May the light of love be shining deep within your spirit; may the light of love be with you every day. –David Roth
"Uncle Rhett?" asks Ella with all the seriousness her almost six year old self can muster, "What does love mean?"
He folds up the evening newspaper immediately, looking at Ella with such thought that she beams, proud to have asked such a question.
"Come here, Ella," he tells her, "And I'll explain."
She climbs on his knee happily and leans back against him. Uncle Rhett winds one hand though her fine strawberry curls, silent for a few seconds.
"When you visit Aunt Melly," he finally begins, "And she talks to you and Wade and Beau, do you notice the light in her eyes?"
Ella frowns in thought, conjuring up the picture of Aunt Melly yesterday when Wade killed the enormous spider creeping across the table even though insects scared him, because they scared Beau and Ella more.
Even though Aunt Melly isn't scared of anything, Ella thinks, her face grew rosier and stronger somehow after Wade swatted it, and when she kissed him she meant it still more than usual.
"I don't know about her eyes," she tells Uncle Rhett truthfully, "But I can hear it in her voice."
She twists around to look him in the eye as he gives an affirming nod.
"I see …" Ella's hand flies up to touch her stepfather's cheek. "I see light in your eyes."
Uncle Rhett wraps his arms, around her, hugging Ella close to him. She relaxes against him, eyelids drooping.
Suddenly, the door to the living room flies open. "Oh, Rhett!" comes the voice of Ella's mother, "You'll never believe the way Mrs. Meade spoke to me today."
"Like a common Yankee, I'd guess," Rhett replies evenly. Shrinking back against him, Ella looks from her mother, tight lipped and trembling, to her stepfather, eyes now steely.
"Why, like one of the officer's wives herself! It was dreadful how icy her voice grew when I asked after her husband the doctor." Scarlett's jaw hardens. "Old biddy."
Ella withdraws from the conversation, searching through her short memory for a tangible one of Mrs. Meade. At last she latches onto a mental picture of a stout, powderfaced woman pinching her cheeks and telling Mamma that she hoped this one would be a credit to her. With practiced skill, she holds onto the image and words until Mrs. Meade's reedy voice is all she hears; her unnaturally pale face all she sees.
Only her mother's clattering exit calls Ella back to the present.
"Here, now," Uncle Rhett murmurs, "You don't need to suck that, do you?"
Only now does Ella realize that her thumb has slipped to her mouth, a babyish habit inexcusable for a girl of six. She wipes it on her pinafore quickly and steals another glance at Uncle Rhett's face, warmth and kindness restored.
"Uncle Rhett," she asks carefully, "Why don't you love Mamma?"
He goes stiff all over, like the groundhog that she and Wade chased around the yard and cornered before Mammy caught them.
"Now what would make you say a thing like that, Ella?" he replies.
Unconsciously, she rests her cheek against his. "A minute ago when you looked at me, I saw the light that you said that Aunt Melly had. But when Mamma came in, the light got covered." She looks into his face searchingly: "But now, Uncle Rhett, it's twice as strong, and it glitters!" For, indeed, her stepfather can't quite keep the tears from his voice as he tells her,
"You know that I love you and Wade as if you were my own children?"
"Yes," says Ella. She cuddles into him. Uncle Rhett is the only person who makes her feel safer than Aunt Melly. "I … love you too."
The words warm her from her nose to the tips of her toes, even more than the hot cocoa that Mammy makes once in a while. She's never said them before, nor has she heard them said to her. Again, she snuggles against Uncle Rhett, forgetting for a minute or so her original query. But then she sits upright and asks persistently, "Why don't you love Mamma?"
Uncle Rhett sighs heavily. "Because, honey, your Mamma doesn't love me."
Ella's lip trembles. "No light?"
"No. No light."
"Never?"
"Not once."
When Ella chances another glance at Uncle Rhett, he has aged a hundred years. "Does she have a light for anyone?" she asks him.
Rhett's face tightens until Ella continues, "Does she have a light for me and Wade Hampton?"
"She doesn't need one," he tells her soothingly. "You and Wade Hampton are made from her. Even if there's not a light in her eyes, there's a light where it matters."
"Where?"
"Here." Rhett places a hand over his heart.
"Oh …" For a few seconds, Ella stews in unhappy silence.
"What is it, Ella?" Uncle Rhett asks.
"Well," she says, putting her lips to his ear so that only her stepfather can hear, "I just wish I could see the light once in a while. Just so I knew it was really there."
"Oh, Ella," says Uncle Rhett, holding her tight, "I wish that too."
I love Gone With the Wind (obviously), and Scarlett's children are two of my favorite underexplored characters - Ella especially. I felt that she deserved a moment with Rhett similar to Wade's. If you've read this far, I hope you leave a review.