The meeting at Arellano's house would begin at 6:00 pm. In the meantime, Mrs. Maria and young Irene were cleaning the main living room. The walls and tables were full of family portraits, and that made it a little difficult to keep a country house surrounded by gardens and extensive lawns free of dust.
Irene, tired of passing the feather duster back and forth, inadvertently knocked over a porcelain bottles.f It was a blue vase with golden filigree that stood in a corner.
The pieces were scattered on the polished wooden floor. And next to it a ring that rolled and rolled under the Chinese table in the center and continued rolling towards the corridor that led to the terrace to stop next to the jar from which drops of fresh water were falling on an earthenware vessel.
"What a mess you've made, girl!, these people are very delicate with those figurines, and now what do I tell Mrs. Blanca?"
Irene didn't pay much attention to Maria. She didn't care that the porcelain bottle had broken. There were too many of these in the room. They probably didn't even notice and besides, she was distracted following the ring.
She walked quickly, she was an 18-year-old girl, very graceful, with long brown braided hair that reached the end of her back, slim but with wide hips, typical of the women of her family.
"At last!, you stop what a run you made me do". Crouching down beside the jar, she took the ring in her small, slender hand and quickly put it away in her apron pocket.
She returned to the living room to find Maria picking up the pieces of the bottle.
"Where is the ring?"
"I have it here in my pocket, and with her hand, she touched the place where it was."
"Give it to me, I have to give it to Mrs. Blanca."
But Irene had no intention of doing so. She wanted to know whose it was, and she had seen an inscription that she wanted to read.
"I'll give it to you later."
"Don't be crazy, Irene!, that's not yours."
"And I'm not going to keep it, I'll give it to you later. They won't know if you don't tell them, and today they will be very busy with the party. They have invited half the town and only to celebrate Cristina's engagement".
"And you think it's not enough!, she's already turning thirty. She's almost dressed for sainthood".
"That was before, Maria, in your time, when women who did not marry were called spinsters and in a very derogatory way. Not now. I'm not thinking of getting married yet".
"You're a crazy head." Maria let herself be convinced and kept the secret of the ring.
When they finished cleaning the living room, Irene ran to her room, which was on the east side of the house after the kitchen. She went in and closed the door. Sunlight streamed in through the window and illuminated the bed with a bedspread made of patchwork fabrics of many colors that her grandmother had sewn for her.
She sat down on the bed and took out the ring. It was gold with a small bluish crystal in the center. She held it up to her face to look at what was written on the inside.
I will always love you
And some initials
L.G
"Who is L.G.?. I'm sure it's a man. He must have been in love with one of the young ladies in this family".
In the evening the party was very crowded, as expected. The food was plentiful and the guests enjoyed the good music of an ensemble brought especially from the city.
Cristina was seated next to Raul, her fiancé. She looked beautiful in her blue dress with a wide skirt. She wore her black hair in a bun and a ruby necklace around her neck. Raul, a man in his forties with some gray in his black hair, had been widowed two years ago and had two sons, 15 and 13 years old.
Irene was serving the drinks and noticed the look in Cristina's eyes.
"She's not happy", she thought. "Maybe the ring belonged to someone she was in love with. Maybe they wouldn't let her marry him. I must find out".
On Saturday, Irene went to visit her mother with the intention of asking her.
She found out that there was a young man named Luis Garcia. He was an employee of Cristina's father, in the administration of the farm, and they fell in love, but his family did not agree and he left.
She also learned that Luis had returned to town just a few months ago. And she set out to help them get back together.
She went to talk to Luis and told him about Cristina's engagement and that she was not happy.
"But she is engaged. I can't do anything, it's been a long time and I don't know if she still loves me. People change, we were very young".
Irene was not satisfied with that answer and looked for a way to talk alone with Cristina and took advantage of a day when was tidying her room and she came in.
She told her that Luis had returned to town and that he still loved her.
Irene felt like a fairy godmother, or like a cupid bringing back together two beings that had been separated by the absurd rules of a society. She had the power to change the future. The ring she still kept had given it to her. It was no accident that she had found it.
Ending number 1:
Irene's insistence led to Luis and Cristina seeing each other alone. There they realized that they still loved each other, that time had not weakened their feelings, and now they were strong and had decided to fight for their love.
The engagement ring that Luis had given her twelve years ago was now where it belonged.
Irene was very happy to have helped these two people find the happiness they had lost.
Ending number 2:
Cristina thanks Irene for trying to help her.
"You are too young to understand that sometimes what has happened in the past cannot be altered. That day when Luis gave me the engagement ring, I told him that I would not marry him. I was not willing to upset my parents because that meant I would have to leave them. I asked Luis to forget me, and I threw the ring in one of those porcelain bottles and forgot it. Now I have fallen in love with another man and I want to live my life with him".
Irene realized she had made a mistake. She looked for the ring in her room and as she passed by the collection of porcelain figurines she dropped it into a bottle, she brought it back to the past.
Thank you very much for reading my entry in The Ink Well Fiction Prompt #130
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