Scarlett Rose's Arc

Chapter 39 of 57

Scarlett woke at four in the morning with the ceiling gray above her. The list was done. The shirt was hung. His father was coming at six. None of it stopped the thought that landed on her chest and stayed: Clayton was alone in the tack room right now, and he would wake up alone, and she would not be there to put her hand on his back. She sat up. Rose was asleep on the pull-out in the front room. Tradition said the bride did not see the groom before the ceremony. Tradition did not know Clayton. He talked his decisions out loud when no one was there. He would talk himself in circles by sunrise if she let him. She pulled on a robe and went to the kitchen. The phone sat on the counter beside her medication. She picked it up, then set it down. A call would make it worse. He would hear the worry in her voice and match it. She wrote instead. One sheet of paper, torn from the grocery pad. She kept it to four lines. I am awake. I am not scared. Your dad will be there at six. Keep your hands busy until he knocks. She folded it small and wrote his name on the front. Rose came in rubbing her eyes. Her turquoise earrings were still on the coffee table. "You're up early." "I need you to drive this to the barn. Slide it under the tack room door. Don't knock. Don't wait." Rose took the paper. "You promised Maya you'd stay put." "I am staying put. You're going." Rose pulled boots over her pajama pants and left. The truck started. The tires crunched down the drive. Scarlett stood at the sink and drank a glass of water and counted to two hundred. Rose came back at four-forty. "Under the door. Light was already on inside. I heard him moving." "Awake already." "Awake and dressed. I saw the shirt was off the hanger." Scarlett let out a breath she'd been holding since the ceiling turned gray. He was up. He had the shirt. He had the note now too. His father would be there in eighty minutes. Her hands had reached him without her feet crossing the fence line. The phone rang at five. She let Rose answer. Rose held out the receiver. "He says one sentence." Scarlett took it. The line was quiet, then his voice, plain and close. "Got it. See you under the flowers." He hung up. Scarlett set the receiver down. Rose was already pouring coffee. The lace gown hung in the doorway with the veil folded over the hanger, and the bouquet of purple and blue waited in its jar of water on the table. She had six hours until she walked down the aisle. Clayton would be standing at the end of it, fed, dressed, and steady, because a folded piece of paper had gotten there before she could.