AITA for refusing to give my sister our late mom’s wedding ring because she said she “deserved it more”?

My mom passed away eight months ago after a three-year fight with ovarian cancer. I (32F) was her primary caregiver for the last year — I moved back into her house, took leave from work, managed her medications, drove her to every appointment. My sister “Renee” (35F) lives four hours away, has two kids and a demanding job, and visited maybe six times total during that year. I’m not saying that to guilt her; her life is genuinely full and I never once asked her to drop everything. I just want to be clear about the shape of things.

Before Mom got sick, she’d told me privately, more than once, that she wanted me to have her wedding ring — a simple gold band with a small sapphire, nothing flashy, my late dad’s choice back in the 80s. She never wrote it into her will because, honestly, the two of us didn’t expect it to matter for years. When she was dying, one of the last coherent things she said to me was “the ring is yours, you know that.”

I never told Renee any of this at the time. I didn’t think I needed to — it felt settled.

After the funeral, we were going through Mom’s jewelry box together, and Renee picked up the ring immediately, almost automatically, like it was already hers. When I said Mom wanted me to have it, Renee got quiet, then said, “I think I deserve it more, honestly. You got to spend every day with her this last year. I got nothing. This is the one thing I’d have left of her.”

I told her no. I said Mom had told me directly, more than once, and that this wasn’t a competition about who loved her more or who “deserves” more. Renee cried, called me selfish, said I was “hoarding” Mom the same way in death as I had in life, and left without taking any of the other jewelry we’d set aside for her.

It’s been three weeks. She’s not really speaking to me beyond logistics about the estate. My aunt thinks I should just give Renee the ring “to keep the peace,” since I have plenty of other things of Mom’s — her recipe box, her wedding photos, her reading glasses that I can’t bring myself to give away. My aunt’s argument is that objects matter less to me because I have a whole year of memories Renee doesn’t have, and the ring is a small price for our relationship.

Part of me wonders if I’m punishing Renee for not being there, even though I keep telling myself this isn’t about that. But another part of me thinks: Mom told me, clearly, what she wanted. Doesn’t that count for something?

AITA for keeping the ring?