Once it had been a star to set her sights by, to wish on. After their parents’ deaths, she had seen it as a chip of ice, a daily reminder of their loss. She had stopped wearing it, and tucked it away safe for some future she couldn’t imagine yet, until the moment she’d handed it to John. As she watched John lift the ring from the box, she could suddenly see the ring without grief, thinking on the small stone as a piece of the future again, a gift she could give her brother as he began his new life.

“It belonged to Mother,” Wendy said, and almost before the words were out of her mouth, John said, “I remember now,” his voice rough.

“I couldn’t, Wendy…” He’d tried to press the box back into her hands, but she’d refused to take it.

John’s lower lashes had been damp with the threat of tears. She’d felt her own eyes grow hot, all the more at John’s struggle to hold back.

“Jane should have it,” he’d said. “Shouldn’t you give it to her?”

Wendy had thought of gifting the ring to her daughter, but despite the way Jane looked at the night sky, it was always this world she seemed most rooted in. A stone on her finger should be deep green, like growing leaves, or perhaps the blue of beetle shells. Wendy had shaken her head.

“It should be with you. Mother would want you to have it.”

John had stopped trying to hold back his tears then, sweeping her into a hug. They’d stood together for a long time, crushed against each other, and when John spoke again, Wendy had lost the first part of his words into her hair.

“…such children back then.” He’d straightened, pulling away from her to meet her eyes again. “And look at us now. Did you ever think we’d be this grown up?”

“Never.” The word had cracked in Wendy’s throat, but she’d smiled through the last of her tears. “But now we’re the grownups, setting the rules, running after our children so they don’t hurt themselves.”

John’s cheeks had reddened again in a pleasing way.

“Don’t you think you’re rather getting ahead of yourself? I haven’t even asked Elizabeth yet.”

He’d folded the ring box into his pocket, his fingers straying to it again to touch it through the fabric as if to assure himself it hadn’t vanished. It made Wendy think of her own habit in St. Bernadette’s of touching her pockets and counting the items she’d stolen, and she almost laughed.

“I’m glad you’ve found someone, John. Elizabeth loves you, that much is plain, and I know you’ll be very happy together. You’ll be a good husband, and a good father someday too.”