Inspirations:

"Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up.

And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could."

― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

"Without the past to cast its long shadow, might you see the future more clearly?"

— Diane Setterfield, Bellman & Black

Disclaimer: Don't own diddly, either.

Chapter 32

Dr. Hawthorne doubled Rhett's laudanum dose Tuesday morning after chiding him thoroughly for excessive activity the day before. Rhett admitted the overexertion had affected his recovery in a negative manner. He'd coughed all night, and his ribs were, once again, killing him.

"He's surviving on the laudanum, pastry, and much to my intense regret, chewing tobacco. However, the craving for sweets is quite strong," Elizabeth informed the doctor while Rhett scowled at her. She wasn't wrong. He'd eaten two bowls of peach ice cream and polished off the entire plate of cinnamon cookies after supper the night before. He might have already requested a plum trifle with benne wafers for dinner that evening, although he would never own up to it.

The chewing tobacco also irked him as he considered it vulgar and beneath his class, but he had to do something. Rhett much preferred his fragrant, elegant cigars, a mark of refinement, in his opinion. However, he couldn't handle the coughing that smoking created with his ribs and did not want to risk pneumonia, no matter what he told his mother about Woodrow's advice. He tried to be discreet, spitting elegantly as possible. But, still, it was spitting. He lifted his lip in distaste at the thought. He needed to heal and fast.

"Chewing can help you get past the first rough patches of quitting your cigars," Hawthorne agreed. "There's also snuff. Just don't exchange one addiction for another."

Rhett grimaced again. "No dipping, thank you. Tobacco's a necessary evil at this point. I did it along with everyone else during the war when there was no smoke to be found, and I had no trouble quitting when times got better. But, of course, then I had cigars and cheroots."

"The sweets cravings are from giving up alcohol. However, chewing tobacco helps with hunger and could counteract the effects a bit," the doctor packed up his bag as he prepared to leave. "We used it quite a bit during the war just for controlling hunger."

Rhett gave him a measuring glance. "Yes, I recall doing that. You served? You hardly seem old enough."

"I joined when I was barely twelve and told them I was fourteen. I cut my fighting teeth at the Battle of Yellow Tavern and came up lacking as I could barely carry a weapon, let alone ammunition," the doctor laughed. "General Hampton put me in the medic tent for the rest of the war. No doubt saved my life. And inspired me for my current livelihood."

Hampton. The man's name appeared everywhere here lately.

"And we are all beholden to the general for it," Rhett managed to say graciously. "I feel much more sedated on the double dose. I'm not too fond of the feeling." What he would like would be the numb buzz a high-dollar Havana and a bottle of his favorite whiskey provided, but no sense beating a dead horse. "One beneficial side effect of not smoking is that my sense of smell has improved exponentially."

"Yes, it's amazing how fast that can come back." The doctor agreed that after 24 hours of good behavior to pull back on the laudanum dose. He promised to return the next day, which passed pretty uneventfully.

By Tuesday evening, Rhett felt fairly improved. Also bored to death and brimming with pent-up energy.

"I feel like I'm at a race watching the horses at the starting gate," his mother sat by his chair on the veranda where he took his after-supper coffee and gazed at the harbor. "Except my horse is injured but won't let it stop him from jostling for position."

"I have behaved myself, Mother," Rhett said in a long-suffering tone. He moved his chaw to spit in the spitoon by his chair discreetly. "But you know you can't keep me here forever."

"You're chomping at the bit; anyone could see it." She'd brought something in the room and hid it under her chair while the doctor visited. Now she slowly raised to her lap.

"I've had this for some time," she said hesitantly. "I've been waiting for the right time to give it to you."

A wooden box, old and scarred yet familiar, 12 inches long and eight inches wide, about six inches deep. Rhett squinted his eyes. Could it be?

"I know you don't believe in going back. But sometimes, it's the only way to move on. I found this," she held it out to him, "in his possessions after the funeral."

Rhett blinked. It took a moment to register. His boyhood treasure box. Older and ragged with the burnt carving of 'RKB' across the top faded but still legible. He hadn't seen it in more than twenty years.

"I thought that was lost," he said, clearing his throat. Damn tobacco. "It was under my bed when I left, and I understood he threw away or burned all my personal belongings."

"Oh, he did. Everything that was in your bedroom. Except for the baby mementos I managed to hide, and this." She held it out further, and reluctantly he took it.

"When he was dying, he had it underneath his bed. I could only see the corner sometimes. He piled other items from his safe on top of it, deeds and records and such to hide it, but I pretty much knew what it was. I also knew there would be terrible trouble if I mentioned it. So I didn't, and I told the servants not to, either. But it did appear moved from time to time as if he took it out and looked at it."

Rhett studied the box in his lap, uncharacteristically silent.

"Open it," she ever-so-slightly nudged his hand.

He didn't do anything for a few moments, rubbing his thumb against his index finger. Elizabeth was just about to leave the room when he unhooked the brass clasp and opened the lid in a swift ripping movement.

And there they were, just as he remembered them—the priceless trophies of his early youth.

Saturday mornings. A ritual, the only one he shared with his father and grandfather, the only times he could remember the three getting together, really, other than the odd holiday meal.

They'd travel separately to Sullivan's Island, early before the rest of the isle awoke. To share a small morning picnic and then comb the beach through low tide.

In retrospect, Rhett wondered why his father participated when it was so obviously a seafarer's pursuit. Still, his father was a Charlestonian, and loving the ocean, therefore, practically a given.

The custom started when Rhett was three, perhaps four years old. They would stroll on the beach of the barrier island south of Fort Moultrie and observe what washed up from the Atlantic, what the ocean gave back. His grandfather would tell stories of people who found their livelihood, their very sustenance on the wet sand as he pointed out those items worthy of note, worth keeping, all the while the sweet myrtle and palmetto swaying in the breeze off the water.

Hesitantly Rhett picked up the unique shells, one by one, the lion's paws, the banded tulips, and spotted Junonia, the perfect cowries. Smooth pebbles, rough, richly-toned rocks. The shark's teeth, so monstrous to him at one time. Nestled underneath the sea glass, the blue and green bottle stoppers, also glass, tumbled with softened edges by salt and time.

Some jewelry, a sapphire ring, a gold bracelet and several gold bands, a single filigree earbob. Lastly, a small bag of coins. Mostly silver, but a couple of gold.

It was all here, everything he had kept as a child from those idyllic weekly visits to the beach.

He could see his father and grandfather in his mind's eye, kneeling and dragging their fingers through the sand, taking turns explaining, for once not at odds. He plucked a rock from the box that might be whale's ambergris. They never knew for sure, but the subject had been much discussed between them all.

"The coins," he cleared his throat again. What the hell was wrong with his throat? "The coins and the jewelry were worth something. For the metal, if nothing else."

"Yes."

"And you were destitute and starving."

"Yes."

"They could have fed you for a few weeks, perhaps a month. But Father didn't sell them."

"No. No, he didn't."

Silence again.

"Love and pain aren't separate things, Rhett. For anyone."

She watched as a muscle twitched in his cheek for a moment before continuing.

"There was love, Rhett."

Still no response.

She smoothed her skirt. "Not enough to overcome all the blows, but there was love, and it came back to him at the end. I'm not justifying any of his actions. He was a hard, harsh man. You need to know that even though he said he never would again, he thought of you; and in the end, he was filled with regret. Put that in your heart somewhere. It's something, something you can take out and hold when you remember all the suffering and hardship."

Rhett shook his head and waved his hand over the box. "It's not enough."

"No, but it's a little, which is more than you had ten minutes ago. He didn't want to talk about what he'd done wrong, but he wanted that box to be found. So take from that whatever you want."

"I don't want. Didn't we talk about all this enough the other day?"

"I think you do want." Her gaze pierced him, but her voice remained kind. "That's the beauty of you're being stuck here. You have to listen to me." He rolled his eyes but didn't argue. They both knew he was well enough to get up and walk away if he so desired.

"I talked about myself then, and now I'm going to talk about him. It has a bearing on your life now. Your marriage is discordant."

No arguing with that. "My marriage is in name only."

"You're so cynical and bitter, Rhett. Cynicism isn't a good thing. It leads to unhappiness and the pursuit of instant gratification," she looked away, avoiding his gaze. "Instead of meaningful interactions."

"As is my prerogative. I don't think you want to pursue this line of thought, but I'll satisfy your curiosity about my gratifications if you want me to share. Of course, you should prepare yourself to be very uncomfortable." His dark eyes glinted as he smirked.

"There's nothing new under the sun, my boy. You'd be surprised how hard it is to shock me." She leveled him with a look, and he felt oddly chastised before she continued.

"My marriage was discordant as well and worsened, of course, after you left. I resented him so much I could hardly stand it.

"My priest told me when I was so angry with him for sending you away — when I almost could not function for the hate—that I had to overcome the resentment because it would kill me if I didn't; not only my marriage was at stake. It impacted my health and that of my children. And I had to stay alive for those other two children.

"Make no mistake; I felt like I was walking through mud for many days. I had to get back to what had drawn me to my husband in the first place. I had to see him for the boy he once was, to understand the man he became."

Rhett turned his head and spat again, this time with a bit more projectile force than necessary.

"When we met, he was so earnest, so driven to live the life of a gentleman, to be proper, to treat me appropriately, to live a genteel life. It charmed me how much he wanted it. How perfectly he behaved. How honest he was about his motivations.

"You told me you crawled on your belly. Your father crawled on his as well because his father was such a renegade. He wanted good matches and social standing for his children, just like you did for your Bonnie, and when you rejected those values, it hurt him. When you questioned his every motivation for protecting his family's future, he felt betrayed.

"Most people are not all good or all bad. He helped to prepare you well for the world, despite your differences. He taught you to speak and dress like a gentleman, and you knew how to act like one. He made sure you were educated and could think your way out of any problem. That you understood money and how to make it.

"You made it clear you didn't want to be a part of society anyway, at least not at the level we were. And you had that defiant wanderlust, and we knew you were bound to leave, with or without his financial support and approval.

"He saw everything he had worked and suffered for going up in smoke, and you standing there, with that mocking grin, in its stead. The pirate father he rejected so wholeheartedly raised him. When you refused our way of life, he felt like you rejected him and all his work for us.

"He reacted badly because he had a broken heart. He did. He's not the only one who responds poorly when hurt by those he loves, when disappointed, frustrated, and disrespected. How anguished he was at his father's choices, only to be anguished again by yours. He felt like it was a damnation that you would willingly and willfully undo all his work. The myth of Sisyphus, rolling that boulder to the top of the mountain, only to watch it roll back down. He didn't think he could go through it again. Didn't have the stomach or strength. So he set you loose, set you free."

"Free? Creative use of language, Mother. I'm impressed." He could not help the jeering note creeping into his tone. She studied his face. His color had improved, but his eyes still appeared drained.

"It was difficult after you left. I had to make a life somehow. As I said, my priest told me that I had to remember why I was with him in the first place. I want you to remember why you were with Scarlett in the first place."

"There's hardly a point at this stage of the game."

"Humor me."

"I've been humoring you for days, and I'm beginning to regret it."

She pushed back her shoulders and took a deep breath. "Here's a situation to ponder. If Bonnie had lived and Wade, or the second baby," she swallowed nearly audibly here, "grew up and did what you had done and compromised Bonnie's future, what would your reaction be?"

"There's no point in discussing it. My daughter is dead." This was offered flatly and with no emotion.

"Yes, we both know that," she stated patiently. "What if your son had done it? How would you react? If he had been a hellion, mocking everything, poking holes in all of society's rules, refusing to respect other members of gentility at every turn as well as their beliefs, and then committing the ultimate misdemeanor. What would you do?"

"I wouldn't cast him out, and besides, Scarlett wouldn't let me if I tried."

"No, you wouldn't because it had been done to you," she said. "The important question is why Scarlett wouldn't."

"Because he's her son, and that woman may not be maternal, but she wouldn't let society make her turn out her boy, even if he deserved it. She would have held her head high and ignored the shunning because that's what she's always done."

"So perhaps that tells you something about the woman you married. And something about yourself and your father."

"Not as much as you would like to imply, I am afraid."

She ignored that. "So when you see Scarlett again, I want you to see not the pain you associate with her, but the girl you fell in love with, and why you did. See if you can find that girl if she's still there. Peel away the other layers of pain, the bitterness, and disenchantment.

"Don't focus on what drove you apart. Focus on what brought you together. What drew you to her, and what drew her to you." He opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

"No, I know what you're going to say, but there were things she liked about you, and you, being the ladies' man you are, know it. Remember the best times you had and why you had them."

"I don't know if I can. Scarlett loved another man, a married man, for years. Nonsensically. One that did not return the sentiment."

"You loved a married woman for years. One that did not return the sentiment."

"It isn't the same."

"Isn't it?" She lifted an eyebrow.

"No. You're oversimplifying. She's highly intelligent, she just refuses to use her intellect for—" he searched for the right words, a rare occasion if there ever was one—"well, for anything other than business, basically."

"What I'm hearing is that she's a passionate woman. Matters of the heart are not usually intellectual pursuits." He snorted in response.

"It appears to me that despite her faults, despite justifying any means by the ends, she's loyal and incredibly responsible. Step into her skin, hear with her ears, see with her eyes. Not with the point of view of a 47-year-old man who's seen the world and done everything in it."

"Mother, I appreciate all this effort, I do. But—"

"One more thing, and I'll let it be. When you withdrew your affection after she didn't respond the way you thought she should—when you became cruel and mocking and belittling, mean and nasty as I know you can—did that improve the way she behaved and reacted toward you?"

He stared at her a beat before he shook his head, albeit minutely.

"No. Didn't work when your father did it to you, either."

Wildly irritated at this point. "I think this conversation has gone on quite long enough."

"I think you're throwing away happiness with both hands." He whipped his head towards her. Then, wisely, his mother rose to retire.

"I'll leave you with two thoughts. First, people will do almost anything to regain a life they believe they were robbed of unfairly. Second, the price our society exacts for membership is extremely high. But people pay it. Every day."

She touched his hair briefly. Surprisingly he allowed it. "Sometimes I think you were right when you decided it wasn't worth it all those years ago. Yet it is so very difficult to shed the world we live in."

He turned his head to spit again, cursing internally for the lack of a drink in his hand. "Good night, Mother."

She paused before she reached the door. "I don't have the energy to address it tonight, but I mentioned earlier this week the problems with Eulalie and Pauline. There have been some significant family happenings. It goes back decades, but these events may well affect your wife and family."

She covered a yawn that may or may not have been genuine with her right hand. "I'm weary now. We'll discuss it at breakfast."

"Is dangling those rather cryptic comments in front of my nose like the proverbial carrot your way of keeping me here one more day?"

His mother regarded him with a wry expression. "We know each other too well." She grasped the doorknob, hesitating only briefly.

"I won't interfere further. It's your life. I just don't want you to end up old and dying with a box of rocks under your bed as your only comfort." He caught just the hint of a smirk as she softly closed the door, and for a split second he considered throwing said box of rocks against it. And then he laughed, a bark of a laugh that surprised him. He almost felt light-hearted for a moment, and the rare emotion seemed completely foreign.

OOOOooooOOOOoooo

That night the fever dreams returned.

He's a boy, and he's on the beach at Sullivan's Island, searching the surf for shells and treasures and whatever else the ocean will provide, with both his father and grandfather in tow. There is tension between the two older men as always, but they are silent, watching their progeny running in the waves and sand.

Soon, though, an argument breaks out. He can't make out the words but hears the angry tones, sees his grandfather turn to walk away as always, his ship moored at the pier in the close distance. He falters as he realizes that Grandfather would be gone now, for however long, as always after an argument, and would not come back until the anger had plenty of time to die down. Bringing with him gifts from afar and rife with stories and tall tales. Until it happens again.

He also knows with a sinking feeling what a state his father will be in when they get home. Always worse after such an altercation. He tries to rally, to play again, to regain the carefree air of before.

But then it is he on the ship and not his grandfather, and he's a grown man now, rushing down the shore just as he did as a blockader, late in the day as the light grows dim. It's not his blockaderunner or his schooner, though, but his grandfather's sloop with the sleek sails, powerful and fast, slicing through the water. He's standing at the helm, and he's the pirate this time, and he's flying, flying down the shore.

He hears a noise from the left and there's his fire fairy, in a tattered dress, running on the beach barefoot, her hair loose and blowing in the wind; and behind her, a melee of men, right out of a scene from Frankenstein, a mob of every single nameless, faceless soul he's ever outsmarted, out-maneuvered, cheated, cuckolded or robbed.

On the sidelines are her own enemies, the ubiquitous Old Guard, the disgruntled belles, the convicts, the green lumber buyers, and they're all jeering and cheering on the horde.

The tide's going out. He can't bring the boat in without running aground, so he shouts to her, shouts to meet him at the pier, but she doesn't listen, never slows down. So he directs the boat to head her off, but before he can, there's a flash of grey hair and a gray officer's uniform before a dinghy appears, magically waiting for her, and she jumps in and unties it just as a rogue wind catches the sail and propels the boat away from the pier.

He's nearly got her now, and he shouts again. If only she slows for a second, he can grab her, haul her up, and they can sail away, away from the danger and misery, away from it all.

At that very moment, a vast Viking longboat appears on the horizon, fearsome and magnificent with dragonheads at bow and stern, lit from behind by the setting sun and traveling full speed right at him.

OOOOooooOOOOoooo

It didn't disturb Elizabeth Butler's sleep when the front door opened and shut a few hours before sunrise. She'd been awake and waiting for the sound ever since retiring the night before.

Nevertheless, she rose and walked to her window so as to watch her son's back as it disappeared, heading in the direction of the train station in the eerie twilight.

She only hoped he'd seen the breakfast she ordered the night before, packed and waiting on the foyer table. The dining car on the train wouldn't be serving for several hours. She'd put the last of the benne wafers in herself.

Silly to act this way. She, an old woman, and her son, a middle-aged man, beyond capable of taking care of himself, even in his current diminished state. Yet like many mothers, despite the ages and stages, these were the small things she could do for her child, one wounded in so many ways; and so, she did them.

OOOOooooOOOOoooo

Fun Facts:

When did sea glass start?

Around 3500 B.C.

Human civilizations began using glass around 3500 B.C., most early civilizations settled near large bodies of water, and when it was discarded it often found its way into oceans. So often it is most often found near areas where large populations dwell.

—nc coastal life magazine

Olfactory improvements:

Smoking damages the nerve endings responsible for the senses of smell and taste. In as little as 2 days after quitting, a person may notice a heightened sense of smell and more vivid tastes as these nerves heal.

—Medical News Today

On tobacco usage of the times from an article published in 1917:

The chewing of tobacco was well-nigh universal. This habit had been widespread among the agricultural population of America both North and South before the war. Soldiers had found the quid a solace in the field and continued to revolve it in their mouths upon returning to their homes. Out of doors where his life was principally led the chewer spat upon his lands without offence to other men, and his homes and public buildings were supplied with spittoons. Brown and yellow parabolas were projected to right and left toward these receivers, but very often without the careful aim which made for cleanly living. Even the pews of fashionable churches were likely to contain these familiar conveniences. The large numbers of Southern men, and these were of the better class (officers in the Confederate army and planters, worth $20,000 or more, and barred from general amnesty) who presented themselves for the pardon of President Johnson, while they sat awaiting his pleasure in the ante-room at the White House, covered its floor with pools and rivulets of their spittle.

An observant traveler in the South in 1865 said that in his belief seven-tenths of all persons above the age of twelve years, both male and female, used tobacco in some form. Women could be seen at the doors of their cabins in their bare feet, in their dirty one-piece cotton garments, their chairs tipped back, smoking pipes made of corn cobs into which were fitted reed stems or goose quills. Boys of eight or nine years of age and half-grown girls smoked. Women and girls "dipped" in their houses, on their porches, in the public parlours of hotels and in the streets.

—A History of the United States since the Civil War Volume: 1. by Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer; 1917. p. 93.

Ugh. Then I came across this little research gem:

"It would be difficult to find elsewhere than at this place a collection of two hundred and fifty women so unkempt, frowzy, ragged, dirty, and altogether ignorant and wretched. Some of them were chewing tobacco; others, more elegant in their tastes, smoked. Another set indulged in the practice of 'dipping.' Sights like these soon put to flight our rosy ideals."

—Union staff officer George Ward Nichols, on encountering the female workers at the Saluda Factory in Columbia, South Carolina, in his diary, February 16, 1865

Personal notes on the above - Now, when I researched further I found that the Saluda Factory was a textile mill run by slaves. So I don't know if these were slave women or at the time he was there, or due to necessity women of all classes who were contributing to the war effort by making uniforms, but, I would have to venture to say that Union staff officer George Ward Nichols is rather out of line. It was February 1865, a few months before the end of the war, and the Union's scorched-earth policy meant this factory would be burned to the ground by a factor of Sherman's army in a matter of days anyway. I am amazed they were still trying to work.

These women were 'unkempt, frowzy, ragged, dirty, and wretched,' because everyone in the South was that way. Not exactly at the top of their game. As for ignorant, who knows what his criteria would have been. Likely sitting on his healthy horse with his decent boots and full belly, judging these war-ravaged people for not adhering to his 'rosy' illusion of Southern women. In short, that man can bite me.

However, there is one glimmer of light to be found in this diary entry: the term 'frowzy'. I have never heard it before, it's a legitimate word, and I love it. I will use it. You have been warned haha.

A/N I wanted to wrap this story up on its one-year anniversary which is the 25th of this month; not going to happen. Shooting for some time before Christmas. That may seem like a long time, but it's been my experience that the year is pretty much over after Labor Day. It could go over into the New Year, but I hope not to drag it out. I have other creative projects to move on to, and the readership is tightly-knit, yet impatient, I can tell. I won't abandon it, that I can assure you.

Thank you to those of you who are following this story and especially those who have taken the time to review. It truly makes my day, makes all the hours and hours of work feel worthwhile, and spurs me on :)

OOOOooooOOOOooo

October 3, 2021 blurb for Chapter 33:

Early afternoon by the time Rhett's train arrived in Atlanta and he felt like he'd ridden under the railway car instead of in it. An extremely rough ride, or perhaps it just felt so due to his injuries; of course, the train stopped at every single podunk town along the way. In addition to the usual rocking, each time it stopped his torso lurched forward, and when it started again it lurched back. In a word, he had been miserable.

For the last sixty miles, all he could think was that he needed to get somewhere to rest quickly. It took every bit of his strength not to hobble as he disembarked.

He didn't want to be seen in his current state. Too many people would question his bedraggled appearance at Belle's this time of day, although he would need to visit soon to catch up on gossip. There would likely be no one to help him at the National until later in the evening, either.

Rhett turned the key to Scarlett's new house over in his pocket. Pork should be there and could help him with the wrappings. Scarlett would probably not be at home until later in the afternoon, so hopefully, he'd be safe for a couple of hours. Long enough to get cleaned up and changed and rested.

As he stood contemplating his next move, he spied a praline cart directly positioned in front of the arrival platform with Hotel Robillard emblazoned jauntily across the front in tall gold letters. Fanny Welburn and India Wilkes waved to him from where they were positioned beside it.

So much for not being spotted right off.

OOOOooooOOOOoooo

A/N for the blurb above - My apologies for not posting the next chapter. My adult daughter, who has autism, has been ill. She went into the hospital for a pelvic exam and bloodwork (has to be done under IV sedation) and came out with a double ear infection. More importantly, she's been struggling with gastro problems that may be indicative of an autoimmune disorder. Extremely hard to diagnose with autism as she underreacts to pain and doesn't want to talk about anything with a doctor, or me, really, if it's 'gross'. I am her caretaker and I have been consumed with worry, which ain't good for creativity. But I am plugging along and will probably post 2-3 chapters close together like last time in the next week or two. Probably. Can't promise because I don't know what will happen in my personal life, it's kind of shaky.

TMI but wanted to let you know the nature of the holdup. Hope you enjoy the blurb and stay with me, dear readers! Crazy waters ahead!