Scarlett Rose's Arc

Chapter 38 of 57

The morning after Maya took the envelope, Scarlett sat up in bed with a list in her lap and felt her stomach drop. She had planned every hour of her own wedding morning. Rose would do her hair. Maya would bring the folio. The dress and veil were already hung in the closet by the door. She had not planned a single thing for Clayton. He would wake up alone in the barn tack room, where he'd promised to sleep the night before so he wouldn't see her. No coffee. No shirt pressed. No one to steady his hands. She called Rose into the room. Rose came in with two mugs and turquoise earrings already in. "He's got nothing," Scarlett said. "No breakfast. No clean shirt laid out. Nobody with him." Rose sat on the edge of the bed. "Then we fix it before noon." They worked at the kitchen table. Scarlett wrote it down as they went. Clayton's good white shirt from the closet, pressed. His boots polished. The belt with the misspelled buckle set on top. A thermos of black coffee and two eggs on toast, wrapped in foil so it would stay warm in the barn. His vows, folded in the shirt pocket where he'd left them. A note from her, one line, so he'd hear her voice before he saw her face. "Who sits with him?" Rose asked. "Not you. You're with me." Scarlett tapped the pen. "Maya has the folio." She called Maya anyway. Maya picked up on the second ring. "I need you to send someone to Clayton at six. Someone who won't rattle him." "Our dad," Maya said. "He's been waiting eleven years to walk Clayton out that door. Let him." Scarlett closed her eyes. "Yes. Him." "I'll call now. He'll bring his own coffee and won't say much." By four that afternoon Rose had the shirt pressed and hung on a hanger by the barn door. Scarlett walked out with the thermos and the foil packet and set them on the tack room bench. She wrote the note at the workbench with a carpenter's pencil. Wake up. I'm still yours. Come find me at the pavilion. She folded it into the shirt pocket beside his vows. Clayton came in from the pasture as she was leaving. He stopped in the doorway and looked at the bench. "You didn't have to." "I did. Your dad's coming at six tomorrow." He nodded once. "Good." "Eat the eggs cold if you have to. Just eat them." "I'll eat them." He looked at the shirt on the hanger, then at her. "Go to bed, Scarlett. I'll see you under the flowers." She walked back to the cottage. The list was done. Every hour of his morning had a hand on it now. Tomorrow she would put on the lace gown and the veil and carry the blue and purple bouquet down the aisle, and he would be standing there fed, dressed, and steady.