Care and Feeding I Took One Look at My Sister’s Engagement Ring and Realized Her Fiancé’s Secret

[minoanmiss]

My sister “Vivian” announced her engagement to her boyfriend “Justin” at Thanksgiving. Everyone congratulated them and “ooohed” and “aaahed” over the headlight of a diamond in her engagement ring. Later in the evening, our 1-year-old nephew had a diaper blowout, and Vivian took off her engagement ring and had me hang on to it for her while she went to give our sister-in-law a hand. I work in the jewelry industry as a gemstone buyer and took the opportunity to inspect the VERY large diamond in the ring.

The “diamond” was a fake: The interior of the stone displayed an array of rainbow colors as I maneuvered it, and when I breathed on it, the fog from my breath took several seconds to dissipate. Real diamonds will only show white and grey sparkles within the stone, and when breathed upon, the fog will dissipate immediately.

When Vivian returned, I gave her back the ring and said nothing about what I had discovered. Vivian is thrilled to be marrying Justin and is equally thrilled with her ring. On social media and to anyone who will listen in person, she’s been gushing over it and how wonderful Justin is to have bought it for her. Justin has been drinking in the praise. I know she would be crushed to find out the diamond isn’t real, but if Justin is deceiving her with a fake stone, I wonder what else he could be hiding from her and if that is reason enough to tell her. To complicate matters further, a few days ago, Vivian asked me if I could take the ring to my workplace for an appraisal so she can have an idea of how much she should insure it for (Justin doesn’t know about her request). I lied and said we were a bit backlogged with the holidays approaching and that it would be a week or two before I could get around to it. Obviously, I can’t put her request off forever. What’s the right thing to do here? Tell Vivian the truth? Go to Justin, tell him I know the stone isn’t real, and see how he reacts? Take the ring in to be appraised, wait for the report, and pretend to be as shocked as she is when the results come back? Help!

—Between a Fake Rock and a Hard Place

Dear Hard Place,

Take it in to be appraised, as she requested, wait for the report (and if possible, have it sent directly to her), and be a shoulder to cry on if she is as disappointed as you believe she will be. Try not to think of being kind to her—supportive, empathetic, a good listener—as “pretending.” Try to think of it instead as being a loving sister who is also (silently, forever) sorry about having performed an unasked-for, unofficial, blow-test appraisal of the deliriously happy Vivian’s ring in the first place.

If she asks you if you suspected that the diamond was a fake, I counsel a shrug and silence. And if she pushes you, why not say what is absolutely true? “It’s none of my business, after all.”

—Michelle