The Reunion (4 page)

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 stood 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.

She suddenly pulled away, knowing that if he licked her any longer, the climax would surely come. “Show me your body,” she said.

He sat on the blanket, lifted off his shirt, then unbuckled his belt and pulled down his pants and underwear to his knees.

“Oh,” Ebony gasped as she looked at his cock. “It’s so big.”

“I can’t help it,” he said, removing his pants and underwear. “It’s your fault.”

Ebony looked at his thick ten-inch cock with its big head, pulsating shaft, and heavy balls surrounded by a thick bush of jet-black hair.

“Let me taste you again, darling,” he pleaded, lying flat on his back.

She stared at his cock as she spoke. “What do you want me to do?”

“Stand above me.”

Ebony stood up and placed her feet on either side of his shoulders, showing her hot pussy lips, her soft ass, and naked breasts. She looked back at his massive cock and slightly gasped, wondering how he could ever slide that huge dick into her. Ethan rubbed his hands up her legs from her ankles to her knees, his eyes fixated on her pussy.

“Feed me,” he begged.

Feeling inexperienced, she looked down at him. “What do you want me to do?”

“Let me lick your pussy. Please.”

Ebony hesitated, her heart thundering. Then she lowered herself onto his face, looking down as his tongue slid into her. She let out a loud moan, and he coaxed her to sit right on him so he could fully enjoy her. Ebony was innocent in the ways of sex, but she knew what she liked, and she started to move her hips, rubbing her pussy all over his mouth and cheeks, covering his face with her feminine juices. He reached up and gently massaged her breasts, lightly squeezing her hard nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. The delicious pleasure built to such a degree that she knew had she kept sliding on his face and riding his tongue, she would have exploded in a massive orgasm. She stood up, hotter and hornier than she ever imagined she could be. Her eyes again went to his huge cock, which seemed to be pointing at her.