Dear Aunt,

As you may have heard, a terrible disaster has occurred to me a second time in one year. My sister by marriage Melanie Hamilton Wilkes has passed away due to pregnancy. She is the one I was with throughout the war. Beau's birth left her unwell to bear
more children. Unfortunately she and Ashley did not accept that reality.

As it is, Rhett was struck with grief and had left before her funeral. I will not hide it and it should be added to the hardships throughout our marriage.

As it is, I worry about him deeply. I know that you are close friends with his mother. Would you be so kind as to let me know if anything happens to him? I fear he will not let me know, nor will his kin.

Yours,

Scarlett

Dearest Auntie,

Thank you for your consent to help me. You may want to suggest to Mrs. Butler that Rhett do something regarding horses or ships. He's been inactive for months now and it may be the end of him if he doesn't start doing something outdoors.

As Rhett indicated while in Charleston with Bonny, I was not the best of wives. As long as we had Bonny we had some hope, but now that she's left us I fear that nothing I do can revert the reality I have created with my own behavior. It made me cry to
read your line about me being a loving person. For years now, since the fall of Atlanta I fear I am not that person.

I am deeply in your debt,

Scarlett

Dearest Aunt,

Summer had come and gone and luckily the weather is less humid. Wade is doing much better than before. So is Ella who had taken to ballet and gymnastics. I am glad your cough is better. As I mentioned in my last letter I am planning to invest in the land
Charlie left me. I have started learning about the industries required to create modern buildings. It is something that has no feeling in it and is rather fascinating.

I am glad that Mrs. Butler has sent Rhett to tend to their old estate. Anything to keep him busy will do.

Yours,

Scarlett

Dearest Auntie,

If I thought he'd agree to see me I'd come.

If you think that a tad bit of good old fashioned jealousy would move Rhett of his deadliness you may evoke it, only NEVER regarding other men. I have written of the two proposals I've received just as to let you know that I have no interest in them.
I suppose that gossip regarding the infamous Mrs. Scarlett Butler travel too fast. You may tell him that I am traveling with the children, or even tell him of my newest entrepreneur.

That might intrigue him.

Yours,

Scarlett

Dearest Aunt,

I was smiling throughout the most of your letter.

Was he really so mad, when you told him that I wasn't staying put?

By now you should have realized that I am not a 'normal' woman. I dare say that none of us would have benefitted much from normality, let alone survived the hardships of the war.

I think that my current venture is venture will be much less compromising for my children and myself being on the investor's side as soon as it begins. I still have to find investors, and am planning to visit Chicago for that purpose.

Would you like to join us? It will be just me and the children. You could tell me more of mother's first love. I had always seen her as the saint mother she was to me. It eased my conscience a bit to know that she too had had passions. It did sadden me
to think that Pa's love was one sided, as apparently it was. Did you know that his last words were him calling out to her?

The past year had been going, as I had written before like a blur. The children and I are to go to Boston next week as I had written before. You are right, I am more than hectic. If I'd stay put I would have fallen. It is my only way of dealing with this
everlasting grief.

I am not mad at you for sharing our correspondence with Mrs. Butler. You have been doing this in me behalf for months and months, and it is inevitable that you'd share this with her. I will do as you suggested and try to invite him for the holidays. I
fear that if he stays any longer in her house he will go insane. As you bluntly put it, he was not cut out for that.

I am ever in you debt.

Scarlett

Dearest Auntie,

Yes, Rhett has promised to come and failed. His mother should have stayed put and made sure he wouldn't fail on coming. Perhaps it is for the best. I fear that in Atlanta we would have drifted to our old patterns of hurt and disagreements.

As to what you so delicately suggested, I had written and rewritten dozens of letters to him that are stashed away or burnt. He does not deserve to carry the load of my regrets on his shoulders. I have had the best husband I could have dreamed of and
have ruined it to the core. Should I have thought it wouldn't have torn his heart as well I would have sent it to him. I think and rethink daily of missed opportunities, but there is nothing I can do, and if I throw myself at him he will convince
himself that he really has lost his love to me.

I could never thank Mrs. Butler enough for joining us at Saratoga as she had. We have had a pleasant time. She had given me the hope I so needed. If I had only known what to do with it. But I haven't.

I will write him an angry reply .Let his mother know that he has backed down on his part. Perhaps letting him know my whereabouts is a good idea.

It is a shame you wouldn't join us but I realize that three days by train each way is a lot.

Yours Devotedly,

Scarlett

Dearest Auntie,

New York was a disaster. He had treated me with contempt and hatred that I dare say I am losing my nerve. It is not beyond thought that he hates me.

I cherish your last letter dearly.

The answer is of course in the negative. I was older than my mother when I married my first husband, let alone Rhett. I cannot erase the past. I can only look forward and hope for a chance to build something.

Send Mrs. Butler my infinite gratitude.

Yours as ever,

Scarlett

Dearest Auntie,

I hope the rainy season is not bothering your joints. As for me, every rain sends me to the warm bottle. Both a rib and a leg?! Perhaps I'll go to the hot springs in Bullochville. Would you come if I went?

To my great amazement he apologized for New York, claiming that he wonders if there is still a life to live. For the second time this year I feel he is nearing a decision to come home to me, only that he is hesitant regarding our chances for happiness
and my love to him. I will address all his questions with as much honesty as I have.

Perhaps it is time to let him know I had been following his every foot step this past year. He is actually resentful for me not coming to him as to be rejected.

Consult Mrs. Butler how to let him know without letting him know that I actually asked you to reveal it. It's embarrassing enough as it is.

I love you dearly.

Scarlett

Dearest Scarlett,

The honesty in your last letter overwhelmed me.

I long for your body, your embrace, the smell of your hair, the taste of your sweet mouth. Even in Chicago with that cast on your leg I had to restrain myself as to not tear your clothes off of you. I have no use of new loves if my one love is alive and
loving as yourself.

I had been reading and rereading your last letter trying to figure out how to act, when my mother and your aunt came to the house thinking I was out. You never seize to amaze me.

I'll admit I am speechless.

As you may figure out I found of your close correspondence with your aunt regarding myself and of your actions throughout this last year. You were right to assess that I wouldn't have let you near, wounded as I was. However, you have managed to pull me
out of the pit on which I resided a year or so. Your aunt described the hardships you endured this passing months with no complaint, and the amazing work you have done with the children and yourself so as to pick yourself up.

Before your previous letter I expected you to let me know that you will not have me, not only as a business partner, but in any other way as well. Yet you sent me to contemplate and consider. I had apologized for my foul mood in New York, but it is your
sweetness that I should apologize for ruining. Your aunt is right, you are still so young. If you can love so, love yourself as well, for my sake. For our sake.

All my adult life I have loved but one woman. This hadn't changed.

I'll be coming home, symbolically enough for the beginning of the construction, if you'll have me.

Yours Truly,

Rhett.