Obsidian Ring

Veronica hummed merrily as she puttered around the kitchen. She had been just so full of energy lately. Ever since her birthday last week. She glanced down at the black ring on her right hand. None of her friends would confess to giving it to her. She couldn’t think why, it wasn’t a terrible gift, a black ring carved from a single piece of obsidian. She rather liked it. In fact, she didn’t think that she had taken it off once all week.
Just this morning she had woken at six and spent the next hour working out in the basement gym her husband had set up last January, as part of a resolution to lose weight that he never did follow through with. She had powered her way through a workout that would have left her gasping for breath not to long ago. Now she was in the kitchen cooking up a storm.
She glanced at the stairs as her two children stumbled into the kitchen, still in their sleepwear It was a rare sight to see them out of bed before noon on a Saturday. Though she supposed the smell had something to do with it. She turned back to the feast she was preparing. Pancakes warming in the oven, bacon frying in a skillet, it was enough to wake the dead.
Veronica moved out of the way to allow her children to get to the food. First was Matthew, a strapping young man of twenty, wearing only a pair of pants leaving his chiseled torso out for all to see. Veronica noted that the labor jobs he had done over the summer had done wonders for his figure, his tousled brown hair made him look so much like his father at that age, before a paper pushing job had rounded him out.
Then Martha, a slender high school senior who had inherited her mother’s copper red curls, if not her height and chest. Her small frame was obscured by a black t-shirt she had stolen from an ex-boyfriend and her hair was cropped above the chin, whereas her mother let her hair tumble past her shoulders. Veronica watched them walk to the table before loading her plate with food, even more than Matthew did. It seemed her increase in energy had produced an appetite to go with it.
She sat down at the table and looked at her two children. Definitely some of her best work, she thought as she started to eat. She couldn’t help thinking about how well they had turned out. Though she found her gaze kept drifting to,