My husband returned from a three-day fishing trip with a wedding ring mark on his finger — he hasn’t worn a ring in 12 years. My husband had taken the same fishing trip with his friends every summer for years. Three days at a lake. Bad cell service. Cheap motel. Nothing unusual. But when Mark came home Sunday night, something felt different. He hugged me quickly, carried his bag upstairs, and barely talked through dinner. Then he reached for his glass. That’s when I saw it. A pale band around his left ring finger. A perfect wedding ring mark. Mark hadn’t worn his wedding ring in twelve years. After breaking that finger at work, the ring became uncomfortable, so he’d kept it in our bedroom drawer ever since. “What’s that?” He followed my eyes. For a second, he froze.

Dead.

Apparently, I had been dead for twelve years.

Then the detail hit me.

Twelve years.

Exactly when Mark stopped wearing his wedding ring.

I emailed the gift shop.

I attached a photograph of Mark and me from our anniversary dinner six months earlier.

Then I wrote one sentence.

I’m alive. And we are still married.

Almost an hour passed.

Then my phone rang.

Claire.

Her voice sounded completely different.

Small.

Broken.

“Are you the woman Mark told me died twelve years ago?”

I slid down onto the kitchen floor.

“Yes.”

My voice barely came out.

“Apparently, I am.”

Claire started crying.

Then so did I.

She told me they had met almost two years earlier.

Mark had gone into her gift shop while his friends were fishing.

He had been charming.

Attentive.

Open.

Especially about his “past.”

According to Mark, his wife had died twelve years earlier.

“He told me he couldn’t wear his wedding ring anymore,” Claire whispered.