9. Rhett

Sometime in June, after we had left Savannah, I was in the sixth of what would be fifteen weeks of major recovery at home in Atlanta. I must confess that my memory, not only of that attempted trip, but of the past few months was little more than a blur. I could recall some things about St. Joe's in Atlanta, the nun with the long black veil for one, but I could not yet recall for anything being discharged, re-injured at home… For instance, I was told that I spoke for Miss Melly at the Episcopal Church. How peculiar; for I hadn't remembered that she had died. Ashley said that he had had to tell me of her death.

Scarlett was concerned about the memory loss, but Meade said that it was common after a head trauma. He called it "spotty", as in, my disorientation is lessening, but my memories are still spotty.

I tried to reconstruct my memories from the week before Christmas to June, but it is difficult to do so without becoming immensely frustrated. Before the illness is easier, but I recognize the murkiness of those days as well. There are parts of days that seem very clear and parts of days that do not.

I do recall clearly arguing with Ashley at the bar of the National.

Scarlett is desperately in love with you.

She'd been left alone for about a month. She does hate to be alone, I've figured that much out about her over the years.

You're killing her, killing her!

Kill Scarlett? I can't kill her. The Yankees couldn't, poverty couldn't…Not while she had Ashley to live for. Have him, Scarlett, have him!

He had looked away. "You know, I'm sure, that my wife's last words to Scarlett were of you," he said, as if under the impression that the very mention of Mrs. Wilkes's wishes would settle the question.

In actuality, that enraged me: What is Miss Melly's opinion to me now, I wanted to shout, but did not. What is Melly's dying wish to me? If I wanted Miss Melly's opinion, I would have asked her.

Instead, I said, I need time, Ashley. Surely Scarlett can wait until then.

"Not really," Ashley said. "She needs you. I cannot convey it with more urgency than that, Rhett."

The day I was due for New York was the day I missed the train. I recall being poured champagne, glass after glass, then whiskey - scotch, bourbon, absinthe…Shots, shots, shots. Whores stroking me. Scarlett. Shots, shots. Bonnie. More goddamn shots. I want to forget, forget. Whores. Shots.

"Everything is going to be alright, Mr. Butler," they kept saying while I was in that infernal hospital. "You're going to get better once we lower your fever. Your wife has been here almost the entire time, maybe you didn't notice that."

Maybe I didn't notice that? I was unconscious!

What had made her come, I wondered. The room around me was dark, dead. Surrounded by specters in long black veils.

Your disorientation is lessening, Rhett, but I anticipate that your memory will still be spotty. And this was being presented as progress? Who was he to make such a determination? I needed to remember the events of my own life, didn't I? I couldn't carry on with the blank spots, especially when they represented all the pain. Hell, I was like a small infant. That was my scope of time. When Scarlett left the room for fifteen minutes, it would seem like days until her return. Even after I reassured myself that it was not the case, I found myself closing my eyes while she was out of the room. I had grown used to her presence - I didn't have to see her to know that she was there or not.

I wanted her there. Just in case…

I had asked.

I do not recall getting an answer from Meade. It was a period where I did not get many of my questions answered. What answers I did get tended to be unsatisfactory, as in "We'll just have to wait and see."

Less risk of pneumonia.

They kept mentioning that last point to Scarlett sometime before I regained consciousness for good. Pneumonia, hell. My windpipe already felt so swollen and sore, it was like to burst. I'd never so much as had a bad cold, but if this wasn't pneumonia, I'd be dead if I ever had the real thing. I was sick, sick.

Scarlett shook her head again.

"I want him home."

As time goes by, no memory at all.

Scarlett resisted that statement, too. This one was Meade's. I looked out the printed blue cotton curtains that framed the window, as though the sunset was the last I'd ever see. That was demented, of course, but so was I.

The children filed in to see me on a Friday morning. They stood at the foot of the bed and tried to explain what had happened. I heard a noise, I called out for you, you fell. Wade's version was slightly different from Ella's. His ended with, now you have pneumonia. The children came and went. Scarlett was still there. She was squeezing my hand, pleading in a low mournful voice.

I love you.

It was June. My memories were still distant, spotty. Scarlett and I sat out in the sun. I listened to her talk. She asked how I was feeling. Over and over again.

Helpless.

A distant memory that involved neither Scarlett nor Bonnie. I had been alone in the kitchen of the house, feeding my big, fluffy St. Bernard. My father entered.

You will marry the girl.

No.

You will.

I will not.

The next morning.

Get out. Go to hell for all I care. You are no longer my son.

Not my son.

Had he not turned me on my ear, would I have gone to California? Would I have returned to Georgia in 1861? Would I have met Scarlett? Had I not, Bonnie wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't be sitting here, helpless.

Would I need to relive every mistake, every bad memory? How many nights Scarlett and I had not shared a bed, or how many times one or the other of us had said the wrong thing? Or stopped speaking? Or imagined that the other had stopped speaking?

Let it go. You don't have to have the last word. You're not your father. You don't always have to be right. You're not your father's son.

"Scarlett. Thank you. For everything."

She nodded, giving my hand a small squeeze.

It was as close to a declaration of love as I was capable of making in my present condition.

The decision was left to me. And the choice I had made carried the potential for abandonment, even betrayal. But I had to make it. I did make it, in that moment.

I chose Scarlett.