Good Dirt

Henry

Henry

W here is she?

Henry has been listening for the sound of Ebby’s car. She wasn’t at the cottage when Avery brought him back from the hospital last night, and she was gone again today. He needs to talk to Ebby before he leaves the village tomorrow. Even after everything that has happened—Henry’s fall by the river, the police questioning, the rapprochement, as Avery put it, between her and Ebby—it’s clear that Ebby is avoiding him. He rubs his bandaged ankle where it hurts. This is Henry’s last chance. Avery has gone to wash her hair and pack. Henry picks up his camera and fiddles with it, listening.

Waiting.

True, Ebby has refused to hear him out already, but he needs to try again. Not only for himself, but also for her. She needs to know why he did what he did. He has thought of writing Ebby a letter or leaving her a long voicemail, but he owes it to her to stand and face her this time. Plus, it’s a delicate issue. He doesn’t want to leave a paper trail or digital record about anything connected to the death of Ebby’s brother. What if his father’s friend really does know something about the crime, as unlikely as that may seem?

Better to talk to Ebby here, in this hamlet far away from home. If Henry Pepper were to approach Ebony Freeman’s apartment back in Connecticut, or meet her in a coffee shop, or even nod at her while passing her in the parking lot of a supermarket, their encounter might end up being fodder for gossip, and he doesn’t want any more of that.

When he ran off on their wedding day, he wasn’t thinking straight, and he sure as heck wasn’t thinking about social media. He knew there was bound to be a local news headline somewhere. But things kind of blew up when he took off. It has always perplexed him how, with all the big-name celebs running around, and with all the scandals popping up, anyone found the time or energy to be that curious about Henry and Ebby.

There she is.

Henry hears Ebby’s car pulling onto the gravel outside the cottage and rushes out the front door. He still has a few minutes. Avery’s shower is still running in the bathroom.

“Ebby,” Henry says as he approaches her. Ebby is shaking her head no and waving him off, but he persists. “Could we please just talk for a minute?”

Ebby stops. Henry tips his head in the direction of the main house.

“Can we go inside?” he says. Ebby doesn’t say yes, but she doesn’t say no, either. When she turns toward the house, Henry follows.

Ebby isn’t making this easy for Henry. She stands there, in the kitchen, with her arms crossed. And she won’t look at him. This is the worst part, he thinks, that Ebby won’t even lift those velvety eyes of hers in his direction.

“I know there is nothing I can do to make it up to you,” Henry says. “But I do owe you an apology, and I was hoping you’d let me explain.” Ebby flicks her eyes up at him, now. He takes that as a yes and lets his story spill out.

The thing about people is, they will surprise you. Ebby doesn’t interrupt Henry. She doesn’t raise her voice or shed tears, as he expected. She locks her hands together and brings them up to her mouth, looking down toward the floor, as if in silent prayer. Nine months have gone by since they last saw each other. A lot can happen to a person in nine months. When Henry is done talking, Ebby just stands there for a while, nodding slowly, before speaking.

“That is weird,” Ebby says slowly.

“Exactly,” Henry says. “You told me no one knew the jar was broken.”

“Well, my family. Maybe some of our friends. But it wasn’t, like, public knowledge. And you believe your father’s friend knew something about it?” Ebby asks.

“I don’t want to believe it, but it made me feel very uncomfortable to hear him mention the jar being broken during the home invasion. I mean, how did he know? I was uncomfortable enough that I didn’t have the guts to ask. He’s one of my dad’s best buddies. I kept thinking there had to be an explanation that wouldn’t be so, you know, incriminating.”

“Who is this person?”

“I told you, a close friend of my father’s, but I’d rather not say his name.”

“Well, you should have asked him,” Ebby says.

“I know.”

“And you should have told me.”

“No, I couldn’t. You would have gone ballistic. You would have wanted to know right away.”

“And could you blame me?”

“No, not at all. But you wouldn’t have given me time to find out for myself. And that could have been very awkward for my family, as well as upsetting for yours. So I didn’t tell you, and then I just couldn’t face you, Ebby.”

“You couldn’t face me?” Ebby says. “This is why you skipped out on our wedding? Because you felt guilty not telling me?”

“Yes,” Henry says. “I mean, no, not only that. It’s that, I didn’t know, anymore, how to be around you without worrying about how you’d react to things.”

Ebby turns one side of her face toward him as if trying to hear something.

“You didn’t know how to be around me anymore? Are you saying you wanted to leave me anyway?”

Henry opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. And as his reaction sinks in, Ebby opens her mouth even wider. A silent ohhh . Then an endless moment in which Ebby breathes in and out.

“And you couldn’t have told me this before the day of our wedding, Henry?”

Henry reaches for Ebby, now, but she steps back and puts her arms up as if to deflect a blow. She shakes her head no-no-no-no-no as if responding to an internal voice, until, finally, she lowers her arms and her face grows still as stone. Henry recognizes that look. This is aloof Ebby, private Ebby, deep-down-hurt Ebby .

Henry’s heart is breaking, not only for her but for himself. Maybe he could have asked Ebby to postpone their wedding plans, instead of running off. Maybe he’d only needed some time to figure things out for himself. Maybe Ebby would have understood if he’d been honest with her.

“Your father’s friend,” Ebby says slowly, now, and Henry sees that she is sidestepping the issue of their relationship altogether. “I agree there’s got to be an explanation. It just doesn’t make sense he’d say something like that, openly, if he’d been mixed up in something criminal.”

“Exactly. And I don’t think he needed the money.”

“Maybe not, but you already know what I think.”

“That this wasn’t necessarily about money.”

“Right,” Ebby says, and they nod simultaneously.

Early in their relationship, on one of Ebby’s more difficult nights, she awoke from a nightmare and confided in Henry. As her tears soaked his T-shirt, she told him about her brother’s death and how he had seen the jar fall and break.

“That was the last thing he saw,” she sobbed. “Everything that jar represented. Our family’s pride. Our history. All the stories that used to entertain us. Gone. That jar had been there before us, and our parents, and their parents, and it was supposed to be there, no matter what.”

Henry held Ebby in his arms and listened. This woman, who had brought her own special light into his life, sounded like a broken little girl in that moment.

“That wasn’t the last thing your brother saw,” Henry said, wiping her wet cheek with his hand. “ You were the last thing he saw. His little sister. He knew he wasn’t alone. Don’t you think that counts for something?”

Ebby nodded. Wiped her nose with her forearm.

“But there’s more,” Ebby said. And still in the voice of that little girl, she made him swear not to tell anyone before she told him the rest. Not even her parents knew, she said. She told Henry she was sure the robbers had gone to her family home to take the jar. And she told him why she believed this. Henry nodded and listened, and he kept his promise to Ebby. He has never shared the details of that conversation with anyone. But he has failed to keep a different promise to her, his promise of marriage. And look at them now.