Disclaimer/Author's Note:Neither the HMC-verse, nor any of its characters belong to me, although this fic actually happens to have more characters of my own invention (Addiena, Rhett, etc.) than DWJ's.
I originally meant this to be the prologue to my Cordelia story, but then I realized that this just made the beginning to that story unnecessarily long and draggy, so I decided to turn it into its own little ficlet. The Cordelia story still takes place in the same timeline as this one, but I don't think you needto have read thisin order to understand it. Anyway, hope no one got terribly confused. :)
Addiena Jenkins had come to realize that ignorance truly is bliss. It had been an accident—a cruel twist of fate that had lifted the veil from her eyes, giving her the knowledge that shattered her world. She would do anything to give that knowledge back. But some things just can't be undone.
Yes, she had noticed the warning signs. But she had chosen to ignore them, to rationalize them—she had chosen to tell herself that to love someone, you also had to trust them completely. And oh, did she love her husband. Even after over twenty years, he was still her greatest dream come true, her raison d'etre. And so she chose to trust him, to overlook his questionable behavior, and she lived in blissful ignorance. Until her daughter's wedding.
That was when the accident happened, at the reception, at a time when Addiena's life was spread out before her and appeared to be ... utterly perfect.
Megan had never looked so beautiful, her dark hair draped freely about her shoulders, her antique wedding dress lending her an unexpected elegance. Addiena found herself thinking that Megan was a vision from the past, a ghost of a gentler time, when men were gentlemen and women were ladies.
For a moment longer, Addiena allowed her gaze to linger upon Megan, happily dancing in Gareth's arms. She then turned to look for her son. Her eyes lit upon Howell, and a small chuckle escaped her lips. Only twelve, and yet there he was, trying to chat up Elaine, one of Megan's bridesmaids. No, Addiena couldn't hear the conversation he was having, but she was certain that that was exactly what was happening. She shook her head ... that boy ... he was turning out to be so much like his father. Rhett had always been a ladies' man, charming (or at least attempting to charm) anything in a skirt with a flash of his smile. It never ceased to amaze Addiena that she had managed to tame and claim Rhett as her own.
Howell was asking Elaine to dance now, offering her his hand while gesturing towards the dance floor with the other. Addiena got ready to go over and save Elaine from the irritation of his advances, but lo and behold, the girl was accepting the invitation with a smile. Judging by the look on Elaine's face, it seemed that, at the very least, she was terribly amused to be so boldly pursued by someone who was ten years her junior.
Addiena chuckled again, filled two glasses with champagne, and began walking back towards her husband. He was lounging casually at the end of a long rectangular table, sitting across from the Ainsworths. Mr. Ainsworth was going on about something in an animated manner, while Rhett simply nodded, smiling dreamily. That man ... he only seemed to get more handsome as he grew older. He had recently grown a beard, which softened the harsh angles of his jaw, and after all these years, he had finally cut his hair so that it was only an inch long, a move that made him look considerably more respectable. And of course, his eyes ... well, they had never changed, and that was for the best.
Addiena was lost in a revery about Rhett's green eyes, and so perhaps his eyes should be blamed for what happened over the next five minutes ... and over the next fifteen years. She was thinking to herself that his eyes were like liquid emeralds, like a thick pine forest reflected in calm water—she was thinking to herself and not paying a damned bit of attention to the real world, and so she walked into a chair, stumbling over it and dropping one of the champagne glasses she was carrying. The glass shattered on the floor, blonde liquid spreading across the tiles. No one heard the crash—it had been swallowed in the throbbing of the music. Addiena knelt down to pick up the pieces of glass, and when she raised her eyes, she found that she couldn't breathe. No one heard the breaking of her heart—it, too, was swallowed in the throbbing of the music.
If it hadn't been for the music, the guests at Megan's wedding reception surely would have heard a sound that was a little like every champagne glass in existence being simultaneously dropped from a fifty story building. For as Addiena raised her eyes, they met such a curious, heart-stopping sight. She found herself looking under one end of the long rectangular table that Rhett was sitting at. For the most part, she just saw two rows of legs. But then, at the very end of the table, past the two orderly rows of legs ... well, there were Rhett's legs, one of which looked normal ... but the other one ... the foot was out of its shoe ... and it was moving up and down Mrs. Ainsworth's stockinged leg. As for Mrs. Ainsworth's other stockinged leg ... its foot was also out of its shoe ... in fact, its foot was nowhere to be seen, for it had fully hidden itself within the folds of Rhett's crotch.
Addiena sat down hard, champagne soaking through her skirt, glass fragments pricking her thighs.
"Mam, are you all right there?" it was Megan, coming over with Gareth in tow. She made a motion to kneel down next to her mother, and Addiena hurriedly got to her feet, lest her daughter glimpse the atrocity taking place beneath that long rectangular table.
"Oh, I'm fine darling," the words came out in a strangled, asthmatic manner. "Just took a little spill, that's all."
"Maybe you should sit down," Megan advised, steering her mother towards a nearby chair
"No ... no ... I ..." Addiena's eyes wandered back to the table. Rhett hadn't noticed a thing ... well, how could he have noticed anything with Mrs. Ainsworth's foot in its current position ... he just continued to smile dreamily, and Mr. Ainsworth continued to talk animatedly, while Mrs. Ainsworth was doing her best to look bored. Above the table, everything looked so normal, so decent. Well, things always looked that way on the surface, didn't they?