The Lighter – Valparaiso University Literary Magazine
Fall 2006

It began as a typical day, as days tend to do—my mother driving

my young sister and even younger me to some destination that

has since skipped from my memories. We were on our steady

way when my sister shouted “Stop!” and my mother’s curious

eye caught her in the rearview mirror, wiggling to look behind

at something our car had passed.

“A diamond ring! Th ere in the median! I saw it shine when we

drove by!”

Without hesitation, my mother pulled the car over to the side of

the suburban highway and gave us that look that told us to stay

in our seats.

I looked at my sister, strawberry blonde hair framing her face that

was glowing with hope, so diff erent from my own mousy brown

head, wishing I had been the one to fi nd something so impor-

tant.

My mother got out and walked back to the spot where my sister

had claimed a ring was to be found. She looked around heartily;

not some half-assed search just to keep her daughters satisfi ed,

but kicking the grass around and picking the trash up off the

ground.

And while she was out, my sister and I imagined the things we

could buy with that ring: ponies and Barbies and boyfriends.

(Everyone would like me if I wore a diamond ring to school,

making a scene when I had to remove it for gym class.)

My mother walked back to us, her hopeful daughters, shifting and

sweaty in our seats.

“No ring,” she said as she got back in. It was just a bit of tinfoil,

gleaming like a fi nely cut diamond in the shiny summer sun.

I expected her to be mad at pulling the car over, at wasting her

time.

But it was disappointment that slumped across her features and

kept the backseat quiet.