Summary: Mac's thoughts on Stella's question, "Why haven't you taken your wedding ring off?"
Disclaimer: It all belongs to the man, Jerry Bruckhiemer, and the goons at CBS.
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It caught me off guard…and the question might even seem presumptuous at first glance. But Stella and I have the kind of easy understanding that comes from weathering all the tough times in the course of a long friendship. I even started to answer her honestly.
If she recognized my feeble response for the outright lie that it was she allowed it to slide. Because even though I avoid admitting it, I know exactly why I haven't let go of that last tangible link to my wife, and I've known for a long time. It's for the sake of one moment.
In that instant just before full wakefulness replaces sleep, my eyes fall on that simple band of gold, and all the adoration I've ever felt for the most incredible woman on this earth condenses itself into a sensation of just wanting to explode with love. Another moment and the horrors of reality will crash back down with all the concussive force of an atom bomb. But for that single brief moment…she is still alive.
One day I'll give Stella the answer she deserves to hear. That I would do anything to hold onto just one more moment of forgetting.