Digital print Provided by the artist - Tony Mendoza "Initially, I resisted the idea of wearing a wedding band, mostly because I had never worn a ring and I didn't understand jewelry, but when Carmen insisted, I agreed. After a while, I started to enjoy wearing the band: it reminded me of my new status as married and "grown up," a status I liked. I especially enjoyed tapping the ring on the roof of the car as I drove, to the rhythm of Cuban music. Two months after we were married, Carmen and I went swimming in Key Biscayne, and driving home afterwards I started tapping the roof and realized that the ring was missing. The following day, early in the morning when the water was calm, we went back to the beach. Finding the ring in water up to our chests seemed hopeless, and we gave up. One month later, at the same beach, we noticed a man in the water with a metal detector. Carmen suggested we gave him our number in case he found the ring, which had Carmen's name inscribed on it. That night he called. He said he had found it 200 yards from where I told him I'd been swimming, and one foot under the surface of the sand."
