Free Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events by Kevin Moffett Page B

seascape that Don had painted. She offered Brenna a cup of coffee and, when Brenna accepted, remembered she no longer had a coffeemaker. She went into the kitchen, microwaved a mug of water, and dropped a tea bag into it.
    â€œIt’s nice knowing you’re nearby,” Brenna said, sipping the tea. “I have such nice memories of you in Florida. The beach. Uncle Vic taking us to look at all the jellyfish that had washed ashore. The man-of-wars with the purple tentacles. You remember?”
    Alta remembered. She remembered Vic liked making up stories about the jellyfish, telling the kids that they were from a different planet, that once high tide pulled them back out to sea, they would find their mother ship and go home.
    â€œMen-of-war,” Alta said.
    Brenna had been an odd child. When she came to visit Alta and Vic, she would sleep in a sleeping bag on top of the covers, because she didn’t like the feel of the sheets on her legs. She was a hoarder, too. She stockpiled candy and pocket change, and if you asked her what she planned to do with it, she would say, she couldn’t have been older than nine, she’d say: “Have it.” She planned to have it.
    Brenna said to Alta: “I’m getting married.”
    â€œWell,” Alta said, studying the girl on the sofa, trying to calculate what this had to do with her memory of the girl. “That’s good news. I met a man, too. I met him behind my apartment.”
    Brenna stood up and walked over to Alta in her chair and hugged her. “I’m so happy for you, Aunt Alta. I love how everything’s worked out.”
    Alta had to lean forward to accept the hug, and when she did, her hand landed on the girl’s backbone and she smelled a crushed-rose fragrance in her hair. The girl sat back on the sofa, straightened her skirt, and said she wanted to ask Alta for a favor. Her face became less animated, dumber. She said, “I was hoping you’d let me have your wedding ring. The one your grandmother gave you.”
    Alta smelled the crushed-rose smell and still heard the girl’s assessment: Everything’s worked out. The girl was so young. She thought love was a door you carefully opened once, just once, and then you were there. Where? It didn’t matter. Opening the door was the important part, making sure you locked it once you were through, and maybe the reason Alta loved Vic then Don then George was because she never thought to lock the door. She gazed at her apartment key on the metal hook and fought the urge to get up and lock the front door.
    â€œI don’t want to impose,” Brenna said. “I bet it still means a lot to you. I just want you to know I’d be honored to wear it.”
    She’d be honored to wear Alta’s key ? Alta hesitated for a few seconds and then remembered that Brenna had asked about the wedding ring. She looked so earnest and inflated with anticipation. I’d be honored was rehearsed, which, more than anything, made Alta not want to give her the ring. But it was only a momentary impulse, an itch that Alta could ignore. Besides, she didn’t need the ring anymore.
    â€œWait here,” she said to Brenna, and she went into her bedroom and opened up her jewelry box for the first time since moving to In the Pines. She found her engagement ring, two twisted gold bands studded with pallid gemstones.
    When Alta brought the ring to the girl, she was smoothing the front of her skirt. She took the ring and, her eyes beginning to tear up, brought it to her face, her mouth opening slightly. “Don’t eat it,” Alta said.
    â€œI am so grateful,” Brenna said. Then, studying the ring, hesitating, looking pained: “I don’t think it’s the right one. Katie said it was silver, with sapphires along it?”
    Alta looked at the ring and realized that this was the one Don had given her. He’d offered it to her at night while they were walking