The Ring
A centuries old legend in the Reagan family brings a new member into the fold.
Not Mine, CBS's. I'm just borrowing it.
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1802- Ireland
Xavier Reagan, a renowned silversmith from Ireland, bowed to the crown prince of England as he stood before him. "How may I serve you my liege?"
"I want a ring made," the prince replied and tossed him a small cloth bag which he cleanly caught. "Using these stones."
Xavier carefully poured them out into a tray. Most of the gemstones were small purple amethysts, but the largest was a small green stone with a shape fairly reminiscent of a heart. "For whom?" he asked
"My wife," the prince replied as he began to walk slowly around the room. Xavier nodded as the prince continued. "She is currently with child and I want a ring that she can pass down someday to our child." He stopped to look at the silversmith. "She is the love of my life."
Xavier nodded. "I know how it is," he told the younger man. "I have one myself." He smiled at the young prince. "As does my son."
The prince smiled and picked up the green heart and held it out to Xavier. "I pray thus for the generations of your family yet to come." He handed the gem to him. "That they find love that will last, passed not by mother to daughter, but by mother-in-law to daughter-in-law." He looked at the floor then back up at the man as he held the gem. "As I have found my love."
1993- New York
"But in a tragic happenstance," Mary told her oldest son's girlfriend, Lynda. "That the prince's wife and their child died."
"That's so sad," Linda said as she listened intently from across the table from Mary, chin in her hand.
"The prince returned the ring to Xavier to give to his wife, but she gifted it to her son's wife," Mary went on. "Who gifted it to her son's love, who gifted it to her son's love on down the Reagan family line." Mary held up a Claddagh ring with a heart shaped emerald in the place of the heart and tiny amethysts around it. "And now I give the ring to you."
"To me?" Linda asked.
"Danny adores you," Mary told her. "I want you to have the ring, because I want you to be my new daughter."
"Are you sure he'll even ask?"
"Yes," Mary replied. "This is a big responsibility because you have to pass it on to Joe's girlfriend and she must pass it to Jamie's. This ring has never been owned by a true Reagan. Only those bonded to the family by love."
"It's been passed down like that for how long?" Linda asked as she took the ring in her hand.
"Almost two hundred years," Mary replied. She took Linda's right hand and slipped it on her ring finger. "But wear it as your something old on your wedding day before you pass it on or something bad might happen."
Linda looked puzzled. "What might happen?"
"I don't know," Mary said. "But that's what Betty said when she gave it to me." Mary shrugged. "I guess some superstition passed down with the ring."
Together, they laughed.
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"I'm sorry I took the ring," Linda's sister, Wendy told her has she held it up.
"Why would you do that?" Linda asked her.
"Because I want more for you than a house in Staten Island and two kids," Wendy replied. "You'll probably end up with two boys."
Linda held out her hand and her sister placed the ring in her palm. "You were so intent on that being your something old that you didn't realize that Mom's garter was your something old."
"Mom's garter ended up being the something old when I couldn't find this," Linda held up the ring. "I promised Danny's mom that I would wear that as my something old. I had to lie and say it was in my purse because I was afraid of losing it." She slipped it back on her right finger.
"I'm sorry," Wendy said again. "We good?"
Linda stood with her arms crossed looking at her sister for a moment longer. "We're good," she said finally and gave her a hug.
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"Can we talk?" Linda asked Angie, Joe's girlfriend, as they finished their lunch.
"Of course," Angie replied. "What can I do for you?"
"Since Mary died," Linda began. "I've been doing a lot of thinking."
"About what?" Angie sipped her coffee.
"This," Linda took the ring that Mary had given her off and placed it on the table between them. "Mary gave it to me and said I should pass it on." She pointed to the ring. "This ring has been passed down through generations of the Reagan family for two-hundred years."
Angie smiled. "What does this have to do with me?"
"Well," Linda said. "You love Joe, right?"
"Yes."
"You'll marry him if he asks, right?"
Angie smiled at the thought. "In a heartbeat."
"Then this," she held up the ring. "Belongs to you." She slipped it on Angie's right ring finger.
Angie smiled. "But there is a story and a superstition that comes with it although the superstition seems to be nonsense," Linda put in.
"What is it?"
Linda told her the whole story as Mary had told it to her.
"Something bad might happen?" Angie asked at the superstition. "Why do you think it's nonsense?"
"My sister took the ring before my wedding to Danny, so I didn't have it to wear that day," Linda explained. "We've been through the normal cop family ups and downs like his dad before him and his dad before that." She paused to sip her coffee. "Nothing out of the ordinary."
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"Something bad happened," Angie said as she handed the ring back to Linda at the reception after Joe's funeral.
"I know," was Linda's reply.
"Will you pass it to Jamie's girlfriend when the time comes?" Angie asked.
"You have to do it," Linda replied as she handed it back. "I don't want to take any more chances."
Angie slid the ring back on her right finger. "I just hope I'm around to."
Linda grasped her hand. "You will be," she said. "You're still a friend of this family."
Angie nodded.
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Detective Steve Quinones kissed his new wife hello and sat down across from her. "You will never believe what I found out about Jamie Reagan," he told her. "Or rather the enigmatic Officer Janko that he's partnered with
"I don't mind hearing about how they are doing," Angie said. "But if it's gossip…"
"It's not gossip," he replied.
"You sure?"
He opened the menu and lay it on the table in front of him. "Eddie Janko," he began. "Is a woman."
"Really?" Angie said with surprise. Steve nodded and lifted the menu to peruse the selection. "I don't suppose you know what she looks like do you?"
"She's blond, about his height," Steve said. "Kind of pretty, I guess." He put the menu back down. "I see them out every once in awhile."
Angie looked thoughtful.
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Jamie and Eddie were laughing at the bar as Angie watched from across the way. When Jamie excused himself for a minute to go into the back to save the pool table as Eddie waited for their beers, Angie saw her chance. She knew that partner fraternization (or hanky-panky as the older generation put it) was frowned upon, but she also knew that they wouldn't be partners forever.
She came up on Eddie's right as if she was wanting to make an order. Then she crossed her body with her right hand and drummed her fingers on the counter until she got the other woman's attention.
"That's an interesting ring," Eddie commented.
"Oh," Angie said and stretched her hand to look at it. "My ex-boyfriend's mother gave it to me."
"How's you current boyfriend like that?"
"My husband doesn't like it much," Angie replied. "I think it's pretty but he wants me to get rid of it." She jumped as if getting a sudden idea. "Would you take it?"
"I can't take you ring," Eddie said with a shake of her head.
"You like it, don't you?"
"Yeah, it's gorgeous," Eddie replied. "But it must be worth a fortune."
"Sentimental more than monetary," she replied. "It has a blessing and a curse."
"How so?"
Angie took off the ring. "The family that originally owned the ring passed it down from mother to daughter-in-law for almost two centuries," she said as she set it on the bar between them. "As long as the ring was worn by the daughter on her wedding day, they would stay in love for their whole lives."
"What happens if they don't?" Eddie asked.
"Tragedy," Angie replied. "The blessing, besides the being in love is marrying the one you love soon." She took a deep breath and let it quickly out. "I don't know if it's true for other families, but my ex… he was killed before we got that far. But I still found a good guy and married him."
Eddie looked past Angie at Jamie as he laughed with some other cops down the bar. "You'd be doing me a big favor," Angie said. "And I'm sure the stories are just that. Stories."
Eddie brought her focus back on Angie as the bartender placed two beers in front of her. "I've got that," Angie said as she put a bill on the bar.
"You give me a ring and now you pay for my beers, too?" Eddie said. "You don't have to do that."
"I don't," Angie said as she got up to leave. "But I want to." She glanced back at Jamie. "Tell Jamie Hi for me. But don't show him that…" she pointed to the ring. "Just yet."
Eddie watched her leave then looked back at Jamie. The ring sparkled on the bar and she picked it up. Inside she could see something written so she held it up to the light to get a better look to read it. She almost dropped the ring when she read the one-word inscription.
Reagan, it said.
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"I'd spend the five million on you," he whispered into her during the embrace in the aftermath when she had almost lost him.
Almost.
She had been two bullets away from losing him. One bullet that missed and another that found its mark.
Now she lay on her couch curled up with her head in his lap. And he asked her to marry him.
A Sunday morning and he skipped church so he could ask her to marry him.
And she said yes.
Suddenly, she jumped up and ran into her bedroom and dug into her jewelry box, Jamie calling after her.
"Where is it?" she mumbled. "Where is it?"
"What is it?" Jamie asked from the doorway.
And there it was. The Claddagh ring that had been passed down for generations in one family. Jamie's.
Eddie held it out to him. "Do you know what this is?"
"It looks a lot like the Claddagh ring my grandma gave my mom," Jamie replied. "She gave it to Linda. I think Linda gave it to Joe's girlfriend Angie after my mom died. I haven't seen it in awhile."
"A woman gave me this ring in a bar of all places," she told him. "When she gave it to me, she told me about how it had a blessing and a curse. Then she told me to tell you hello."
Jamie looked at her with shock. "Does it say Reagan inside?"
Eddie nodded quickly. "It must have been Angie that gave it to you."
"Then why didn't she just say, 'hey this belonged to Jamie's mom and I think she would want you to have it' instead of giving me some load of bull," Eddie said.
"Because that load of bull isn't a load of bull," he told her then told her the story as his mom had told it to him back when she gave it to Linda.
"Linda didn't have it on her wedding day," Jamie explained. "Her sister took it in an attempt to keep her Linda from marrying Danny. The next in-law recipient's love, my brother, died and now Linda's gone, too."
"A cursed ring," Eddie said. "I've inherited a cursed ring."
"It's only cursed if you don't wear it the day we get married," Jamie said.
"If I do, then we'll live happily ever after?" Eddie asked. "So to speak."
"Yeah, but you got it pass it down to Shawn or Jack's girlfriend," Jamie said.
She looked at it, made a funny face and slipped it on her right hand. "You think this is why you didn't marry what's-her-name?"
Maybe," Jamie replied and Eddie threw herself into his arms.
On the ring finger of her right hand, the ring glittered as if happy the circle was once again bound.