LOVE BY CHANCE
Chapter Five
July 18, 2001
Rose mumbled to herself as the phone rang,
waking her from a sound sleep. It had been late before Jack had left, and Rose
had only fallen asleep about three hours ago. Blearily observing that it was
just past five o’clock in the morning, she picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Rose, this is your mother."
Rose sighed under her breath, wondering what
her mother could possibly want at this hour. Of course, it was eight o’clock in
Philadelphia, but still...
"What, Mother?"
"Don’t use that tone of voice with me,
Rose."
"Mother, it’s five o’clock in the
morning. There’s a three hour time difference between San Francisco and
Philadelphia, you know."
"Were you with that boy again?"
Rose knew immediately who Ruth was referring
to. "Jack is not a boy, Mother. He’s a grown man, my age. Yes, I was with
him. Who else would I be with?"
"You claim to be so mature, Rose, and
yet you persist in dating someone who abandoned you when you graduated from
high school. Don’t you think you could do better? Have you no pride?"
"Don’t you mean ‘couldn’t I find someone
who would do more for you’? Mother, Jack didn’t abandon me. He lost my address
and couldn’t remember my phone number. It was fate that brought us back
together on that plane from San Francisco to Philadelphia last month."
"He’s using you, Rose. He’s just using
the fact that you dated in high school to get back together with you now. God
only knows why. Maybe he just wants to have his fun with you, or maybe he’s
hoping to marry you for your money. The Dawsons never did have much."
"I think you’re wrong on both counts,
Mother. Jack has always been a gentleman toward me, never trying to go farther
than I wanted to go--unlike Cal, I might add--and you’ve threatened more than
once to write me out of your will if I didn’t meet your expectations. Jack
knows that, but he hasn’t left me. Believe it or not, Mother, it is possible
for someone to like me for me, and not for the DeWitt-Bukater money."
"Cal liked you for more than your money,
Rose."
Yes--he also liked my appearance in a low-cut
dress. He liked it so well that I had to dump a cup of coffee in his lap to get
him to back off."
"Rose!" Ruth was outraged. "If
you’d played your cards right, you could have married him. He had a
fortune--"
"Yes, and wound up like his poor,
battered wife. Believe me, Mother, I’d rather stay single all my life than
marry a man like Cal. I have too much self-respect to bow down to any
man."
"If you had any self-respect, Rose,
you’d give up Jack Dawson. I can’t believe you can’t see him for what he really
is. He’s going to wind up hurting you. Mark my words."
Rose sighed irritably. "I doubt that,
Mother. It’s more likely that you’ll hurt me by trying to run my life. I’m an
adult, and I can take care of myself. And so can you. You don’t need me to
marry a man who will take care of you--and I don’t think Cal would have wanted
to take care of anyone but himself. Nor do you need to live vicariously through
me. If you’re so intent upon finding a wealthy man, why don’t you look for one
for yourself?"
"Rose, don’t talk to me that way!"
"Then don’t try to manipulate me,
Mother! I’m perfectly happy with the way things are. I just wish you’d realize
that I’m not a little girl anymore, or even an adolescent. I know what I’m
doing."
"You were never so defiant before. Jack
Dawson has manipulated you so that you want nothing to do with me."
"Jack wasn’t the one who did the
manipulating, Mother. He’s tried to be friendly toward you, but you always
snubbed him and looked down on him. No, you’re the one who’s been doing the
manipulating. You’ve tried to bend me to your will too many times. I’ve been
fed up since before Jack and I got back together. It was you who drove me away.
Jack had nothing to do with it."
"You’re blowing things out of
proportion, Rose." Ruth did not like the way the conversation was going.
"I’ve given you everything, and this is the way you treat me?"
"Mother..." Rose sighed in
exasperation. "I’m hanging up now. I have to be up at seven so that I can
be at work on time."
"Rose..." Ruth stopped, making a
decision. "I’ll be coming to visit you as soon as the peak season ends at
work. Do you realize you’ve never even invited me to see your home?"
"I’m aware of that, Mother. You’d only
criticize it. That’s all you ever do."
"Rose..." Ruth spoke stiffly.
"I’m aware that you are living on your own, far from home, but that does
not give you the right to speak to me that way."
"This is home, Mother." Rose
ignored Ruth’s reprimand. "If you choose to come to San Francisco, that’s
up to you, but you’ll be staying in a motel, not in my house."
Ruth sucked in her breath in shock.
"Rose, how dare you humiliate me that way! You have plenty of room."
"I also keep late hours and have company
that you don’t approve of, and I have no intention of stopping just because you
come to visit. I know you too well, Mother. You’d find a way to drag out the
visit and manipulate me into a corner. I’ve lived with that all my life, and
I’ve had enough of it."
"Rose!"
"Good-bye, Mother."
Rose hung up the phone and lay back down, but
she couldn’t fall asleep again. Her mother was coming to visit. After years of
making excuses to avoid a visit, she was finally going to be faced with her
mother’s schemes in her own home. It would only be for a little while, but Ruth
had a way of making her presence felt long after she had left.
Rose got out of bed, her thoughts in turmoil.
Her mother would probably make her visit some time in September, and stay for a
week. There was no telling what she would try, in her quest to make Rose’s life
what she wanted it to be.
Rose would have to be strong, and resist her
mother’s efforts to manipulate her. Now that she and Jack had found each other
again, she had no intention of letting Ruth separate them.