And What has Come to Pass...

For decades, it sat in a jewelry box, unworn and untarnished, symbol of a romance long gone.

The year was 1969, the month of April to be exact, when Diana Altmann gave Danny Kelby her high school ring. Both were in college and neither had much dating experience, much less had ever gone steady. Two months prior, they had met at a college mixer. The chemistry was instant, sexually and intellectually. Love at first sight? No, but close.

Diana and Danny. Just like their names, their hearts melded in a euphonious rhythm. They talked about getting married once they graduated. They even discussed how many kids they wanted (four) and their gender (two girls, two boys).

But...

First loves rarely go "the distance," particularly when one of the lovers feels he/she still has wild oats to sew. Such was the case with Danny, who met some cute lass he couldn't resist. He didn't date her long, but it was the beginning of the end of his time with Diana. Danny offered to give Diana back her ring. Hurt as she was, she allowed him to keep it. So he did, kept it safe in his jewelry box through numerous romances, including two failed marriages, one of which produced a daughter.

When he turned sixty, Danny drew up a will. He left most of his estate to his daughter Sparkle (from his first wife), including the contents of his jewelry box, a few watches, cufflinks and the ring. Years before he died, he gave it to Sparkle, along with instructions to deliver it to Diana (then married with grown children and living within driving distance of him) upon his death, along with the following message: "Tell her that on some level I never stopped loving her. Tell her that I screwed up. And, most of all, tell her I'm sorry for hurting her."

Danny passed away nine years later. By that time, Sparkle was in her forties, married with teenage kids. She lived a hectic life, working full time and helping to raise her son and two daughters, while also engaged in athletics and a brisk social life. Still, she didn't forget the ring or her deceased dad's wishes. For years, she had kept it in her own jewelry box, out of sight and mostly out of mind. Weeks after the funeral, she took it out. It didn't look much different from her own high school ring, from thousands of other high school rings across the land. An icon of a crest and shield covered most of the stone, ringed by the school's name and the year Diana graduated: Deep Creek High, 1966. The type of stone escaped her (if it was an actual stone and not simply colored glass), light blue and barely visible under the icon. Engravings marked both sides of it, an image of the school on one side, an icon of a bird on the other. Engraved on the inside were the initials, DLA (Diana Leigh Altmann). Gerr, she knew, was Diana's married name.

She sat on her bed, examining the ring the way a jeweler might, turning it over several times, even trying it on; it fit. Even with her 2+ reading glasses, she had trouble reading the small inscriptions, prompting her to grab a magnifying glass from her night table. Materially, she knew it wasn't worth much. Emotionally, it was worth more than a multi-carat diamond because she knew how much it had meant to her dad. He never explained to her why he wanted it returned to Diana, his first love, though she had ideas. Perhaps it was a form of unfinished business, his way of telling her how much she meant to him, how sorry he was that things didn't work out as he and Diana once planned. Her eyes misted up. "Don't worry dad, I will carry out your mission as promised," she whispered.

Sparkle knew where Diana Gerr had lived—Danny once drove her by the house, a 1950s suburban rancher located just a zip code away from his. However, that was a few years ago and a web White Pages search failed to list her. Therefore, she didn't know if the Gerrs still lived there. Her visit would be a surprise.

*****

Diana Gerr had boxes stacked in her living room, boxes packed with stuff that she deemed worth saving and moving over to her new place, an apartment a few miles away. Moving day was days away. Two of her daughters would help with the boxes; the movers would get the furniture.

She sat at her dining room table sipping tea, her mind spinning with decades of memories, some good, some not so good, and some so hilarious she laughed out loud. She was happy, she was sad. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was her life, her life with Byron, her husband of nearly fifty years, dead six months almost to the day. She didn't want to move, and yet she did. All those memories—it hurt to be here. Better to start anew, if one can start anew nearing seventy, and she could. She was lucky. Her mind remained razor sharp, her synapses firing just fine, working as intended, a little slower to reboot, but what the hell. So far, she had dodged the dreaded dementia and Alzheimer's. Her joints sometimes ached, but not terribly, and they were the same joints she was born with, no metal or plastic anywhere. Shades of gray sprinkled her light brown hair, still worn with bangs and down to her shoulders. She once stood five foot-three in her bare feet. Now she was an inch or so shorter and plumper. Fat, she called herself in moments of self-deprecation. She wasn't really, but then she always compared her aging body with that of the svelte young woman she once was, the girl who played field hockey and softball and ate what she wanted and didn't gain a pound.

She was in prime shape by the time she met Danny Kelby. She thought about him now and then, as she did last night sifting through old photos. Danny...Gosh, she loved him so, then hated him with equal passion when he broke the news about that girl. In a fit of anger, she almost dumped the little photo album she kept, mostly black and white photos of her and Danny over the course of two years. Thank God, she didn't. Beach scenes were once her favorite. Now, she felt partial to the one taken by a friend at an anti-Vietnam War demonstration in '70, because it underscored the personal is political phrase that came into vogue then. They were a picture of cohesion, both to their cause and to each other.

She sipped her tea, wondering if he still had her ring. No, he probably hocked it. Either that or he misplaced it. Well, maybe not. After all, he did elect to keep it after she gave him the okay. Sometimes she regretted not keeping it, then came close to contacting him, demanding its return. Then she'd reconsider, scold herself for being mean-spirited, before brushing it from her mind and moving on. They had traded emails around the turn of the millennium, Christmas holiday greetings that he initiated. She hadn't heard from him since. She hoped he was doing well. The acrimony she once harbored had faded into the ether of time. Left was the twilight of the good times they shared, the beach vacations, making love under the stars, studying in the library, or just lazing around, planning a future together. Softly, she sang a lyric from James Taylor: "Like people on the moon I see are things not meant to be..."

Wistful, she felt so wistful sipping her tea, reminiscing and now hearing her doorbell. She wasn't expecting anyone. She padded across the room. "Yes?"

"Mrs. Gurr?"

"Yes?"

"Um, it's Sparkle Kelby. I mean, Sparkle Lange. It used to be Kelby."

She opened the door, her eyes focusing on this woman, average height, slim with long brown hair wearing tight jeans, light makeup and a shy smile. Diana didn't have to ask; she knew who she was. She also sensed the reason for her visit, but was afraid to ask.

"My dad, Danny Kelby, died six months ago, and he asked me years ago to give you something after he was gone."

Hand over her mouth, Diana shook her head. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know. Please come in."

Sparkle couldn't miss the boxes. "You're moving it looks like."

"Yes, in a few days. You caught me just in time." She invited her into the dining room and offered her some tea.

"Sure, thanks. Without sugar."

Diana chuckled. "No wonder you keep so slim."

By the time she emerged with the cup and saucer, Sparkle had placed the ring on a napkin. And by the time she served Sparkle her tea, her tears began to flow. "I'm sorry," she said, pulled out a hanky from her house dress and dabbed her eyes. "It's just that I haven't seen that ring in almost fifty years."

Sparkle brushed her own tears away. "It's okay, I can imagine what you must be feeling. My dad...well, along with returning the ring, he wanted me to tell you some things."

"Okay."

"He said on some level he never stopped loving you," he told me. "He blamed himself for the breakup. He 'screwed up,' in his words, and he was sorry he hurt you."

She reached over and took the ring, turning it over much as Sparkle had. "Well, he sure kept it nice."

"Yes, in his jewelry box and then mine."

They talked awhile. Diana told her about her husband's death and her struggle to cope. Sparkle talked about her own life—her marriage, her job, her kids and coping with her own grief over the loss of her dad. "Fortunately, I married the right guy," Sparkle said. "It sounds like you did as well."

Diana nodded. "Byron was quite a guy. And so was your dad. Sometimes I wonder..." She shook her head and locked her eyes on the ring.

"Yes?"

Looking up, Diana said, "Well, we all wonder about the roads not taken in life, how things might have turned out had we pursued a different path, anything from career choices to whom we choose to marry."

Sparkle frowned, held her cup in both hands and took a sip. "Dad didn't have much luck with marriage."

"Divorced twice, he told me in his long ago email."

"Right, and in so many words he gave me the impression that nobody he met after you could compare with you. He held you up to some lofty standard that no woman in his mind could possibly meet."

Diana shook her head. "Sad. Not only sad, but terribly unfair to both himself and those women, including your mom, of course."

"Mom once told me that dad was trying to recapture with her and the others what he had with you. That wild, euphoric feeling of being in love for the first time."

Diana laughed. "Oh my, Sparkle, I was guilty of the same thing. I did my own comparing and efforts to recapture the rapturous joy that I shared with your father. It took me awhile to realize that falling in love for the first time occupies a special place in our heart that we can never recapture. It's an impossible act to follow."

"I think Dad knew that. But, being an incurable romantic, he could never give up, could never put the hope of doing that fully behind him."

Diana shook her head. "Sad, like I said."

*****

When Sparkle left, Diana tried slipping on the ring. She did, but it was a tight squeeze, too snug to wear comfortably. No surprise there—high school was over fifty years and thirty pounds ago. She pulled it off and placed it back on the table. For now, she'd find a place for it in her jewelry box before giving it to one of her daughters, a family heirloom to be handed down to future generations. No doubt, its meaning would be lost on family members yet unborn—long gone, along with the love it once symbolized.

Twirling the ring between her fingers, she sang more of James Taylor's beautiful lyric: "And in between what might have been and what has come to pass..."