I picked up the bag, the thick plastic crinkling under my fingers.
The weight of it felt incredibly light for everything she had left.
Through the clear plastic, I could see her leather wallet, her lip balm, and her small pocket comb.
But the silver band she had worn on her left ring finger for eight years was not in the bag.
I turned the bag over, searching the corners.
“Her ring,” I said. “Where is her wedding ring?”
The nurse frowned and looked down at her clipboard. “Everything we found on her was logged right there.”
“It is not here,” I said.
She shook her head slowly. “Then she must not have been wearing it when she came in.”
I stared at the plastic bag in my hand, realizing my wife’s wedding ring was missing from her belongings.
I set the clear plastic bag on the small wooden table next to the door of ICU room four. Inside, Tessa’s personal items shifted with a dry, plastic rustle, but the small gold chain of her necklace was the only piece of jewelry visible through the blue-tinted film.
