The Reunion (19 page)

“The reason I’m calling,” said Father Thomas, “is because there are some loose ends that need tying. This morning, not ten minutes ago, I was on the phone with our representative from the mission. He had unexpected news.”

“Oh?” she asked, her hand shaking slightly.

“Apparently a spot has come open earlier than expected.”

“How early?”

“He wants you to leave on May the eleventh.”

“That’s next Sunday,” Ebony replied in a cracking voice. “It keeps moving up.”

“They want the opening filled, and he asked me if I thought you were the one for this position.”

“What did you say?”

“Honestly, I think it would be better if you stayed in Shad Bay and left this mission to someone else, but I also told him that it is your decision and that I would pass on the message. You can decide any time between now and then. He is going to be down here on the eleventh, so he will pick you up and drive you to the airport if you want to go. Just be in front of the church that day at noon. If you aren’t there, he will consider you no longer interested, and there is someone else who will take your place. But once this position is filled, another may not arise for months. Your choice. Does that sound fair?”

“More than fair,” she said softly. “Thank you, Father.”

“God bless you, Ebony.”

She laid down the phone and became distinctly aware of the silence. She dressed and soon heard Jenny drive into the yard. They traveled to a local park and walked side by side for several minutes before Jenny spoke.

“What’s bothering you?” she asked.

Ebony forced a smile, but did not reveal the tempest that raged within her soul.

“You caught a cold yesterday, didn’t you?” Jenny said, obviously noticing her friend was stuffed up and not feeling well.

“Yes, but it’s nothing.”

“Bill asked me to go to his cottage,” Jenny said.

“Will you?”

Jenny nodded. “Right after I leave here, he’s going to pick me up, and we’re going to spend three or four days by the lake. I’m leaving my cell phone home, and we’re going to get away from everything. Just the two of us and no outside interference.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“He asked me to marry him,” Jenny blurted out.

“Really?” Ebony said excitedly. “That’s wonderful!”

“I told him I would give him an answer at the cottage.”

“What will you tell him?”

“I’m going to accept,” she said. “No matter what my apprehensions, I love him, and I have to put complete trust in my love.”

“I’m so happy for you,” Ebony exclaimed, tears in her eyes. “You will be the most beautiful bride ever.”

“Thank you.” She paused. “I haven’t mentioned this for a long time, so don’t get mad, but what about your trip to Africa?”

“I have to make up my mind soon,” she said, her voice cracking. “They want me to leave next Sunday.”

“What?” Jenny cried. “Are you serious?”

Ebony nodded.

“When did all this come about?”

“Father Thomas phoned me this morning and asked me if I’d be ready to leave on the eleventh. It seems to be my date with destiny. Go, or stay here forever.”

“Which way are you leaning?”

“A few months ago, I was committed to the idea, but things have changed. I fell in love with Ethan all over again. I try to imagine leaving him, but I can’t. The thought of it tears me in half.”

Jenny spontaneously hugged Ebony. “You’re staying? You’re really staying?”

“I have to,” Ebony said. “I want to go to Africa and help people, but it wouldn’t work. I’d be miserable without him now.”

“You’re staying,” Jenny said again. “All this time I thought you were leaving us.”

“The only way I would leave now,” Ebony explained, “is if Ethan deserted me again. If he did, I would go away and never come back.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Jenny assured her. “He loves you more now than ever, and he’s changed. Have you told him you’re staying?”

“I’m going to tell him today.” She glanced at her watch. “Can you drive me home now so I won’t be late for church?”

At nine thirty, Jenny drove Ebony home and hugged her again before leaving. Ebony walked into the house, and the first thing she noticed was a piece of loose-leaf paper lying on the kitchen table. She clearly recognized Ethan’s handwriting.

I am going away, and I am never coming back.

- Ethan

Chapter Nine

Ebony dropped the note, stumbled into the bedroom, and fell onto the mattress, whimpering like a wounded animal. She literally trembled, her face as fragile as glass.

“What are you going to do?” she said as if speaking to another person. “This can’t be happening a second time. It can’t be. You can’t go through it again. You can’t.”

Ebony eventually sat up on the bed and took a deep breath. She stepped onto the floor as if she had been bedridden for years and was just learning to walk again, then took small, shuffling steps to the window and looked at the island. There was no sign of life at Ethan’s. She called him on the phone. No answer.

“Come on,” she pleaded. “Answer!”

It rang twenty-five times before she hung up.

“Oh my God,” she muttered, “you’ve lost him for a second time. And it’s all your fault.”

Distraught beyond control, she called Father Thomas and explained what had happened.

“Do you honestly believe he left again?” asked the priest, gravely concerned.

“No,” Ebony said, unable to comprehend such a thing. “This is all a horrible nightmare. He will come back. I have faith in him. I trust him. He will come back, Father. I’m sure of it.”

“Yes,” Father Thomas agreed. “It’s some kind of misunderstanding. There has to be an explanation.” He paused as if searching for words of reassurance, but found none. “Are you coming to church this morning?”

“I don’t think I can today. I haven’t been feeling well since yesterday. I caught some kind of chill at the races. Right now I feel like I’m floating in space.”

“Could I come visit you after church?”

“Yes, Father. Thank you.”

Ebony looked out the window almost constantly for the next hour, praying that she would see some sign of Ethan. But nothing. She walked down the hill. There, at the cove wharf, was Ethan’s dory. His car was gone. Ebony closed her eyes in agony and started to cry. Gone. Again! No, it couldn’t be. She kept glancing up the road, waiting vainly for him to appear. How long could she wait? Another five years? A lifetime? Forever?

She staggered up the hill, and just as she got to her door, Father Thomas drove into her yard. Ebony invited him in, forcing a smile and trying to hide her heavy grief. It didn’t work. She sat at the table and burst into tears. Father Thomas sat beside her and laid his old, withered fingers across her soft, trembling hand. He let her talk uninterrupted, and she explained everything that happened the day before.

“Perhaps this woman has done something,” Father Thomas speculated. “Maybe she wrote the note.”

“It’s his handwriting,” Ebony assured him. “And he was talking about leaving because of my lack of trust.”

“I just can’t believe it.”

“And forget about the note,” Ebony said. “Ethan is a capable man. She couldn’t have thrown him over her shoulder and kidnapped him.”

“No, that’s not too likely, is it?” said the priest with a shrug.

She leaned back in her chair, sighed deeply, and glanced at him awkwardly.

Father Thomas rose. “Sometimes a man and woman are meant to be together. No matter what the struggles,” he added meaningfully, “they are meant to be together. Maybe this is a test of some kind, a test of your love.”

She sighed deeply, spoke a moment longer, then walked him to the car. She thanked him for visiting, and he assured her that if she needed his assistance in any way, that she should call immediately. Ebony thanked him and waved as he drove out of her yard.

“Ethan will return today,” Ebony told herself with firm conviction. “I know it.”

* * * *

He did not return that day.

“Please come back,” she prayed all the next day, her heart aching. “I need you.”

Late at night, when she took a quick stroll down to the cove wharf, she saw Ethan’s dory was still there and his car was not. It made no sense. He would not stay away overnight without telling her or Jenny. Ebony could do nothing, so she went to bed, again praying hard that he would be back in the morning. But he did not return on Tuesday either. She called the airport and, to her dismay, discovered that Ethan, and Cassandra, had taken a flight to Rome on Sunday. Feeling sick to the core, she could not find escape from her anguish. Every waking minute was a torture, and even in her sleep, she was haunted by the image of being betrayed again. She also had to contend with the darting glances and mumbled words of everyone in the community, all of whom knew by now that Ethan had left unexpectedly.

“I’m losing my mind,” she said on Thursday morning after taking yet another walk to the cove and finding the dory undisturbed. “Oh my God, Ethan, why are you doing this to me? Why did you go with her?”

Adding to the pain of loss, her cold got progressively worse. She felt as though her body and mind were stressed to the breaking point. She began having flashbacks, remembering in minute detail events from the last five years when she felt like she was dying of loneliness. Every time she heard a car driving along the road, every phone call, every person she saw walking outside, she thought it was him coming back to her. But he did not come, and the longer she waited, the more depressed and edgy she became.

“I can’t bear to go through it again,” she told Jenny Thursday evening shortly after Bill dropped her off.

“Where is he?” Jenny exclaimed, biting her lip in consternation. “This cannot be happening, Ebony.”

“It is happening.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I hate not being in control,” she said, “but everything depends on Ethan. If he wants me to marry him, I would. In a minute I would. But if he wanted to marry me, he would not have done this.”

“It makes no sense,” Jenny insisted. “Something is not right here, and I don’t believe for a minute that he deserted you. I don’t care what his note said. I know he would not have done it again.”

“‘Again’ is the operative word, isn’t it? If he did it once, he could have done it again. People live by patterns.”

“He’s a lot different now than five years ago.”

“But the result is the same. I am here alone, waiting, and he has just vanished.”

“He’ll be back. Have faith.” She smiled lovingly and called Bill on her phone, rearranging a trip they had planned to his cottage so she would be home on the eleventh, the day Ebony had to decide whether or not to leave for Africa. “I’ll come visit you Sunday morning,” she said meaningfully. “Everything is going to be all right.”

Ebony awkwardly looked away. Jenny hugged her best friend, then nodded and left. In solitude, the silence seemed almost overwhelming. She tried to occupy herself, to read, to think of other things, but her mind kept coming back to Ethan and the decision she had to make. She looked at the stove and remembered his big boots beside it. On Friday evening, unable to stand the solitude any longer, she walked to Rebecca’s, perhaps, she thought, for the last time.

“Oh, Ebony,” Rebecca said when she saw her friend, “you don’t look well at all.”

“I caught a little cold.”

“Little cold? You look weak. Have you been eating?”

“Not too well, I suppose.”

“You should be home in bed,” Rebecca said. “I’ll talk to Ron, and I’m sure he won’t mind if I come stay with you for a couple days.”

“No, I’ll be all right,” she insisted. “It will pass.”

“Come in,” Rebecca encouraged.

“That’s all right. I’m just out for a walk.”

At that moment, Ron and Doc came into the room. “Hi, Ebony,” Ron said, brightening up at the sight of her. “Nice to see you.”

“Thank you.” Ebony smiled warmly at her friends. “Good-bye.”

“Wait a second,” Doc said, coming forward. “You don’t look well, dear.”

“No, I’m fine,” she dismissed. “I promise I’ll go home to bed right now, and if I feel any worse, I’ll call the doctor.”

“I’ll call you and make sure you’re all right,” Rebecca said with obvious concern. “You really don’t look well, Ebony.”

“I’ll be fine.”

She left and sadly walked down the driveway. When she got home, she made herself a cup of hot chocolate, then sat looking out over the bay and the dark island where Ethan lived. When she turned back, she noticed Jenny had left her phone on the table. Since Jenny was planning on visiting the morning of her decision, she just placed it at the center of the table, where it could not be missed. Finally, late at night, Ebony reluctantly climbed into bed.

The next morning she woke up feeling sick to her stomach. By evening she felt worse. Somehow, though, she dragged herself around and packed her suitcases. When she finished, she literally fell onto the bed. The sickness, the thought of leaving her friends and home, her fears, all these things worsened her condition. But what tortured her most was Ethan’s disappearance. If he hadn’t betrayed her a second time, he would have returned by now. It had been five days, and there was no sign of him. Not even a phone call. Still, though, somewhere in her soul, she felt him. She felt his presence, his love, his need for her.

What should I do?
she thought.
Listen to my reason and pride or listen to my instinct?

Thinking strangely, Ebony suddenly decided to walk to the church with her bags and wait there through the night. If she decided to go to Africa, she would meet her driver at noon. If she decided to stay in Shad Bay, she would walk home. But for this night, she would sit or lie on a back pew and try to find a solution to the mess that was her life.

Not wanting to be disturbed in any way, she left her phone right beside Jenny’s, with a note asking Jenny to cancel her service. She wrote a check to cover the fee. If she left, her friend would do her that favor. If she stayed, she would be home the next morning, and Jenny would never see the note or the check.