Just a short story based on Toni Morrison's Beloved. Let me know if you have any thoughts on it that you'd like to share.

He sat across the hall, clutching an empty bottle with one hand and his head with the other.

Dead.

Doctor Meade had told him so no more than a minute after he had seen the patient.

He could still hear the heavy, grim words echoing in his head. Laughter, singing, shouting, and crying all crowded in with it.

Despite his being fed up, they continued to push their way into the forefront of his mind, haunting him.

She was crying. Another nightmare. Why couldn't he comfort her like he needed to? He had to reach out, to soothe her. The urge was overwhelming. Anything to quiet the pained whimpers.

But she was in the ground. A ground too cold and lifeless to hold her. She was so spirited, so beautiful. She didn't deserve to be stuck under mounds of dirt, where no one could see her and marvel at her fine features. Her dazzling eyes.

She would crawl out at any moment, furious at being trapped under the earth with his consent. But she would never crawl out and throw another tantrum again. She was dead.

He'd known the moment she fell.

What was he going to do?

A door opened across the hall. Probably Mammy.

He glanced up.

No, it wasn't Mammy.

It was a young woman, really more of a girl. A creature with midnight in her hair and a waist so small he could wrap his hands around it and they would still touch. With emeralds in her eyes.

But they were cold. Her glowing eyes offered him no comfort, no empathy; her face was completely smooth, lacking the signs of grief and age that were etched into his. And as she glided toward him, he felt a chill run up his spine.

She extended a finely boned hand and whispered, "Will you join me for supper?"

Rhett could find nothing to say to the enchantress before him. Understanding he wouldn't respond, Scarlett took hold of his hand and led him out of his room, down the hall, and into the dim dining room.

They ate quietly, neither really speaking to the other. And at the end of the meal, the two returned to her room together.

He hated that room. The gilded furniture, the pearlescent items strewn throughout the room, the massive bed made for one.

Was it fair for her to have such a large bed when she kept it to herself? Mammy could have easily joined the pair. Maybe she would have kept the spirits at bay before it had all been set in motion.

But there he lay, a flawless figure beside him. She'd always been beautiful, but somehow she was more so in that moment. The way the moonlight bathed her in silver light made her appear to glow.

How could she look so beautiful, so calm, while he was drowning in torment? What right did she have to be so perfect while he could barely hold onto his empty bottle?

But he was in her bed again. He hadn't been in so long. Maybe this was a chance to make things right again. Maybe he could apologize for everything that had happened between them. Then maybe the beautiful specter of a woman would stop haunting him.

He meant to reach out a hand, to touch her. But his muscles seized and he could do nothing but sit in silence and admire her beauty until he drifted off to sleep.

Morning came and she was still there. He was too. They lay side by side on the massive bed, separated by an invisible wall.

And they stayed like that for days.

"I have to go to work."

"I want to go too."

"You can't come with me."

"I don't want to. I want to go to the store."

"You don't need my permission for that."

"Don't I?"

"You can do as you please."

The back and forth halted as Mammy bustled into the room. She'd heard Rhett talking to a woman who was not Melanie, and there would be no shameful fraternizing under her mourning roof.

"Mist—"

And yet she couldn't force a single word out of her mouth when she saw the couple. Scarlett and Rhett Butler, standing before each other, talking. It was simply incomprehensible. And Mammy didn't want any part in it.

"You best be going, Mista Rhett."

And when it was just her and Scarlett, not a word was said. Mammy fled the room without a backward glance, leaving her lamb adrift.

Scarlett didn't go to the store. She remained in the house, isolated from all others. She'd heard the whispers floating down the hall. All of the children were still at Melanie's.

Why couldn't she see them? She'd already lost one, she wanted to spend some time with the rest. But she couldn't go alone. She needed someone, anyone, to bring her.

But no one came, so she sat alone in the parlor.

Rhett would be home soon. He would take her, right? She would be able to see them again?

They'd never been close. But maybe they could sort this all out. She just had to see them again.

They should have been at home, with her. Why weren't they? They were her children. Why was Melanie taking care of them? That was Scarlett's job. Maybe she'd never been the most attentive, but surely they wouldn't keep her children from her.

She had to go see them.

But when Rhett came home, he ended the conversation before it began.

It was late. He was going to eat supper and then head to bed. Wouldn't she join him?

She glided into the dining room in a simple, though very expensive, gown. He neglected to change.

She hadn't left the house in months. She hadn't left the house in weeks.

They ate in relative silence until she placed her left hand on the smooth table.

His hand darted across the table and he gripped her wrist with an iron hand.

"Where is it?"

"Nowhere."

"You promised you'd never take it off."

"When did I do that?"

"When you married me. You swore to keep that ring on your finger. Where is it? Why aren't you wearing it?" His throat tightened and his voice came out strained.

Why was it that the simple gesture of taking her ring off drove him insane? But without that ring, she wasn't his. She was Charles's or Frank's or Ashley's.

Her finger was bare, a small indentation visible where her rings used to sit. The engagement ring and wedding band were both absent, but it was the carved band's disappearance that bothered him most.

"I couldn't keep it."

"Couldn't keep it? What does that mean? Why not? I bought that ring for… I… why aren't you wearing it?"

"I couldn't keep it. I didn't get to keep much when I came back."

"What? Why?"

She simply shrugged.

"I… wait here." He bolted upstairs and rummaged through her jewelry box. Finding something satisfactory, he returned to where his wife sat silently. He tossed the emerald ring into her lap and collapsed in his own chair.

The ring was unlike her other two. The circle of white gold was completely plain excluding the sizable emerald perched on the top. It had no relation to his proposal or their wedding. Just a random ring he'd bought her on some forgettable occasion which he'd only seen a handful of times.

"What do you want me to do with this?"

"Wear it, of course. In lieu of your more expensive ones."

She slipped it onto her left ring finger, not stopping to admire the sparkling jewel or how well it complimented her eyes.

Somehow the sight of that ring on his finger was even worse than when there had been none.

"I'm retiring for the evening. I'll see you tomorrow."

It had been three months since the accident. 2 months since the door opened.

He refused to break the silence.

The baffled and outraged glances thrown at them. What right did she have to be here? Her kind had no business with theirs. He refused to acknowledge them, to invite them to comment further. If they did, they would attack her and she might leave him.

The constant calls on the house. No one was welcomed. To open the doors was to let them in.

The quiet bond between them. He couldn't ruin that. The closest thing they'd had to happiness in years. They were finally a united front.

The glaring ring. That wasn't his ring. It caught the light and reflected it back at him, through him. That wasn't his ring. It constantly reminded him of their distance. That wasn't his ring. It showed the world nothing but that she was taken by someone else. That wasn't his ring. She didn't have to recognize it as a symbol of their bond. That wasn't his ring.

But he didn't say a thing.

She wanted to see them. She didn't want to waste any more time waiting for them to come. They might never come home if she didn't say something.

And so they were all brought back to the mansion on Peachtree Street.

Wade, Ella, and Bonnie came through the same front door that they'd been pushed out of three months prior and came face to face with the same luminescent mother they'd lost, their father figure in tow.