There comes a moment for every widow when they decide to stop wearing their wedding ring. That moment happened for me over the kitchen sink the first day I moved into the apartment with Casey. I was always in the habit of removing it and setting it on the counter when I washed my hands. The soap made it extra slippery and susceptible to falling down the drain. As I was toweling off, Casey asked about the ring and I told her it was an heirloom I’d been meaning to take to the vault. After that, I never put it back on. Nor did I take it anywhere but to a box in my closet for safekeeping, which is where I thought it was—safe and out of sight—this whole time.

But then I remember. On one of my last trips to Goodwill to drop off the remaining Decker stuff, I decided to bring the ring along with me, stop by a secondhand store, and donate whatever they’d give me for it to an inner-city youth lacrosse team. But at the last minute, I got cold feet. I tried convincing myself it was a noble thing to do, but then I thought about the journey that ring took to be in my life and I couldn’t accept it culminating with some lowball offer from a skeezy pawnshop in Sherman Oaks. So I separated it from the errands pile, tossed it in the glove compartment, and figured it was safe enough in there tucked between the owner’s manual and paper napkins until I could actually find time to look up renting vault space at the bank. I guess I never found the time.

I slip the ring on for the first time in years, but it gets stuck around my knuckle. I’m up about ten (okay, fifteen) pounds since we were married. That’s what years of stress eating combined with sitting in a chair for hours on end writing code will do to a person’s body. But regardless of its placement on my finger now, I twist my wrist to the left and right and let the sun ricochet off the center stone. Little blips of reflections from the diamond dance on the car’s ceiling like a twinkling constellation in the night sky.

I think back to the day Decker gave it to me. We had made it to the top of Runyon Canyon, pausing to take in the scenery and catch our breath. I redid my sweaty, Sunday morning ponytail as I spotted and pointed out the Hollywood sign. “Look!” I said with excitement taking over every feature of my face.

“Yes, babe. I know. The sign. Can we head back down?”

I knew—well, thought I knew—the heights were bothering him. But maybe his rush to start our descent was actually just the preproposal “let’s get this show on the road” nerves.

I breathed in from the top and reflected on the fact that Los Angeles is such a smoggy, beautiful beast. It was hard to believe that in a city so big, the two of us from drastically different roots, coasts, and backgrounds somehow gravitated toward each other, became boyfriend and girlfriend, and managed to have a loving, loyal, real relationship in a city full of fake. Yes, Decker was attractive, but on the inside, he was a prize—a total gem of a person. Soft-spoken, thoughtful, gentle, kind, and with a quirky sense of humor I’m fairly certain was only meant for a handful of people to understand. Myself included.