The secret of the wedding ring: a forty-seven-year-long mystery.
In fourteen thousand four hundred days of marriage, there was one unshakable certainty on which I had founded my entire existence with Stefano. My husband never, for any reason, took off his wedding ring.
He didn’t do it when he washed his hands, not when he worked in our little garden behind the house, and not even many years ago, when he had to undergo delicate surgery. On that occasion, while the nurses insisted on removing every metal object, he took off his ring with trembling hands, placed it in my palm, and said in a low voice: “Elena, guard this with your own life until you can put it back on my finger.” And so it was: I was the one who warmed it in my hands and replaced it as soon as he opened his eyes in the hospital room.
