“Lendall.” Gayle looked up at Lendall for a long time. And finally asked, “Is this a ring?”

Lendall nodded in the affirmative.

“Yup.”

“Oh, no,” she croaked.

And Lendall got a little nervous. Why had she just said, “Oh, no”?

And then Lendall watched Gayle crumple into her Adirondack chair.

“Whoa—you okay?”

“Yeah. No. I don’t know,” said Gayle, staring at the box.

Which she then opened.

And when she did, she saw a small, simple, perfect diamond ring.

And she gasped.

And Lendall got less nervous.

Because her face looked like it liked what she was looking at.

But, as Gayle made sense of what was happening, she realized that what she was holding in her hand—wasn’t what she had come over to get. “But—wait—all the love I gave you—where is it?”

“It’s right there, Gayle,” said Lendall, pointing to the ring.

“But—”

“It’s right there.”

“But—” Gayle looked at the small ring and wondered how it could possibly have contained all the love she had given Lendall. “How could it all be … in here?”

“I don’t know. But it’s all in there. I mean, that’s not where it’s always been. I’ve been keepin’ some of it in the attic, and I had to put some in the shed, ‘cause you’ve given me so much of the stuff over the years.” And he wasn’t going to say how many years they had been together, because he didn’t want to make her feel bad for making him wait so long for her. But then he decided that maybe he did want to make her feel a little bad about how long she had made him wait for her, and added, “It’s been eleven years, you know.”

“I know,” conceded Gayle, quite aware of how long she had made Lendall wait.

“Yeah. Anyway—when you asked me what I thought about us gettin’ married a couple of weeks ago, well, there was more of it than ever comin’ in, and so I asked my dad if he had any suggestions what to do with it all, and he said, ‘You get her a ring yet?’ and I said, ‘No,’ and he said, ‘Get her one. It’s time. When there’s that much of that stuff comin’ in, that’s about the only place you can put it.’”

Lendall looked at the ring and added, “He said it’d all fit.” And then Lendall looked at Gayle and said, “And he was right.” Lendall looked at the ring again and said, “That thing is a lot bigger than it looks.”

“Yeah.” Gayle nodded, supposing that was true.

And then she and Lendall stared at the small, simple, perfect ring.

“So there it is,” said Lendall, still looking at the ring. “All the love you gave me. Just … not in the same form as when you gave it.” Lendall looked at Gayle, who was looking at the ring. And then he asked, “You still want it back?”

“I do.”

“Well then, take it.”

Gayle started to take the ring out of the small maroon velvet box—but stopped. And looked at the huge pile of garbage bags that were full of all the love that Lendall had given her and asked, “Can I keep all this?”