I was eleven, a year before puberty hit when my paternal grandfather died. The thing I remember most about my grandfather was he had a thick head of silver hair that really contrasted with his deep black skin. He chewed tobacco using a clay spittoon next to his easy chair when inside the house and ended up dying of throat cancer. Grandpa had served in Italy in WW II where he had met and married my Sicilian grandmother.
After he died my father and uncle each received some keepsakes from his second wife who remained in the house as legal inheritor of his entire estate as he had no will. My dad passed on to me a silver signet ring with an ceramic Italian flag inlay that I wore on my thumb for a few months in memory of my grandpa. After a bully tried to steal it at school I stuck it in a keepsake ring box and pretty much forgot all about it.
Many years later when I was 45 my father passed away and I was the executor of his estate. After taking care of all his final bills and selling the house and farm I grew up in, as I had long since moved into my own house, things were finally settled. My brother and I inherited a grand total of twelve million dollars after selling the farm which we split evenly.
Going back to Wasilla and jumping through all the legal hoops to settle my father's estate reminded me that I had my own family heirloom in a ring box in the bottom of my safe. I pulled it out and was surprised that it was just as shiny as I remembered it being. I vaguely recalled it had a strange inscription on the inside so I looked and sure enough it read SCULTORI DI SOGNI in clear block letters on the inside surface of the band.
This being the 21st century I pulled up a translation app which confirmed it was Italian and the meaning was Dream Sculptor which I assumed was the company name for the jeweler who had made it. The ring was quite attractive and at 45 it fit perfectly on my right hand ring finger as if it had been sized for me.
The ring felt a little odd because it was heavier than I expected but once it reached my body temperature it actually felt warm, almost like it was alive. I put that off as my over active imagination competing with my grief to make me feel comforted by the ring so I left it on and didn't think about it much. To be honest I had completely forgotten about it until my wife Tina got home from the hospital where she was a doctor.
I guess this is where I should tell you about my self and family. I have been told many times that I look a lot like the actor Danny Glover. Regular features, dark skin and an imposing figure with a rather mellow voice. My wife Tina on the other hand most resembles Lucy Liu, a petite, beautiful Chinese woman. Tina grew up in Hong Kong. We met at university of Alaska and fell in love finally marrying two decades ago.
Mostly we have had a successful marriage but we both wanted kids and as it turned out Tina had fertility problems. Our solution was to adopt Zelda and Rose, twin girls whose parents were dear friends from Romania. We had met Andrei and Crina at university and we did a lot of couples activities together. I was Andrei's best man when they married and Tina had been a brides maid for Crina. They had died in a car accident, hit by a drunk driver when the girls were five going home from our New Years Eve party.
The sad thing is with no relatives in the USA the foster system would have almost certainly kept the girls circulating through different host families until they were eighteen because children over the age of three are only rarely adopted. We could not let that happen and started adoption procedures only a week after their parents had died.
Zelda and Rose were fraternal twins and as alike as any two sisters. Both girls were dark eyed and slender like Crina their biological mother. Zelda was a red headed cross country runner while Rose had very light brunette hair and was a martial artist. They were currently living in the dorm at University of Alaska as sophomores aged twenty.
We lived in Fairbanks, Alaska and were a generally happy family. Like most couples our sex life had faded away to a routine once a week event that had become more habit than passion. Tina had recently become chief radiation oncologist at the hospital while I had spent twenty years working my way up through a well respected financial planning company advising people how to invest so they could retire comfortably.
I was senior enough that when Covid broke out I had transitioned to doing my planning sessions over Skype from my home office and worked by appointment only. Typically Tuesday through Friday I worked with six clients a day between the hours of nine and two and the rest of my time was my own. Every Monday I did have to go into the office but that was as much for appearances as any other reason. Tina unfortunately as an administrating doctor was at the hospital fifty hours a week which was tiring. Tina was so happy every time she saved a patient I couldn't complain without feeling like a total ass.
