Wade Hamilton had grown up weak. Pale and slender, he was quiet and frequently ill. As a boy he had been through war and poverty, had been bullied and ignored by his mother, and had been treated well but never loved by two stepfathers.
Now a young man, he lived in Rhett Butler's Atlanta home. His mother and second stepfather's relationship had been cold and impersonal in his younger days, especially following the death of his little half sister, but now they shared a volatile, on-again off-again passion.
His sisters. He hardly ever thought of Bonnie anymore, but Ella was another story. Ella had blossomed, more or less, into a somewhat attractive but extremely bitter young lady, with her mother's ruthless determination but her father's gentle honor and passion. His mother and Rhett had another daughter, the result of their inconsistent romance, but Wade had only met baby Melanie once, and didn't much care for her. She lived with mother at Tara.
He looked up at the clock from the book he was pretending to read, squinting at its far-away face. With a sigh, he left the text open on the mahogany tabletop and went to retrieve his coat. The buggy stood at the door as he had requested. He climbed in, a sour expression on his face, and drove to the train station.
Ella's train hadn't arrived when he got there, so Wade loitered unhappily outside the stationhouse. His irritation grew with every passing minute, and he began to fidget. Ella was surely going to complain about her visit with mother, and Wade simply wanted to be through with her inevitable rant.
The cold winter wind played with his loose, mousy curls as he retrieved a cigarette from his case. Striking a match on the side of the building, he wished he had taken his hat from the hat stand by the door. He used his hand to shield the match and lit his cigarette. As he stomped the match out, he inhaled deeply and leaned against the wall. Where was the train?