A CALIFORNIA ROSE
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Rose stood at the back of the crowd of
mourners attending a memorial service for the victims of the earthquake. She
was quiet, her head bowed, trying not to attract attention.
She had seen Tommy, Helga, and Sophie in the
crowd, but had not approached them. Part of her wanted to go to them, to mourn
the loss of friends and loved ones with them, but another part of her had held
back. Much as she would have liked to join them, she knew that it would be too
painful. The numbness that had smothered her emotions for the past week was
fading, but Rose wasn’t ready to give in to her grief yet.
She knew, as well, that if she went to them,
she would wind up telling them how Jack had died. She had promised Cal that she
would keep her silence in return for his leaving her alone, and she intended to
keep that promise. He would leave her alone now, and she would have her
freedom. Someday, she thought, she might let her friends know that she was
alive, but not now.
The minister’s voice droned on, and Rose
found her mind wandering. She knew that this memorial service was a comfort to
many who had lost their friends and relatives, but it didn’t comfort her. The
words of the minister spoke for all of those who had been lost, and those who
would go on without them, but for now she wanted to be alone, to grieve for
those individuals that she personally had known.
Quietly, Rose slipped from the crowd and
walked away. Her ankle was still weak, but she could walk on it now. Not really
paying attention to where she was going, she headed out along the broken
streets.
Some of the streets and buildings were
already being torn down or repaired. The earthquake had destroyed the city, but
the people were already starting over, rebuilding it. She saw a vehicle with
Titan Construction printed on it. Masline’s biggest company was already working
again.
She walked on, heading toward the center of
town. Not so much work had been done there yet; the people were poorer and
couldn’t afford to rebuild right away. She moved around piles of concrete and
metal, seeing, for the first time, the damage that had occurred. When she had
come through the area before, after being rescued, she hadn’t noticed much of
anything. Yet, even here, life was going on, and people were starting over. She
would do the same.
Looking around, Rose realized that she had
reached the area where she had been when the earthquake had hit. She saw the
remains of the buildings that had collapsed upon Jack and herself, and veered
away, not wanting to see the place where Jack had died. She made her way across
the broken street to the remains of the parking lot where she had left her
vehicle, crushed in the crevice.
Sitting down on the edge of the curb, Rose
wondered what she would do. She had nothing but the clothes on her back;
everything else had been lost. She had managed to obtain another pair of shoes
from charity, and had cleaned and mended her dress, but she had nothing else.
Still, she wouldn’t return to her mother’s house, even to get those things that
belonged to her. She couldn’t yet face her mother.
Standing, Rose made her way over to the
crevice that had swallowed the SUV, wondering if it was still there. Broken
glass and pavement crunched under her feet as she walked.
Inside the still-open crevice, the bright red
SUV gleamed dully in the morning sunlight. It was half-crushed, with broken
glass lying everywhere, but it was still there. Looking down, Rose saw her
purse still lying inside, the shoulder strap hooked over the parking brake.
Leaning over carefully, she retrieved it, shaking the dirt and broken glass
away.
She looked inside. The contents were still
there, just as she had left them--twenty-one dollars and fifty-three cents in
cash, her checkbook, her ATM card, her driver’s license, her keys, a pen, and a
compact. Looters had avoided the crevice, so her belongings were intact.
As she stood, she noticed a piece of paper
lying in the back seat. Curious, she reached for it, pulling out the drawing
that Jack had made of her.
It was slightly crumpled and dirty, and one
edge was torn, but it was still there. She gazed at it, remembering that
afternoon. Was it only a week ago? It seemed much longer.
Folding the drawing carefully, she tucked it
into her bag, and slung the purse over her shoulder. As she stepped back, her
foot brushed against something. It sparkled in the sunlight.
Picking it up, Rose recognized her engagement
ring. Cal had dropped it when the earthquake struck. She held it, wonderingly. She
could sell it--the money from it would go a long way--but she wouldn’t. She
would keep it, as a lesson--and as a reminder.
A reminder. Rose stared at the ring,
remembering the day that Cal had given it to her. She would never be so
innocent again--or so naive. If she ever again became engaged, it would be
because of love, not for security, or because she felt she had to. She had
learned what love meant, and she would never forget.
Rose clenched her fist around the ring. The
last of the numbness had vanished, leaving the raw grief and anguish in its
wake. Stumbling over to the curb, she sat down, tears streaming down her face.
Jack was dead. Trudy was dead, and so was
Fabrizio. Masline, the city that she had grown up in, was in ruins. She had
nowhere to go.
Rose put her head down on her knees and wept
in anguish. No one was around to hear her; this part of town was still mostly
abandoned.
She didn’t know what to do, or what to think.
She was alone now. She couldn’t go back to her family or her friends, and Jack
wasn’t there to help her.
She looked at the ring, remembering how Cal
had framed Jack. She had told Jack that she trusted him, but she hadn’t--not
enough. If she had, she would have defended him when the ring had been found.
If she had spoken out, he might not have been taken away, and he might still be
alive.
Rose shook her head. It didn’t help to think
of what might have been, what had happened had happened, and couldn’t be
changed. He might have been arrested anyway, she thought. Or, if he hadn’t, something
else might have happened. She thought about everything that had occurred that
day, and realized that many things, if done differently, might have changed
what had happened. If she hadn’t gone to visit him that afternoon, if she
hadn’t confronted Cal, if they had taken a different route back through town,
if she had moved a little faster before the walls collapsed, things might have
turned out differently. Or perhaps not.
Regretting the past didn’t help. It couldn’t
be changed, and dwelling upon it would only cause more misery. She could only
remember what had happened, and learn from it.
Rose thought about something that Jack had
told her once, about making each day count. He had believed that life was a
gift, not to be wasted. He had understood that life was precarious, that
anything could happen. She hadn’t understood then. Not until the earthquake had
struck, and her world had shattered along with the city, had she understood.
Jack had been right, Rose realized. Life was
short, and unpredictable. A person could plan out their life in every detail,
but unexpected things would still happen. She had never expected to meet
someone like Jack, or to know such joy in the short time they had together.
She had promised him that she would go on,
and she would. He had helped her to survive, to escape from a life that would
have destroyed her. She would not let that gift go to waste. She would
live--not just survive, but really live. However long she lived, she wouldn’t
waste her life on things that she hated, or on people who would tear her down.
Rose sat up, wiping at her eyes. She knew now
what she was going to do.
*****
Rose left Masline early that afternoon. She
had decided that she would not return to the university, or to her mother, or
to the house that Jack had lived in, though she knew that Tommy would have let
her.
She walked east, up through the foothills,
toward the mountains and the desert beyond. She would travel wherever life took
her, however long it took. She would see the world, do the things that she had
never before dared to imagine. She had no place to be, so she would simply go
wherever she felt like going.
As she reached the top of the hill, she
looked back one more time. The valley lay before her, the golden grass waving
in the breeze as it had before. From this distance, the damage caused by the
cataclysm was hardly noticeable. It was almost as if it had never happened.
Rose stood quietly for a few minutes,
remembering. Then, she turned and walked away, heading east, into a new life.
She never looked back.