Maryanne's First Kiss

"David?"

He froze. His head still turned away from her, as if he could not look at her.

"I seem to recall once going by that name." He said, his body still turned away.

She ran toward him, placing the framed photo on the table between them.

"David? Don't you recognize me, oh hell, why should you. It's been seventeen years. That's you standing next to me in that picture, isn't it? That's us on what was for me the most magical night of my life." She said, moving close to him, taking his hand, touching his face and gently turning it toward her own.

"Maryanne?" He whispered.

And as Maryanne saw the deep scars still visible under his full beard, her confusion was instantly replaced by complete recognition. It all fell into place. As he vainly tried to resist, she would have none of it. Taking his arms she placed them around her. Cupping his face in her hands she kissed him. And it was with that kiss, a kiss as magical as the first time a boy---this boy---had ever kissed her so many years ago, that Maryanne brought Warren Davis, born David Warner, back from the edge of the abyss. He stopped fighting her and took her in his arms as he had that special night.

"Don't fight me David, not now, not ever again. I won't let you slip away twice in the same life time."

"Never, Maryanne, Never. I won't leave you. Thank you...thank you for coming back to me...saving me."

And then he started to babble almost incoherently as he realized that he really only knew one special woman name Maryanne. The one who had touched his heart indelibly at their senior prom was the same Maryanne who had been desperately trying to pull him back from the edge over the last several months. She had come closer to failing than she could have known. She had risked everything including her own life to come back for him, to pull him from that burning crash site which his life had become. Maryanne silenced him with her lips and held him as tightly as he had held her on her parents' door step.

Many don't believe in the healing power of another's touch; it's easy to deride faith healers as little more than con artists. But in those few moments, as David and Maryanne stood together, wrapped in each others arms with there lips pressed tightly together and their tears intermingling, their two hearts connected again as they had connected so many years before. As each heart broke free and accepted the other, all of the hurt, all of the regret, all of the pain, all of the heartache and all of the disappointment both had held on to for too long was swept away as if a wave of holy water had washed over them.

David's once hopeful and optimistic spirit returned in the arms of the special girl who had captured his heart those many years before. The cynical book reviewers were almost disappointed as his work became much brighter and even more up lifting. His loyal readers, on the other hand, were relieved, for they too had thought that they were close to losing him.

David and Maryanne wept softly together as their dear friend Sid was laid to rest a few weeks later; it saddened them both that the dear old man had not been there to be part of their happiness together.

Maryanne never became a federal judge in spite of several attempts to entice her in that direction. She retired from the law, changing her last name one final time. Warren Davis became David Warner again, venturing boldly out in public when the need arose. They spent many special days alone together on that enigmatic mountain farm in New York, for both were, at heart, very private people. It was the place in which David had almost been lost but also the place in which two very special, nice, sweet, caring and deserving people found each other and found enduring love.

As the years went on their solitude was delightfully broken by the voices of young children. No matter where they resided together, they always found time in the year to return to that old log cabin where their life together had almost ended before it began.