4. Ashley

On the surface, I am sure that I appeared fairly rational. To the average observer, I am sure that the busybodies of our town were praising me for my fortitude. How good it is, they would undoubtedly say, that Ashley is being so very strong for that darling little boy.

The priest at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception intercepted me as I was returning home from the lumber yard and asked if I minded a Mass in Melly's memory. But Melly wasn't Catholic, was my first response. Automatic and mechanical.

The priest smiled at me sympathetically, yes, but Mrs. Wilkes was so generous with our widows and orphans. Why, the day before she fell ill, she was distributing soup on our church steps. . .

Damn the priest! I cursed inwardly. I don't want to hear it! I don't want to hear that she was working her fingers to the bone while she should have been bedridden. Maybe then, maybe then…she would still be here.

I paused as the kindly eyes of the priest fixed on me, awaiting my answer. Melly would have had it no other way.

"Of course," I reply slowly. "Say the Mass."

He invited me to come on Friday. I did so, grudgingly, and sat in the back of the packed church while the Catholic priest said the Mass and the Episcopal priest delivered the sermon.

The organ played the haunting chords of Panis Angelicus. Bread of heaven, even for the poor, humblest servants. I would hear it from then on, even in my dreams. Like a knife in the dark, cutting into my heart. Knowing that bringing her back was impossible…that she was truly gone.

Life without Melly was not what I had expected it to be. It was not what I felt when my parents died, for instance: my father died an old man, a few days short of his seventy-first birthday, my mother was much younger, around thirty, but both were after some years of increasingly bad health. I understood the inevitability of their deaths, that they were old, or in Mother's case, chronically ill. I had been expecting it all my life, reared for it even; for when Father died, I would inherit Twelve Oaks and eventually, I too would die and pass it on to my own son. But Melly's death was not inevitable. For one so frail, she was hardly ever sick. She nursed me through more bad colds the winter before than she herself suffered from her entire life. Doctor Meade had assured her that she would have no permanent ill-effects from Beau's difficult birth-if she had no more children.

It was my fault that she was dead. It is my fault that Beau does not have his mother.

Here-and then gone.

I must confess a lingering darkness as I reflected upon her death in those weeks that followed her funeral. Scarlett, God love her, hounded me ruthlessly, forcing soup down my throat when I felt likely to never eat again. But what took me completely for surprise was the arrival of a handwritten note the week of Halloween. I remember the date simply because the letter preceded his visit by a few days.

But in it, the man I had fairly despised precisely intuited how I felt. The death of one's beloved, he wrote, "dislodges things deep within us, sets off reactions that may shock us and no doubt bring upon a resounding surge of memories and feelings of despair, shame, and guilt for past behaviors. Honestly, Ashley-I hope you are not offended by my informality-I myself am feeling buffeted by the memories of your wife. Her gentle goodness in the midst of a very dark world-like a beacon of hope for a floundering vessel upon choppy waters. I am sure that many of your friends have given you a set period of mourning; and yet, I am quite sure that you will always mourn her, as I will. Understand that I have no ill will toward you; I hope very much that any animosity between us has gone to ground long ago."

And that was that. Melly was gone to ground as Rhett had so elegantly put it. I would mourn, of course, for an indeterminate amount of time, but I would still get up in the morning. I would still put on my suit and go to that lumber yard and pretend that I understood what it was I was supposed to be doing there.

I would see to it that Beau studied hard in his lessons, that he would go to Europe and college, just as Charles and I did.

I would remember that Scarlett was enduring the same loss I was, only tenfold.

And finally, I would do everything in my power to see to it that she and Rhett were reunited. That and only that would be the atonement for my unfaithfulness.

I saw Scarlett the morning of his arrival. She had made herself ill in her preparation for the visit, so the woman I beheld in the study of the Peachtree mansion was bare-legged, in slippers, teeth chattering as she sipped a cup of tea that she had allowed to go cold.

Some memory of my mother warned me against embracing her in her state of undress-but the overpowering memory of Melly encouraged me to do just that. It was, after all, what Melly would have done.

Its going to be alright, I say.

There would have been a time that I would have been ridden with an insatiable appetite for her body, but felt no such ardor as I stroked her silky hair. Perhaps no part of my body was working as it should, but I'd like to attribute it to a growing sense of responsibility I felt for the current state of her marriage. I kissed her forehead, then sent her upstairs to bed, promising to remain in case Rhett arrived. In truth, I anticipated him arriving on the evening train, and I was making ready to leave for work as soon as Mammy reappeared and told me that Scarlett was resting comfortably and that I could go.

A knock at the door roused me from my study of some art on the wall. A strange impressionist piece, the artist of which I was unfamiliar…

I hurried to the door before they could knock again and force Mammy to make the trip down the staircase. I put a smile on my face, lest the visitor think that I, as a husband in mourning, was being morbidly self-indulgent; conveniently, I forgot completely how it would look that the selfsame mourning husband was greeting callers at the home of a female friend, but I digress…

Rhett was no less stunned than I, I imagine, if not more. I wanted to slam the door in his face, but I must have been somewhat competent enough to invite the man into his own house.

"I appear to have forgotten my key," he said.

I said nothing, preferring to leave the talking to him.

"She's upstairs," I said, feeling completely out of place.

"I gathered," he replied, looking down at his shoes.

"She's missed you," I tried again.

"You don't say," he said.

"I should leave," I reached out for my hat.

"I shouldn't have come," he grabbed my arm. "Please, don't leave on my account."

"Rhett, I am here only as a friend," I said softly, feeling the need to make that fact clear to him. "On my life, I swear it is so."

"Always," he said, his voice strange and haunting. "I'll be at the bank. If you would be so kind, leave word for her that I will call around supper to see the children."

He left with little ceremony, bowing slightly and shutting the door softly behind him. I then hurried upstairs to Scarlett, informing her that under no circumstances would I ever forgive her if she feigned illness this night. It was her one chance to redeem his love-and my one chance to redeem myself.

I left the house hastily and told Hugh Elsing in passing not to expect me at work…I needed to have a long overdue conversation with Rhett Butler, man to man, and not within earshot of Scarlett.