How a Simple “No” Became His Greatest Gift of All
On our second date, he gave me earrings.
We connected online and tried to keep the dating site’s suggested protocol: meeting at a neutral location for our first date. But I’d given too much of myself to him during our late-night phone calls that stretched into early morning hours to think that my home address was a thing to withhold any longer. This time I let him pick me up.
“I brought you a gift,” he said, when we got in his car to head out for our dinner reservation. “It’s in the glove compartment.”
I didn’t recognize the green box, a signature of Windsor Jewelers. I didn’t know that he, unlike me, had such a store that he frequented. I didn’t know that the two hoops inside were a traditional David Yurman design. But I knew they meant something.
I remembered that he had asked me one night, “Do you usually wear gold or silver?” I thought it had been just one of the many get-to-know-you questions with which we quizzed each other.
I didn’t know that when I answered, “I don’t know. I guess both,” that he would find the very thing that fit. A gold and silver crossover design. Simple. Classic. I took them from the velvet pouch and put them on, replacing the ones I’d chosen earlier to wear for this date; ones I’d bought myself.
It was new for me, being treasured in this way, and I let myself settle into the delight of it. But I also knew they signaled something—a lifestyle change that was about to come, a future we’d already talked about. I had a job. He had a career. We lived in different cities. I would be the one to make a move, joining him in his life.
I could, of course, enjoy a lifestyle that singleness hadn’t afforded me. But I had a fear, too, of being taken care of. I didn’t want to be a kept woman. In premarital counseling, finances were the only thing that I brought to the conversation.
“I’m afraid,” I admitted, “that I’ll feel like I’m getting an allowance.”
“Everything will be ours,” he promised.
And he kept that promise.
He returned to that same jeweler to purchase my engagement ring. We went together to choose wedding bands. Birthday and Christmas and just because gifts came from Windsor. I enjoyed the feeling of being spoiled. But each time, often with Phil—the salesperson who had come to know us—behind the counter, I waited for my husband to come back from his own perusing and say, “If you want it, get it, Love.”
I didn’t think that I minded: What was his, was ours. But I will confess that a certain shift came when my parents died; and I, an only child, received my inheritance.
We’d long moved away from Augusta, Georgia—and Windsor Jewelers. But we went back to visit not long after my mother’s death. Phil was still there. He greeted us warmly and asked to take my ring so he could clean it. My husband had brought a watch that needed a battery, and Phil said that wouldn’t take long either. As usual, we each went our own way to browse while waiting with no intentions of purchasing anything.
But a pendant caught my eye. I’d move on and admire things farther down the display case, but over and over, I kept returning to this one disc. A swirl of blues and greens outlined in tiny sparkling sapphires set in a dark charcoal braid of metal. I was mesmerized. It held a weightiness that I’d never claimed for myself. A salesman I didn’t recognize came to assist me. I wanted to hold it in my hands. I wanted to try it around my neck.
When my husband returned to my side, I was still wearing it, admiring it in the mirror. “Is it too much?” I asked, not questioning the price. I wanted it. A thing not so simple. Not so classic.
“Are you going to get that necklace for her?” the salesman asked my husband. “She’s sure been studying it for a while.”
And that’s when he did it.
“No,” my husband told him. “She’s going to buy that necklace for herself.”
And I did.
