother sat at the head of the table in cream wool and pearls.
And across from me sat a blonde woman in a red silk dress I had never seen before.
"Willa, this is Vanessa Sedgwick," Celia said. "Davis's oldest friend. She's just back from London."
"Friend," Vanessa said, and laughed. "That's sweet."
"Vanessa is the new face of Merriam House," Celia said. "She'll run events for the relaunch."
I looked at Davis.
He was looking at his soup.
I'd been planning that relaunch since January.
"Happy anniversary," I said to him.
"Happy anniversary, Willa." He put his hand over mine on the tablecloth.
His thumb found my ring and turned it.
The Merriam stone. An old diamond in a yellow-gold band, the size of a fat raindrop.
He'd told me on one knee that it went to every Merriam bride.
"Actually," he said, "there's something we need to ask you."
Davis took a small velvet box from his jacket and set it beside my bread plate.
He opened it.
Inside was my ring.
Except my ring was on my finger.
"It's lab-grown," Davis said. "Nobody can tell the difference. I had it made from photos."
"Why would I need a copy of my own ring?"
Celia set down her spoon.
"Because the stone goes to the Merriam bride, dear. It always has."
"I'm the Merriam bride."
"You were a lovely placeholder," Celia said.
Vanessa held out her left hand across the peonies.
Her nails were red. Her fingers were bare.
"It'll need sizing," she said. "Your hands are bigger than mine."
I looked at Davis.
I waited for him to laugh, or stand up, or say his mother's name in that warning voice he used on waiters.
"It's just for the relaunch photos," he said. "Mother thinks it reads better. Be practical, Willa."
"Practical."
"It's just a ring."
"Then let her wear the copy."
Celia smiled at me.
"Take it off, please. Don't make Davis ask twice in front of the staff."
I picked up the velvet box.
I took the copy out of it.
Then I dropped it into Celia's vichyssoise.
It made a small, thick plop.
"No," I said.
I stood up.
"Willa, sit down," Davis said.
"I've been sitting down for seven years."
I walked out of the dining room with my real ring still on my hand.
Davis caught up with me in the lobby, under the chandelier I'd dressed in white roses for every June wedding since I was twenty-four.
"You're making a scene."
"You made it. I'm just leaving it."
"Where are you even going to go?" He kept his voice low so the guests wouldn't hear. "The apartment is ours. The car is ours. Everything you have is ours."
"The car is mine. I bought it before I met you."
He laughed. "That Subaru?"
"That Subaru."
I took my hotel badge out of my purse and put it in his hand.
Then my apartment key.
I kept the ring.
He'd given it to me in front of two hundred people and called it mine.
"You'll be back by Monday," he said.
I walked out the revolving door and didn't look back to see if he believed it.
I drove north all night with the radio off.
I didn't decide where I was going.
My hands decided at a gas station in the dark, when I saw the sign for Lake Champlain. Gram used to take me there every summer.
Tenney Landing was exactly where I left it.
One main street running downhill to the ferry dock.
The lake was silver and the sun was just coming up over it.
Across the street was a little shop with a faded striped awning. The windows were papered over.
Somebody had painted three words on the awning a long time ago, and they were almost gone.
A New Chapter.
Next door, a man in a mustard sweater was unlocking a jewelry store.
The gold letters on the glass said Tibbetts Jewelers, Since 1931. Underneath, smaller: Avis Tibbetts, Proprietor.
I got out of the car.
He watched me come across the street with his arms folded.
"We open at nine," he said.
"It's eight fifty-six."
"Then you're early."
"I want to sell a ring."
He looked at my left hand. Then at my face, which I hadn't washed since Boston.
"We sell rings," he said. "We don't buy them back from crying women at dawn. It never goes well."
"I'm not crying."
"You were in the car."
"Gus." A voice came from the back of the shop. "Let her in. It's cold."
He stepped aside.
An old woman sat behind the counter on a high stool, white hair cut short, reading glasses pushed up on her head.
I twisted the ring off my finger.
It came hard, the way it always had.
I set it on the velvet pad in front of her.
She didn't pick it up right away.
She just looked at it.
Then she took the loupe from her cardigan pocket and turned the band toward the light, slowly, until the inside of it showed.
The old woman's hand started to shake.
"Gram?" Gus said. "Gram, what is it?"
She set the loupe down very carefully.
"Where did you get this?"
"My husband. His name is Davis Merriam."
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them, she was looking straight at me.
"I made this ring," she said. "Fifty-eight years ago. For me."
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