"everything's alright now Sheila... what about the ring."
gerald fails to express accountability as he would rather pretend to make everything go back to normal than lose the familiarity of his place in the hierarchy. Unlike the rest of the younger generation, Gerald is obstinate and does not express any maleableity.
The ring is a metonym for the way gerald views marriage as materialistic as he reverts back to this traditional symbol for power and posession in order to reassert himself as he finds comfort in ingrained societal beliefs whic make life 'easy' for him.