Word puzzle

Fill in the four blanks to spell two words with the indicated meanings.

R E _ _ I T E S, meaning breaks
R E _ _ I T E S, meaning comes together again

Brain freeze

I had one devil of a time thinking of the right letter to complete the "droll observation" in today's (Wednesday) NYT crossword. I'd completed the whole puzzle, except for one letter of the droll observation, the second letter:

A_ALONEEDS TOFALLONLY AFEWINCHES TOBEANOOSE

So, what letter should go in the blank? Should be simple, right? I'll be damned if I could think of it. The crossing clue was

_______ Rios, Jamaica (4)

which I had all the letters (but one) for:

OC_O

It took me a good 10 minutes to realize the answer.

Yet another reason why I'll never be a strong solver.