Fragment #15 - Children should ask

I run my fingers around the golden ring. The metal is smooth and cold. How can such a tiny thing enclose so much meaning? The jeweller was a kind man. By the look on my face when he asked me, he could tell I was looking for a wedding ring. And by listening to me, he knew which one I was about to buy. We stood in front of his stalls for more than an hour, but eventually, I took the one he handed me in the first place. I offered him profuse thanks, for the time he took for me, and the way he made me feel comfortable about my choice.
I’ve been lying on my bed for hours it seems, staring at the precious band. It is kind of hypnotizing. I just can’t get my eyes off it. My precious… Yes that’s more like it. I am Gollum and this is the One Ring. No one will ever get it from me. I’ll hunt down the one Halfling smuggler all around the world if I have to, but nobody will obtain it. It is mine! Considering Gollum killed one of his pals in order to put his hands on it and keep it for himself during years and years, the analogy may not be the best one. I sure hope I won’t keep it for decades. The ring doesn’t belong to me. I won’t keep it, but neither will I cast it into the fires of Mount Doom in Mordor.
This ring should be the icon of my pride and joy. But I just can’t get to rejoice myself that much. It sure has to do with the fact that I have had butterflies in my stomach since last Tuesday. But something else is tickling the back of my head. I always imagined the day I’ll propose a girl, I’d be surrounded by my family. I had even thought of the questions I would ask my father.
My father used to read his newspaper alone in the morning, in front of his cooling coffee. I would have waked up earlier, and joined him before my mother got out of bed. I would have taken my bowl out of the cupboard and eluded the reason why I got up with the lark. And when he would have been about to fold the pages, I would have put the ring out of my dressing gown and asked him. How had he proposed Mom? How did he felt about it? Did he knew for sure she was the right one… the only one? Or was he just as scared and lost as I am? He would have pointed at me and laughed, his loud voice shattering the walls. He would have comforted me, answered my doubts and calmed my raging thoughts and passions. He would have asked me if he could tell Mom, and when I would have told him no to, he would have faked and forced me to rush through the corridor in order to stop him.
But now I will never know how my father proposed my mother. I never asked them. Maybe my sister would know. Maybe not. I couldn’t tell. A child should ask. You never know what could happen.
No one will answer my questions now. I just can’t figure it out on my own, and I have no one to ask. I haven’t talked to my father since the moment I entered the tribunal. Three years ago.

Am I not rushing things?

Is it really her?

I unfold my arm and my hand seize the phone. It takes me almost five minutes to dial the whole number. My fingers are shaking. The air does not seem to reach my lungs anymore. One ringing. Two. Three…

“Hello?”

The sound is just stuck inside my throat. It won’t go out, no matter what.

“Hello?”

I throw the telephone across the room. It blows into pieces when it meets the wall with a loud crack.
I can’t prevent a tear from brightening the corner of my eye. I get rid of it with a fast movement.
I won’t do him that favour.