She twisted the shiny new wedding band around and around. It was tight on her finger, and turned slowly. All her fingers were plump and swollen with the pregnancy.
She disliked the shininess of the ring, the solidness of it. Someday, when the ring was old and thin and scratched, she would display it as a model of her soul. Until then, it was incongruent. Her soul already felt thin and scratched, pulled taut by promises she hadn't wanted to make, while her ring and her finger were fat and smooth.
She imagined a day when the ring would wear through, thinned by the work of washing dishes, changing diapers, holding her husband's hand. She imagined the gold becoming so thin that it cracked, imagined her finger wriggling through the crack, into air, into freedom. Her hand would rise up, lightened of its load until it floated there above her head, open to the sky like a sinner praising Jesus.
Some day.