For some reason, I turned it over.
That was when I noticed something I'd never seen before.
There was a tiny inscription inside the band.
My mother's initials.
Then my grandmother's.
And beneath them, a series of numbers.
I frowned.
I took the ring to the desk lamp and examined it more carefully.
The engraving was extremely small.
I had seen the initials before.
But I'd never noticed the numbers.
I grabbed a magnifying glass from my mother's desk.
There were eight digits.
A date.
And next to it, a single letter.
“M.”
I felt a strange chill.
Why would my mother have a date engraved inside the ring?
I tried to remember whether she had ever mentioned it.
Nothing came to mind.
I searched through her jewelry box.
Nothing.
I looked through old family photographs.
Nothing.
Then I remembered something.
My mother kept important documents in a locked wooden cabinet in the study.
She had always called it “the boring cabinet.”
Birth certificates.
Property papers.
Insurance documents.
Tax records.
Things she said nobody wanted to read until they absolutely had to.
I opened it.
Inside were folders arranged by year.
I began searching.
And then I found a folder labeled:
FOR MY CHILDREN — OPEN ONLY AFTER MY DEATH
My hands started shaking.
There were two envelopes inside.
One had my brother's name.
The other had mine.
I sat down.
I opened mine.
My Mother's Letter
The letter was handwritten.
I knew her handwriting immediately.
The first line said:
My dear child,
I stopped reading.
I had to breathe.
Then I continued.
My mother wrote about how difficult the final years had been.
She apologized for the things she couldn't do.
She thanked me for staying beside her.
She thanked my brother for supporting the family.
And then she wrote about the ring.
I expected something sentimental.
Instead, I read a sentence that made my heart stop.
“The ring must never be given away simply because someone believes it is expensive.”