Disclaimer: I own nothing regarding GWTW
Author's Notes: Thank you for all the reviews and feedback.
Chapter Forty-Three
Jan 14 72: Gerald Clark is born. He looks more like Clark than the girls do. We went a whole year without making another baby.
March 30: Gerry is looking more and more like Clark, except for his blue eyes. They are as blue as Bonnie's and my Pa's.
June 19: Our baby boy is dead. He just died in his sleep. Clark is blaming himself for some reason. I just keep telling him it was nobody's fault, but he doesn't believe me. He has been drunk since it happened. Clark won't come to bed. I don't know where he is.
June 20: Clark came to our bed last night. He asked for my forgiveness, and I gave it to him although I told him he hadn't done anything wrong. Clark's mother came for the funeral. She barely spoke to me. I know she is looking down her Charleston nose at me. Just like my ungrateful aunts.
Aug 22: Clark is back to normal.
June 22 73: Our Bonnie is dead. Almost a year to the day after Gerry's death. Are we cursed? I hold Ella every chance I get. How can our Bonnie be dead? She had made that jump a hundred times before. There was no danger. Yet there was. The pony landed wrong and fell down. He then rolled over on our baby. Bonnie's legs got tangled up in her skirts. Why did we listen to Mammy and make Bonnie ride side saddle? I know why. It was the right thing to do. Clark ran out there and got the pony off of her, but it was too late. Both her legs were broken, and her insides squished. Dr. Meade just told us to make her comfortable. I had to be with Bonnie in her last minutes. Clark went out there and shot that poor pony. The pony would have had to be put down anyway. One of his legs was broken.
I think Dr. Meade gave Bonnie too much laudanum. She died too quickly. I understand it, she was in so much pain. It really doesn't matter she was dying anyway. Once again Clark has fallen into the bottle. It has fallen to me to plan the funeral. Once again Mrs. Gable has come from Charleston. I really hate that woman. She is such a snob. I know she doesn't think I am good enough for her son. Her unreceived son!
June 29: Clark and I barely made it through the funeral. If one more person told me she was in a better place, I was going to scream. I had taken a spoonful of laudanum before the funeral, so I was pretty numb. That is the only way I got through it. Clark had drunk at least six shots before the funeral. He could barely walk. I had to keep him walking straight and upright.
July 16: Clark is rarely sober these days, but he always comes to bed. Sometimes in the morning we will have relations. It is more comforting than passionate. It is still an expression of love.
July 30: Olivia took Wade to stay with her for a couple of days. Clark would not let her take Ella.
Aug 3: I made Olivia bring Wade back. I know being at Hamilton House is probably better for him, but I can't bear to be apart from him. What if something happened to him, and I wasn't there? What if I didn't get to tell him goodbye? No! It is best if he is with me. I will keep my living children with me always.
Aug 10: I sent Mammy to Tara. She feels she is somehow responsible for Gerry's death, and she was just beginning to get over that, but now she is blaming herself for Bonnie's death also. I told her Bonnie's death was just an accident. Gerry's death was a freaky thing. She isn't responsible for either death. Yet, all she would say was send me back to be with my Miss Ellen. So, I did. Maybe being with Suellen will brighten her mood.
Aug 20: The jump and everything else have been removed. I planted a tree on the spot that Mr. Gable rolled over on Bonnie. It is a Blue Chinese Wisteria. I don't know if it will survive our heat, but if not, I will find something else that has blue flowers on it.
Sept 26: Clark pulled himself out of the bottle. He has been sober for a month now. I dread telling him that we are going to have another child. Olivia comes over every day. She doesn't stay very long because I am not a happy person to be around. Yet, she continues to do her duty. That is Olivia. She always does the right thing. At least she comes by nobody else ever visits. We are not a happy home.
October 19: It is Ella's seventh birthday, but Clark gave me a present. It is a sapphire pendant. It is beautiful in its simplicity. He said, It is in tribute to Bonnie and Gerry. We will not have anymore. Ella will be our only child. I told him that we already had another child on the way. He said I can't risk my heart again. I said You have to. She is already on the way. With a grin I know he didn't feel, he said If I have to, I have to.
April 15 74: I haven't written in a while because I just couldn't but today, I gave birth to another baby girl. We have called her Alexandra Katie. We will call her Alexi. Clark is happy. He has promised nothing is going to happen to this baby. I keep reassuring him also that nothing is going to happen to Alexi.
Oct 19: It is Ella's eighth birthday. Alexi is six months old. I get up in the middle of the night just to check and make sure she is still breathing. I know Clark does too. I feel him when he gets back in the bed. Except for her red hair, she looks just like her father down to her brown eyes.
Jan 20: It is Wade's twelfth birthday. He has called Clark Dad since we got married. If it weren't for Olivia and Aunt PittyPat Wade would never know that he wasn't Clark's son. Clark treats him so well.
Scarlett was still reading the diary when Rhett walked into the hotel suite. So absorbed into what she was reading she hadn't heard him walk in the room. Of course, he was pretty light on his feet. He startled her when he said, "What are you reading?"
When Rhett startled Scarlett, the diary fell to the floor. It fell open to the last page. She saw different handwriting. She couldn't read it right then, she had to answer his questions. She knew she was caught so she might as well confess all and get his help. She said, "A beautiful love story."
"Let's go get something to eat and you can tell me all about it."
"Sure. Let me change clothes."
"No need. We are just going downstairs."
Rhett and Scarlett rode downstairs in the elevator. He excitedly told her all about his day. Most of it she didn't understand, but she enjoyed how excited he was. Finally, after thirty minutes, he said, "Tell me about this beautiful love story. Is it our love story."
"No. Ours is beautiful. Maybe more beautiful than the one I was reading this afternoon." Rhett smiled at her. She took a deep breath and said, "I did something really stupid."
"You never do anything stupid.'
"Let me tell you all about it."
When Scarlett was finished talking, Rhett whispered, "You stole the book and the jewelry."
"Yes. Margaret Mitchell stole Vivian and Clark's wonderful love story then turned it into a tragedy."
"A quite famous tragedy at that. I wonder how Ms. Mitchell got Ms. Leigh's diary?"
"I don't know. Why did she rewrite their story to make it have an unhappy ending?"
"I don't know. You are much better at figuring out how your people think than me. On Mars we never had these kinds of problems. Of course, we also didn't have any emotions either."
Scarlett smiled at Rhett. She loved it when he poked fun at himself and his fellow scientists.
After the couple returned to the suite, Scarlett picked up the diary and turned to the last page. After Scarlett had read it she handed the diary to Rhett. He read it.
May 1905 – My one true love is dead. He was seventy-six so he didn't have many days left anyway. I am surprised he lived as long as he did. His first forty years of life he had not taken particularly good care of himself. We have been married thirty-seven wonderful years. He died from yellow fever. I too am dying from the disease. All of our children are grown and out of the house with Liz being the last one. Luckily, Clark was able to walk her down the aisle. When Ella comes over today, I will give her my diary for safe keeping. I will tell her that she is Clark's natural daughter. I will give her our wedding rings, my engagement ring, and my sapphire necklace to keep safe. I have never taken them off since Clark gave them to me. I don't want them buried with me. I will tell Ella to give the rings to a couple who are truly in love like Clark and I were.
I have read my mother's diary. Only my non-reading mother could make a single diary last a lifetime. Although I know as the years went by, she wrote in the diary less and less. The diary was mainly a place to vent about her husband and her mother-in-law. As she put it: Clark Gable -The most high-handed man in the world. That man makes me so mad. I hope he never stops because he wouldn't be my Clark if he did.
It is plain that she believed I was Dad's daughter. I know he believed I was also. She mentioned that the mole on the side of my head proves I am Dad's child. He had a mole just like it and in the same position on the side of his head. She also said, 'All Clark's children have the mole.' Of us children, four of us have red hair. Mama said that Dad's mother had red hair and her father had red hair proving once again I am Clark Gable's child. I don't know if this proved he is my father, but I will accept it as true.
It really doesn't matter. I will never have children. I cannot carry a child to term. I wonder what is worst never having children or losing children to accidents and unseen disasters.
My parents had nine other children besides me. Of those ten children only two of them were boys. My brother Gerry died before he was six months old. He just never woke up. A year later my sister Bonnie died when she was four in a freak accident on her pony. Nine years later an epidemic ran through the city. We all got sick. My sister JoJo didn't make it, but she had barely been a year old. My other brother was called Clark, Jr. but we always called him Buck for some reason. He went to West Point despite Dad's objections. He was a lieutenant in the army when he died in the Spanish American war. The Gable name will die out with this generation.
My parents were never the same after Buck's death. They would laugh and joke. They would appear happy, but there was always a touch of sorrow about them. When they looked at us girls, it was like they were wondering who was going to die next.
My sister Liz died the same day Dad did, but I never told Mama. She was dying. Why tell her?
My parents had their fair share of troubles including my mother being married to Frank Kennedy while being in love with Dad. I have one question that nobody can answer. Mainly because my father took the answer to his grave. Did my father kill Frank Kennedy to get him out of the way? The only person who knew the answer to that question was Dad. Mother wrote in her diary that she believed that Clark Gable was my father. She told me why she believed that. I laughed at her final reason I was Dad's biological child. I was too pretty to be Frank Kennedy's child. As she said, that was one ugly man. Mother wrote in her diary that she thought Clark had murdered Frank Kennedy to get him out of the way. Yet she loved the man to the moon and back until the day she died.
I will bury them together.
Ella Gable Mitchell.