I do not own GWTW and its characters. Margaret Mitchell owns GWTW and no monetary gain will come out of this. I just own my love and appreciation for the characters who jump right out of the book and into your heart.
The story picks up right after she says, "….tomorrow is another day".
"Tomorrow in the Midst"
Chapter 1 An Embrace from a First Love
The train rolled past miles and miles of sprawling fall foliage, a sight that always captivated the passengers headed for Jonesboro during its climactic brilliance this time of the year. Even the children welcomed the beauty and color since their recent days kept them in the traditional bleak black state of mourning. The coloring leaves were the only things that reached out to offer them some comfort. To a despondent Scarlett, she knew that soon all the trees would become leafless and lifeless, especially at Tara, her final destination, and grew wearier to think that desolation would surround and remind her of how unfruitful her life had become.
As Rhett promised, he left after Melanie's funeral to Europe. Scarlett watched him kiss Wade and Ella, goodbye, and by the way he did, she knew he wasn't intending to return to them soon. The memory crept once more upon her as she stood on the same spot Gerald and her once stood overlooking the splendor of their rural estate. The white imperfect frame of her childhood home still stood as mighty as the thick leaning oak trees blazing their magnificent colors against the last fury of the sunset. It was only a matter of time before those feelings of despair would be replaced. This was what she travelled all this way for, to regain sight of what she herself had protected, suffered for, yearned for, and revived—her first love.
And to pay homage to the dead, Gerald and Ellen, with a renewed promise to keep their legacy alive. What caused the Irish to love their land so, enough to fight for it, even to the death was Gerald's one simple gift to her, the heart to possess a place or something to call your very own. To be the lady Ellen had painstakingly and diligently taught her to be against every bone in her wild-country-flower-ridden body. The war and the ruthless determination to be rich had drained the precious nectar her vivacious charms of which had once pollinated the county boys to distraction. She was sweet on them, and they sure came in swarms. Scarlett realized it on that spot, that if she practically controlled the young men of the county, why couldn't she get this one. She'd think about it tomorrow, not letting strange and wonderful sensations return inside her to lose its momentum. She drew in a deep breath, making her chest swell as she stood tall and still.
She found standing there that she needed to return to Tara, not to collect herself, but to travel back to the days before the wind had taken the ways of the old world. Much would be forever lost, but charm and goodness, always found its way out of the rubble. Scarlett let the tears freely roll at the last thought that reminded her of Melanie. She was that charm and goodness when Tara was a nothing but a shabby war-torn shelter. She was that charm and goodness the Atlanta folks flocked to, to see for themselves steely eyes that could convince anyone the south had never utterly failed to win a war. But the war did win her, at least the physical state only a few people were able to see—Dr. Meade, Scarlett and Rhett—the only eyewitnesses who could conclude that she had never fully recovered from the siege.
But the most important reason for returning to Tara was to cry without restraint, to cry as a little child would before getting back up to play again. The kind of child she was, and wished she could still be, without her adept skills of deception, but the child with innocence and the whole world waiting for her with open arms. Life was moving on and she needed to arm herself with the emotions Tara conjured in her. Before she could, she needed to give herself this moment far from thin walls, and intrusive tendencies of humans. She needed to cry against the solid trunk of the oak tree, to confide in the winds that held the fragrant mixture of Gerald and Ellen's essence—musk of horses and lemon verbena sachets. For now it would be enough for Tara's temperate wind to embrace her before the season drew to a close for a harsher one, knowing it would be the only source of consolation she could take without shame and pity. It would be the only embrace she'd find herself in for quite some time.