He noticed her as soon as her entered. An older woman, well dressed, standing at the counter watching the gemologist examine a rather large stone under magnification.
As my husband completed his transaction, paying for the new battery and taking possession of his watch, he couldn’t help but overhear the exchange between the woman and the expert.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I don’t know how else to tell you. The stone isn’t real.”
“The bastard!, she exclaimed,”The other one wasn’t real either.”
Through the remaining conversation, my husband was able to glean that the woman had recently been divorced and the jewelry was awarded to her in the proceedings with an assumption as to its value. Only now she was learning that part (or maybe even all) of what she thought she had to her name was worthless. And a lie.
Perhaps she was spoiled, and looking for more than her substantial settlement, but my husband read her as more panicky than pampered.
When Brock recounted this story to me, my first thought was to the duration of the deception. Did her ex husband gift her that jewelry twenty years ago with false stones in place from the beginning? Or, as I was afraid my ex may have done, were the real stones replaced at some point with lookalikes so that the husband could surreptitiously withdraw from the marital funds?
My heart ached for the woman. Not only does it hurt terribly to discover you’ve been living in a virtual reality, it is disorienting beyond belief once those goggles come off and you have to decide what is real. And what is illusion.
The mystery of the woman and the ring mirror the one question about my first marriage that still haunts me – did I marry a false man or did I marry a real man who was replaced at some point with a counterfeit?
That’s one mystery that will never be solved. All I know is what he was at the end was certainly no diamond, despite how he acted.
And when I went to sell my ring at the conclusion of the divorce, my stone was still real. I guess he wasn’t clever enough to squeeze that stone for cash. Thank goodness for small blessings:)
You’ve done it again Lisa… poignantly put my thoughts into written words, validating my own experience…did I marry a false man or did I marry a real man who was replaced at some point with a counterfeit?