Scarlett Rose's Arc

Chapter 27 of 57

Morning came gray and cold. Rose was already in the kitchen with her keys, her turquoise earrings swinging as she hunted for the thermos. The duffels still sat by the door. Scarlett stood in the hallway in Clayton's flannel and watched him lace his boots on the porch step through the open door. He hadn't said ten words since the phone rang last night. She knew that quiet. He wore it when he was working something through and didn't want to spill it before he'd sorted it. But his shoulders were set wrong. He tied the same boot twice. Rose touched her elbow. "Truck's warm. Five minutes." Scarlett walked out to the porch. Clayton stood up and looked past her at the ridge. "A week," he said. "You just got me under this roof." "I know." "I'm not saying don't go." "I know that too." He finally looked at her. His mouth was doing the thing where he was trying not to make it her problem. It made it worse. She had rehearsed nothing. She had packed letters for the honeymoon and a nightgown for a night that was now a week further away, and she had not thought once about what to leave him with this morning. She felt the gap open under her. She went back inside. Rose was zipping the second duffel. "Open it," Scarlett said. "We're going to be late." "Open it." Rose unzipped the bag. Scarlett lifted out the bundle of letters and untied the ribbon. She counted seven off the top and set the rest back. Then she pulled the lace nightgown out of its tissue, folded it small, and pushed it into the bottom of the top drawer of the kitchen hutch where he kept his keys. She carried the seven letters out to the porch. "One a night," she said. "In order. Don't skip." He took them. He turned the top one over in his hand. His name was on it in her writing, dated eleven months ago. "You wrote these." "All year. Never sent one." He pressed his thumb along the ribbon. "Scarlett." "There's something in the hutch drawer," she said. "For the night I come back. Don't look till then." He nodded once. He put the letters inside his jacket, against his shirt. "Seven days," he said. "Then I'm on the porch waiting." "I'll see you from the road." He kissed her forehead and held it there a second longer than he needed to. Then he picked up both duffels and carried them to Rose's truck himself. Scarlett climbed in. Rose put it in gear. Clayton stood in the drive with one hand flat on his jacket over the letters, and he stayed there until the ridge cut him out of the mirror. The honeymoon was still eight weeks away. But she had left him something to open every night until she was home.