Laurence rummaged through his desk. Pencils, pens … that little figurine of Mega Man was pretty tiny, move that to the top of the list. He started a pile, and rummaged through drawers and boxes and closet shelves, trying not to wake Isobel. And then, all at once, he knew.

“Oh no,” he said aloud. “Not that. No no no. Fuck. Fuck no.” He couldn’t breathe. Like an asthma attack, or something. All of the joy he’d felt earlier slipped away as if it had never been there, and he felt instead like he’d been kicked in the solar plexus with a sharp steel toe.

He stayed up most of the rest of the night, searching and searching. But he never found anything that counted as a real possession and was smaller than his grandmother’s ring.

He brought it to Patricia the next morning, eyes sore from lack of sleep. “This is the only thing I have of my grandmother’s,” he told her. “She gave it to me when she was dying.”

“I’m sorry,” Patricia said. She stood in the doorway of her apartment building, in a bathrobe. Maybe he’d woken her, but he doubted it.

“She said it was her mother’s, and she wanted to pass it down to a granddaughter, but I was her only grandchild,” Laurence said. “She wanted me to give it to whoever I married, and then to our daughter, if we had one.”

“I’m really sorry,” Patricia said.

“I was going to give it to Serafina,” Laurence said. “As an engagement ring. I promised my grandma I would give it to my bride.”

Patricia didn’t say anything, just stared in her purple robe. Her hair was a pile of tangles.

“I really have to give it to you? We can’t just call it quits?”

“You really have to. Or your friend might get sucked back into that place. Or you might, instead.” When she put it like that, the ring was a pretty small price to pay.

“You knew it was going to be this.” He handed it to her, still in its tiny, tiny velvet box. Actually, with the box, it was almost bigger than a toy car he owned. But not quite.

“I knew it would be something like this.” Patricia put the ring into the pocket of her robe, where it barely made a lump. “Or the spell wouldn’t have worked.”

“Why couldn’t it just be something like, I have to stand on one foot for an hour? Why does it have to be my most valued possession, and the linchpin of my courting strategy? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Do you want to come in and have some toaster waffles?” Patricia stepped back and held the door open. “I can’t talk about this out here, in the open.”

The toaster waffles failed to materialize, but instead she had locally made organic Pop-Tarts, which were probably better. They sat on the gray lumpy sofa, where Deedee and the other roommate had been watching Jersey Shore every other time Laurence had been there. Patricia kept glancing over toward the hallway for any signs they were stirring or listening in to this conversation.