"Scarlett, when you are forty-five, perhaps you will know what I'm talking about and then perhaps you, too, will be tired of imitation gentry and shoddy manners and cheap emotions. But I doubt it. I think you'll always be more attracted by glister than by gold. Anyway, I can't wait that long to see. And I have no desire to wait. It just doesn't interest me."
- Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind, page 1022.
She had been nursing a glass of wine in the quiet hotel veranda for a far too long time, she knew. But a lady in mourning should not be disturbed or blamed.
A long stretch heart-aching day she had. Too many hours had passed, even the vast ocean had finally calmed down. The beautiful twilight had fallen into the distant horizon. And finally, the moonlight had appeared on the peaceful water. The storm was over, the night had come, then there would be tomorrow. Her birthday would be gone, she was forty-five years old.
She supposed to be at her birthday party with her family, her children, and her grandchildren in Clayton County. But she was here, alone in this strange town.
It was a funeral that disrupted her children's plan and provided her this moment of solitary.
Too many funerals she had attended in the years of her life, and too many of her loved ones she had buried. This one was for Carreen, who departed too soon after an unpretentious life. Her eyes were still misted when she thought of her dear sister, but she'd done crying. No more tears, no tears could bring her loved ones back.
These were God's wills, she was wise enough to know and she couldn't negotiate. There was only once, after Melly's death, she gave in and asked for taking her instead of her granddaughter, Wade's first born. Neither of them was taken. Thereafter, she went on life more gingerly, because she knew she was under extended mercy.
Too many of her loved ones she had buried in many places. After Melly, Mammy and Pork in Tara, Grandpa Pierre in Savannah, Aunt Pitty, Uncle Henry and Ashley in Atlanta, Eulalie, Pauline and Carreen in Charleston. Her heart had been pierced and broken so many times, but it had managed to glue together and beat again after each loss. She was afraid to lose more, but she'd done complain long time ago. She took on whatever the life threw at her.
And too many times she had married, more than God allowed. She was the marrying type, someone told her before. A mild smile appeared on the corner of her lips, content and contempt. By God's will, she survived, even after she lost four husbands, buried three and divorced the fourth, or should say, the third.
Three weddings of her children's she had attended, still one less than her own, Wade told her so. She preferred this way, she couldn't bear her children suffered what she had. She had four children, two survived, two lost, and one stepson, and six grandchildren.
She still could count numbers well. She could count the numbers of her grandchildren, her children, and her bygone husbands. She still could count her businesses and ledgers right. But she couldn't count her losses, couldn't count how many funerals she had attended or arranged. She lost the counts. There were too many.
At age forty-five, a legend in Atlanta and the South, she knew and she didn't mind at all. She was the lady, the mistress of the largest plantation and the richest woman in the South. She was the old South and the new South, no one dared to dispute. She survived all, even though she had suffered more than anyone had ever endured.
But she was still attracted by glister, the sparkles of her grandchildren's eyes. And she was attracted by gold too, she hoarded them greedily for her children. So ironic that her third husband was deadly wrong. No, she didn't like one kind only, she liked both. Not just glister, not just gold, but both. These were the purposes she lived for and fought for, for those who she loved dearly, and for those who loved her.
It was getting late now. She should have retired to her hotel room a while ago. But she lingered in this hotel lobby, to gather her last memory of this town. All her connections to this town were gone, taken away by death. She had no reason to return again.
She won't mind if she never saw the ocean again. Its seemly calm temperament always reminded her someone she tried to forget but forever remembered. She knew its peaceful coolness was ready to be taken over by angry rolling waves if it was provoked. Once it did, it was unstoppable, unforgiving and detrimental, leaving destructed wreckage along its path. Then it would retreat suddenly, as at its own will, returning to its false calmness and waiting for its next strike. No, she had no desire to deal with it.
She must return to Clayton County, Tara and Twelve Oaks, the red earth, the dark black pines, the green rolling hills, and the endless white cotton fields. That was her home, the tranquil land where she always regained her strength. Her home, her fortress, no death could ever take away from her.
She started going up the stairs, to her room, to rest and to prepare for tomorrow.
"Miss O'Hara."
A familiar but long forgotten voice, she stopped. It was quiet in the lobby, she must be dreaming, a sign of senile, she chuckled. She continued on the stairs.
"Scarlett!"
No one called her name like he did. She stopped again, on the landing of the stairs, in a Charleston hotel, at her forty-fifth birthday.
AU: This came as a one-shot idea I had a few months ago when I re-read through the last part of GWTW, saw the paragraph. But this short story by no means suggests the end of ODFW, which I am still working on. Please do share your thoughts, comments or objections with me! Thank you!
