The Reunion

by Newman, Summer

  “What!” Ebony cried, abruptly shifting in her chair. “He’s staying?”

  Rebecca nodded. “I think so,” she stammered.

  “How long? Surely not more than a couple days.”

  “I believe he wants to move back here.”

  “Back to Shad Bay!” Ebony exclaimed. “You mean live here? Forever?”

  “I think that’s his plan.”

  A long silence followed.

  “Ebony,” said Rebecca, lightly touching her hand, “come stay at the house with us tonight. You shouldn’t be alone like this.”

  “I have to chop some wood,” she answered distractedly, almost as if heavily drugged.

  “Spend the night with us. You’re in no shape to chop any wood right now, and they’re calling for a big storm tomorrow.” Rebecca gently rubbed the back of her hand. “Come back with me.”

  “No!”

  The response was so forceful that Rebecca jumped slightly. “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to take the chance of running into him.”

  Another long silence followed.

  “Don’t you think you should tell me what’s going on?”

  “I hate him!”

  Rebecca winced. “What has this man done to you?”

  “I hate him,” she repeated, “and I will never, never forgive him.”

  “Forgive him for what?”

  Ebony narrowed her eyes, but she said nothing.

  “How did he get that little scar above his eye?”

  “He got into a fight with a man named Bern Baxter.”

  “Oh?” Rebecca inquired, obviously hoping she would continue. She waited a moment, then, seeing Ebony would not continue on her own, added, “How did the fight happen?”

  “Ethan would never back down from anybody, and one night he crossed paths with Bern Baxter at the tavern. They went toe to toe. When it was all over, Ethan had a cut above his eye, and that little scar is his souvenir, but Bern was knocked out cold and got a big gash on his jaw. When he regained his senses, everyone kept him back, but he swore he’d get revenge.”

  “Did he?” Rebecca asked softly.

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Ethan ran away.”

  “Ran away?” Rebecca asked. “When?”

  “Five years ago.”

  “Five years?” she asked.

  “He left Shad Bay five years ago, on my twenty-third birthday.”

  “Today is the first day you have seen him since then?” Rebecca asked incredulously. “He left on your birthday and came back on your birthday five years later?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s obviously more to this story.”

  “I wish he had stayed away. I can’t stand the sight of him. He’s an idiot.”

  “Maybe he’s changed.”

  “Not a chance.”

  Rebecca switched on the kitchen light and plugged in the kettle. As she waited for it to boil, she looked out the window and seemed to be lost in a reverie. When the kettle boiled, she made a pot of tea. She poured two steaming cups and then sat down, seemingly eager to hear more.

  “You don’t have to stay,” Ebony said. “I’ll be all right.”

  “You don’t look too well.”

  “I’m fine. I just had a poor sleep last night.”

  “I think I’ll stick around for a little while anyway, if that’s okay with you.”

  Ebony, lost in thought, silently traced her index finger along the rim of the teacup.

  “Tell me more about Ethan.”

  “He was the most untrustworthy man on Earth,” Ebony said immediately. “He was drinking, acting like a fool, fighting.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  Ebony lifted her eyes to Rebecca. “It’s hard talking about these things,” she said, “but it’s just a matter of time until you hear the whole story anyway. I might as well tell you what really happened.” She sipped her tea, staring into it almost as if in a hypnotic trance. “We met at a place called the Stillwater, a small lake on the Nine Mile River. That was six years ago. I was studying for my physiotherapy degree, but I didn’t enjoy living in the city, so I rented this house and moved to Shad Bay in the spring. A couple weeks after I arrived, Jenny came up and visited me. The weather was beautiful, and she asked if I would like to walk up the Nine Mile River with her. I love the outdoors and liked her right away, so I agreed. I had no idea Jenny’s brother was fishing there, but when we reached the Stillwater, he walked around the corner with his fishing rod and tackle box, and we saw each other for the first time.”

  “What did you think of him?”

  “Love at first sight,” she said with a frown.

  Rebecca lifted her eyebrows. “He is very good-looking.”

  “He is, but I found out he had a rough reputation. He was drinking and brawling.”

  “So what did you say when you saw him face-to-face?”

  “I just wanted to be friendly, but something clicked right from the beginning. He called me the next day. Before I knew it, we were seeing each other on a regular basis. Then he started giving me a ride to the university.”

  “He was a student, too?”

  “He was in his senior year of architecture. His professor told me he was the most brilliant student he ever had and that he could work wherever he wanted to. He has a tremendous gift, you know.” She paused. “But instead of using his talent to express beauty, he smothered his abilities with drunkenness and troublemaking.”

  Rebecca nodded for Ebony to continue.

  “Things started to change,” Ebony continued, “after we became friends. He toned down and devoted himself to his studies with a new enthusiasm.”

  “Did he fall in love with you?”

  “No!” she declared, offended by the suggestion. “He never loved me.”

  “He was your friend, though?”

  “So I thought. But he destroyed my trust forever. He was no better than my mother and father.”

  “Your mother and father?”

  “My mother and father didn’t want me. They left me on the back pew of a church not long after I was born with a note saying they were leaving. I’ve never met either one of them, never got so much as a birthday card. They deserted me. I was in and out of foster homes my whole life.”

  Rebecca slowly sipped from her cup of tea.

  “I talk too much,” Ebony upbraided herself, only then realizing she had acted out of character.

  “So, Ethan wasn’t all bad?”

  “No, he wasn’t,” she reluctantly admitted. “When I met him, he was a very sad and lonely man. His parents were killed in Shad Bay a year before I moved here.”

  “How?”

  “Head-on collision with a drunk driver not two hundred yards from their house. Ethan and Jenny were standing at the wharf, and they saw the whole thing. By the time they got to the car, their parents were dead.”

  “That’s awful,” Rebecca said, furrowing her brow.

  “Ethan and Jenny were left alone, and they had to manage the Harrington holdings.”

  “What happened?”

  “They were both in a funk and eventually sold all the Harrington companies except for Harrington Construction.”

  “I know Jenny has money,” Rebecca said, looking embarrassed at having mentioned it.

  “They’re both multimillionaires,” Ebony said matter-of-factly, stating something everyone in the area knew. “She was left the house by the bridge that you’ll be renting, another one by the school, an apartment building in the city, and millions of dollars. He owns the Harrington house, the cottage on the big island, and has millions in cash. They jointly own Harrington Construction. Both of them have everything you could ever need, but Ethan turned tail and ran.”

  “Why did he run away?”

  Ebony looked at Rebecca and saw the older sister she never had. Maybe she was relaxed because Rebecca was new to Shad Bay and carried no preconceived judgments. Maybe she was so full of
emotion that she just needed to talk. Whatever the reason, Ebony felt a cleansing relief in relating her past. “He…” She stopped, thought for a short time longer, then decided to bare her soul. “I’ll tell you the whole truth.”

  Rebecca leaned forward in anticipation.

  “On Ethan’s twenty-fourth birthday,” Ebony began, “we went for a walk to the Stillwater. That’s when it happened.”

  “What happened?” Rebecca whispered. “What did he do?”

  “He asked me to marry him.”

  “What!” Rebecca cried, straightening up in the chair.

  “He asked me to marry him.”

  “Did you say yes? Did you love him?”

  “I loved him, or thought I loved him, so I accepted. Since he asked me to marry him on his birthday, I thought it would be fitting if we married on my birthday. Since I was born at seven in the evening, I thought it would be so romantic if we took our vows at exactly seven o’clock, as if my wedding would be a rebirth into a second life. It sounds so corny now, but at the time, it seemed poetic. The wedding was supposed to be at St. Joseph’s Church.”

  “The church across from the store?”

  Ebony nodded. “That was supposed to be the best day of my life. Instead, it was the worst.”

  “Why did you break it off?”

  “I was so excited in the weeks leading up to it,” Ebony said with a cold expression. “We had sent out hundreds of invitations, and everyone from the local communities was invited to the reception at the White’s Lake Legion.” She swallowed hard and choked back her tears. “One week before the wedding, I found a note slipped under my door.”

  Ebony abruptly pushed back the chair, stood up, and walked into her bedroom. She opened the lock of an old hope chest and took out a white envelope, a yellow ribbon tied around it. She came back to the kitchen, untied the ribbon, removed a piece of paper, and passed it to Rebecca.

  Rebecca unfolded it and read the typed note. “‘I’m leaving, and I don’t know if I’ll ever come back. Ethan.’”

  “Today is the fifth anniversary of what was supposed to be our wedding day,” Ebony said, rubbing her forehead. “Happy birthday and happy anniversary, Ebony.”

  Rebecca touched her shoulder. “This is crazy,” she said.

  “Of all the days in the year, he chose to return on this one, the anniversary of our wedding that never was. His timing was a little off,” she said sarcastically. “He showed up five years too late.” She burst into tears. “What a nightmare!”

  “It’ll all work out,” Rebecca said in a calm voice.

  Ebony shook her head. “Can you imagine anything worse for a woman than to be deserted just before the wedding? Do you know how humiliated I was? Do you know how many people gave me pitying looks and whispered behind my back? Can you even imagine it? I carry that cross with me every day and everywhere I go. Every day, Rebecca. Every minute of every day.”

  Rebecca shuffled closer and held her hand. Ebony shivered and wept, the warm tears streaming down her cheeks. She tried to talk, but the words died in her sobs. Rebecca cried, too. She stroked Ebony’s hand and held her cheek to Ebony’s forehead. She seemed to search for words to make everything right, but what could she do? No amount of comforting would ease the pain.

  “You’re coming back with me!” Rebecca insisted, standing up.

  “No!”

  “You can’t stay here alone. You need to be around others. Come with me.”

  “No!” Ebony exclaimed. “I can’t stay there tonight!”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t sleep in his bed.”

  “I’ll stay here then.”

  “No, you should be with Ron.”

  “I can’t just leave you.”

  Ebony looked her in the eye. “Thank you for caring, Rebecca, but tonight I need to be by myself.”

  “I don’t know about that. You’re upset.”

  “Ethan Harrington is in my past. I made a mistake, that’s all. He was too wild for me anyway. It wouldn’t have worked.”

  “You don’t care that he has come back?” Rebecca probed. “It means nothing to you?”

  “That’s right. It was just the shock of seeing him so unexpectedly.”

  “You must have really loved him,” Rebecca observed, “to forgive him so easily.”

  “I will never forgive him!” Ebony shot back, her lips set firmly.

  Like a dam unable to hold back the water any longer, Ebony burst into tears again. Her whole body trembled.

  “I needed him,” Ebony said in a broken, frail voice. “I needed him as no human being should ever need anybody. But he deserted me just when I trusted him the most. You’ll never know what I went through. It was like dying. Every time the phone rang, I thought it was him. Every knock at the door, I thought it was him. Every letter I got, I thought it was from him. But he never came. Year after unending year, he never came.”

  “Oh, what a world we live in. That someone could hurt such a sweet person. It makes me so angry.”

  Ebony put the note back in the envelope and tied the yellow ribbon around it. “He gave me this ribbon at the Stillwater the day he asked me to marry him. He bought it from some gypsy when he traveled in the Ukraine on a high school trip. She said it was a ribbon of love and that when a man and woman chose each other, they were to symbolically hold it and express their eternal union. We did that, but Ethan ran away and broke the vow. The ribbon reminds me that some people cannot be trusted, no matter what they say.” She put it in the bottom drawer of her bureau and then came back with a pained expression. “That note is a constant warning for me to be on guard.”

  Rebecca squeezed her hand. “Are you sure you can’t come with me?” She paused. “No, don’t even bother answering that.” She kissed Ebony on the cheek and walked to the door. “If there’s anything I can do, don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “I know, Rebecca. Thank you.”

  Rebecca opened the door, but then closed it and turned back to Ebony. “How are you going to face him? I mean, if he really has moved back, you’re going to have to see him sooner or later.”

  “Preferably later. Much later.”

  “It may be sooner than you think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He offered to help Ron with the moving tomorrow. If you come by, you will almost certainly see him. You are going to help us, aren’t you?”

  “I promised I would, and I keep my word.”

  “What are you going to do if you meet him?”

  “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. But I’m hoping he’ll leave tonight and crawl back under his rock.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” she said with a strange look.

  Ebony noticed it. “What, Rebecca?”

  “I could tell by the way he was looking at you that he…” She hesitated and looked tentative.

  “He what?”

  “He still loves you, Ebony.”

  She angrily shook her head. “He never loved me!”

  Rebecca paused a moment longer and then left. Ebony took a deep breath and poured herself another cup of tea. She sat in silence for a long time, thoughts coming and going and a great sense of dread pressing down on her.

  Just before midnight, she stoked the stove again with a few of her last remaining pieces of wood. She climbed under the blankets and something suddenly occurred to her. Maybe this was all a dream. Yes, it was a terrible, foolish dream from which she had just awakened.

  She looked out the window and saw lights on at Ethan’s island cottage, smoke rising from the chimney.

  * * * *

  As she lay in bed, thoughts came into her head like drunken tumblers. She tried to chase them away, but they wouldn’t leave. She remembered the moment she and Ethan met, literally the precise moment in time when their eyes locked onto each other’s. After that, it was a whirlwind as they began meeting every day, traveling to the city together, going to movies and dinners. The day of the proposal particularly sto
od out in her mind. They were alone in the forest on a beautiful, warm day in May. Ethan spread out the blanket, and they lay on it, soon kissing with abandon. He undid her blouse and kissed her neck, then lowered his warm, seeking mouth to her breasts. Without Ebony even feeling it, Ethan unsnapped her bra and lifted it upward, exposing her small breasts topped with large areolae and huge nipples that were already swelled to many times their normal size. He licked and sucked, coaxing them to an even greater height. Ebony lost track of time and space, transported as she was into a realm of unknown sensual delight. The kissing went on for a long time, and though Ebony was well experienced at pleasing herself with her own fingers, Ethan’s touch made her feel something unfamiliar, a delicious tingling in her pussy that craved to be satisfied.

  He continued to lick her nipples as he unsnapped her slacks and slowly pulled down her zipper. She looked at him with the vulnerability of an inexperienced woman who has surrendered to the passions welling inside her body. Ethan slid her slacks to her knees, then looked down as he slipped his fingers under the band of her blue panties, also slipping them down to her knees. She held her legs together, timid but ready. Ethan knelt beside her and pulled her pants and panties off and laid them beside the blanket. Then he removed her blouse and bra, leaving her naked except for a pair of ankle-high white socks.

  He kissed down, pausing at her belly, then rubbed his smooth, freshly shaven face over her legs, from her knees to the tops of her thighs. Suddenly he put the backs of his hands against the insides of her legs and gently pushed. She parted them tentatively at first, then spread her legs wide and exposed her virgin pussy, the pink lips slippery wet behind a thick bush. Her heart pounded so fast she could feel it in her wrists and temples. It made her feel shy and incredibly self-conscious to be looked at in this way, but the fire in Ethan’s eyes betrayed an intense fascination and desire. He leaned forward and gently kissed her lips, moaning with pleasure as he tasted her. He lay down, placed his hands on her bottom, and began licking her, swirling his tongue over her clit and slipping it into her. Ebony moaned and moved her hips. She grasped him by the hair and held him tightly, rubbing her pussy all over his face. The hotter she got, the hotter Ethan got.