"Mommy. Daddy smells like flowers."
Scarlett fought her way though vague dreams and disconcerting fog back to reality, and discovered with a jolt that it was morning and her four year-old son, Garreth, had made his way into the room and was standing next to the bed with a quizzical expression on his face.
She got up slowly from the sofa, the blankets falling from her form to a pool on the floor in a disorganized heap. "Yes, dear. Flowers. Have you had breakfast?" Her eyes quickly went over Rhett, who seemed unchanged from the night before but appeared to be resting peacefully.
Garreth studied him too, the sunlight filtering through the curtains and bringing out the red in his auburn hair. His hair had always been much lighter than it had any right to be as the supposed offspring of two raven-haired people, or so the rest of Atlanta had thought. His eyes, too, were different, not black like Rhett's or emerald like Scarlett's but a more common green shot with hazel, deep like mossy forest ponds full of secrets. Scarlett knew that there was gossip about Garreth's paternity and she suspected more than she knew that it had come to Rhett's ears as well. She had no idea if he gave the rumours any credence. They did not talk about such things.
"Let's go to the kitchen". She stretched out her hand to Garreth but he ignored her. Scarlett sighed. Garreth's particular brand of stubbornness was different from Bonnie's or even her own but no less effective. He heard only when he wanted to hear. He was an unusually handsome boy but the astonishing thing about him was not his looks but an inner serenity, a fluid grace in his movements and a poise unusual for any four year old and especially strange given the kind of household he had grown up in. He had the vocabulary of a six year old and the mind of a changeling from the fairy countries and there was no guessing at what he was thinking.
Scarlett, in those moments of irony which started visiting her with increasing frequency as the years and her marriage dragged on, would reflect at times that the gossipers must be right because there was no way in hell she and Rhett could have produced and raised something like Garreth. At the age of four, he was already even more of an enigma than even Rhett had ever been.
Garreth, having contemplated the room, his father and the floral scent to his content and come to goodness knew what conclusion, was now willing to go eat breakfast. They descended down the stairs, Garreth as usual refusing her hand and stepping precisely downwards. He never fell.
The kitchen was light and airy with a large central wooden table the children usually ate on. Ella was already up and dressed, smiling shyly at her mother, in that awkward stage of not-quite womanhood where everything seems fraught with pitfalls and meanings. They had moved to this two-story house in a refined, modest neighbourhood before Garreth's birth when Scarlett had still trashed around for something, anything, to get through the chilling blandness of Rhett's attitude. She had proposed the move and he had shrugged, obviously not caring if they went or stayed. She had found the house, asked her in-laws to help her with the decorations to cater to Rhett's taste, and spent much too much money on, in her opinion, dingy curtains and carpets and dispiriting oil paintings and it had all been for nothing. Now they divided their time between the house and Dunmore Landing for most of the year since Garreth's birth had put a temporary end to travelling.
She thought suddenly how much she missed Wade, who had left for Harvard several years ago. His quiet, kind presence had been another pillar of strength she didn't value sufficiently until it was suddenly gone.
The story of her life, one could say.
Dilcey fixed Garreth and Ella breakfast and made a tray of soup at Scarletts request. Mammy was probably still sleeping, the privilege of being a cherished member of the household who was old and frail. Loosing Mammy was another thing Scarlett didn't even want to contemplate. The young nanny whom Scarlett had hired to help Mammy asked about Rhett, and told Scarlett she would be taking the children to a walk in the park and not to worry about anything and to concentrate on Captain Butler. Scarlett thanked her, gave Ella a kiss on her rosy cheek and ran her hand quickly though Garreth' hair before going back up the stairs with the tray in her hand.
She set the tray down on a side table in the hallway, braced herself, and pushed open the door to the bedroom.