Note: This story recounts the events of the year following Melanie's death, told through the eyes of Ashley, Scarlett, and Rhett respectively. Any and all feedback is solicited. All characters are the intellectual property of Margaret Mitchell.

3. Rhett

I've always considered myself to be an intelligent man, priding myself on both my reasoning skills and cognitive clarity; however, the indisputable fact remains that one's mind, no matter how supple, is quite easily deranged when it is dealt grief. Why is that so? Well, I'm no scientist, but I would have to imagine that it occurs when the relationship that one has come to depend on is no longer there. It's a terrific paradox, isn't it? To be, and yet not to be?

I remember Miss Melly telling me that I was ill after Bonnie died. Was I? Sick with grief, sick with sorrow? Sure. But then she said something about overcoming it. How does one overcome the death of one's child?

It was nearly a month after Miss Melly herself had been laid to her eternal rest, nearly a month after the fateful evening I had left Scarlett standing in the foyer. I recognized, with the help of Belle, that there had been occasions over that past month on which I was incapable of thinking rationally.

I was thinking like Bonnie would think, that my thoughts and wishes (and tantrums) would reverse the narrative, or otherwise change the unpleasant outcome. This disordered thinking was so erratic that I could hardly make sense of it all. I would wake up in the middle of the night in a hotel thinking that I had forgotten about Bonnie, forgotten to say goodnight or worse, left her somewhere. Then I would walk outside and look up at the stars in the night sky, imagining that Bonnie was standing next to me, demanding that the biggest and brightest star in the heavens be named Bonnie. I would assure her that it was so, then she would wrap both her little hands around one of mine and kiss it, and in her firm little voice say- "Never leave me, Daddy."

But I had left her, hadn't I?

I had allowed her to be buried alive by allowing other people to think that she was dead.

There had come a point in the first week after I had walked out on Scarlett but before the funeral when it occurred to me that I didn't have anything of Bonnie's to remember her by. I had a miniature of her, yes, which I kept in the breast pocket of my coat at all times, but nothing that she touched. None of her clothes, her toys. None of the little things she had screamed so loudly for then quickly discarded when something better caught her eye. Many people had complemented my devotion to the child, as though the loving of one's only offspring was worthy of a medal. But their praise turned into pity in the days after her death, and with typical well-meaning yet misguided pity, they would attempt to "help" by bringing her up at any possible instance.

Wasn't it charming when little Bonnie Blue did this … or I remember when Bonnie Blue said that … Its part of our ritual of death, it seems, especially here in the South. Its our duty to keep the spirit of the departed alive by bringing them up as much as possible. But what about those closest to them? I don't want to talk about my daughter, I want to talk to her. I don't want to imagine what she would have been like as an adult, I want my little girl back.

And then there is Scarlett. I can't even look at the woman for a minute without thinking about the child we lost. I wanted desperately to talk about Bonnie to Scarlett, but how could I? For instance, we walked every morning. Or that I knew every single little dress and habit and nightie in Bonnie's closet by heart. They were as familiar to me as my own.

But Scarlett would have never gone into that room. Anything to avoid actually touching the children. Appraising them with the same cool detachment she might the convicts at the mill, caring very little for their wellbeing as long as favorable results were being produced with very little effort on her part. And look at them, Wade Hampton, scared of his own shadow. Ella, pitifully slowwitted and dull-eyed. Bonnie, dead. The baby that she never wanted, dead at its father's hands for an ill-placed jibe.

I had to get out of that house. If I only had the strength to do so.

I went to my closet and pulled out my suitcase and set it on the bed. I set aside certain things, a hat that Bonnie had adorned with turkey feathers, the overcoat I had been wearing when Scarlett had the horrible fall down the stairs, but I stuffed most of the contents of my closet into two bags and called for Pork to ready the carriage. I was not ready to pack any of the winter jackets and the shoes, but it was a start.

I stopped at the door to the room.

I had left a closet full of shoes. Shoes and overcoats. I realized after a minute or two why I left them. I would need a reason to return. As though Wade and Ella weren't enough of a reason, my shoes and overcoats were. The recognition of this thought by no means made it an acceptable one in my eyes. But it is a true statement, though I wish more than anything that I could love them more.

On further reflection, I saw leaving as the first example of this sort of thinking, honesty with myself. It's me saying, you win, Scarlett. Have Ashley, have my money. Knock yourself out.

Whatever else had been on my mind when I so determinately told Scarlett that I didn't give a damn what she did, there was also the level of madness on which I reasoned Miss Melly would forgive me for, were she alive. If Miss Melly had lived, she would have said that the marriage could have been salvaged, that we could have adjusted to life without Bonnie, we could have tried for another baby. In any case, we might have been able to "fix" things.

As it was, I fled to Charleston. No sooner had I arrived, I left for New Orleans. No sooner had I arrived at New Orleans, I left for Atlanta. I needed to go back to Atlanta. It made sense, of course. I've never been one to run, to flee from danger. But as much as I'd like to call my need to return an act of bravery, in truth, it stemmed from the fact that it was Atlanta that held all of my memories of both Miss Melly and Bonnie. Even if they were both on a very extended vacation, the city was home to them, and they would eventually return to it. I had to be there when they did.

I realize now that I was gone a grand total of three weeks. I recall an outpouring of sympathy upon my return. It occurred to me that some point was being avoided in conversation.

It had to be about Scarlett and Ashley. The unsaid names.

Many things went through my mind, although my first instinct was to cry out "no!" No, she wouldn't do that. Not even Scarlett could be that callous.

I would change the subject, and Mrs. Meade or Mrs. Meriweather would make their excuses and carry on with their business. Only after I removed myself from their company did it occur to me that it was very reasonable for her to be over at Ashley's. It was something that moved her. Perhaps she could offer something to move him.

I needed to try. Miss Melly would want me to try.

So I sent her a wire from the Western Union.

I'll be in town on business tomorrow. I haven't forgotten our bargain. Rhett.