Today was her forty-fifth birthday. He had not forgotten it ever since the day he signed the divorce paper.
She was still beautiful, even wearing black and at the age of forty-five. The same age he was when he left her. His heart jolted and ached whenever he thought of that period, a familiar ache that never stopped.
He had been observing her for hours in an obscured corner, and debating for hours with himself, should he call her? The storm had come and gone, all was calm now. And he was still debating.
He was sixty-two now. Wiser than when he was forty-five? He doubted it. He remembered a self-righteous decision he made at that age, assuming to correct a wrong for he had done when he was thirty-nine. But he had regretted it ever since the day he married the second time.
Could he wait for the time to tell him the right or the wrong again? No, he ran out of the time, he couldn't afford to wait any longer.
Seventeen years had passed, too many things had happened in between. Days and years had merged together became tedious long waiting and wandering. He almost forgot how many places he had been, and almost forgot what he had been waiting for.
But he remembered the year she gave up on him after his hostile requests persistent for three years, the year when the sensation of his regained freedom dissipated, the desperation reappeared, and the profound losses and deep hurts reemerged. He remembered the year he married again for spite when he could not tell the other woman "I love you" just like he did not say it at his first wedding, for entirely different reasons. He had no love left, his love had been taken away, and his numbness forever stayed.
When he treated his second wife with a cordial respect in front of the genteel society, he knew he had treated her too callously in Atlanta. When he was holding his second wife's hand after her miscarriage, he remembered he stayed away from her sickbed, left her recovering on her own, even he was the one who caused her ill.
The news her fourth marriage came, his heart broke again. He would lie to himself that he didn't give a damn, but he couldn't. He wanted to rush to her, but his mother's silent plea stopped him. He wondered if her marriage was for love, or for spite like he did two years prior or she did seventeen years before. And suddenly he realized it was himself who never gave their love a chance to grow, lay all blames on her for their failures, gave up on her when she told him what he had waited for twelve years, and finally lost her for the fourth time and ever.
When he heard the magical revitalization of the famous Twelve Oaks, the expansion of a large conglomerate enterprise carrying four prominent names in Georgia, he knew she had survived his desertion and recreated her life once again. He would salute her steel will for survival if he ever met her again.
When the newspaper announced the sudden death of her fourth husband, a prominent citizen and politician in Atlanta, he knew her life shattered again, he felt sorry for her pain and losses, even more so than his own. But he was unapologetically delighted that once again he outlasted her husband. She and he were stubborn survivors.
But he didn't dare to run to her, not because of imitation gentry or shoddy manners he had acquired since his return. It was his emotion that ran too deep, he didn't dare to bare it even to himself, and didn't dare to show to her. He continued wandering around the world for five more years, as a rootless lone traveler.
He had no one to connect in the world. His second marriage lasted much shorter than his first even he had been a gentleman in the eyes of the old town. His mother passed away soon after his second wife, his spinster sister finally married a widower years ago, and his brother had his own life. He was a free agent. But as he got older, his desire for a family life that he carelessly threw away years ago became stronger, the life that was not the old gentry he had sought after when he was forty-five, rather the one he had been longing for since he was thirty-five.
He always remembered her, at the age of sixteen or twenty-eight. She was never far away from his thoughts, in his conscience or in his dreams, even he had not seen her for seventeen years.
Wade came into his life four years ago. They met through mutual friends for business. Wade was respectful but distant, while he insisted for more. Only when the young man almost lost his own daughter, Wade came to understand his pain and suffering, becoming more forgiving. When he heard that she broke down for the possibility of losing her granddaughter, his heart broke for her too. After that event, Wade was willing to feed him more bits of her life, and begged him to contact her. She was lonely, even she was O'Hara.
It was Wade who had told him that she was staying in this hotel on this day because of her sister's funeral. Her son worried about her. She refused her children accompanied her for the trip. They had seen enough, she said.
That was why he had been waiting for her in the hotel for hours. But his courage to face her again disappeared like a few black hairs hidden in his sandy gray. When coming to her, he was always afraid, never knew how to treat her properly, even he had imagined their reunion many times over the seventeen years. What he had done to her before their departing was not for nurturing her and loving her, rather for hurting her with cruel words and abandoning her with no ounce of kindness, even though to gain her love had been his only true passion for those twelve long enduring years.
He wanted to do it right this time. He determined to do right, and he couldn't afford to do wrong again. He must do it right, for her, the eternal love of his whole being, and for himself, his very own surviving.
"Miss O'Hara."
He didn't want to call her by her fourth married name. But she didn't respond as if she didn't believe anyone would call her maiden name at this time.
"Scarlett!"
She stopped for him, standing on the landing of the stairs, just like she did when she was in her tender youth of age sixteen.
AN: There it is, the second shot, from Rhett's point of view. Please let me know what do you think.
This short story more or less was started with a random thought. I really enjoyed writing it because I could see the end. Thank you all for your kind review and comments, as always.