A LIFE SO CHANGED
Chapter Thirty-Three
Bruce Ismay is just sitting there in a blank
world. Paralyzed of what just happened.
A man offers Cal a drink. He shook his head
no.
Ruth and Molly are hugging each other.
Rose, lying swaddled. Only her face is
visible, white as the moon. The man next to her jumps up, pointing and yelling.
Soon everyone is looking and shouting excitedly. Lowe light a green flare and
wave it as everyone shouts and cheers. Rose doesn't react. She floats beyond
all human emotion.
Golden light washes across the white boats,
which float in a calm sea reflecting the rosy sky. All around them, like a
flotilla of sailing ships, are icebergs. The Carpathia sits nearby, as boats
row toward her.
Rose wakes up and looks up, and sees a ship.
She starts crying, for she thought it was all a dream, only it happened in real
life. The most deadly trip she has ever taken.
A ship's hull looming, with the letters
CARPATHIA visible on the bow. Rose watching, rocked by the sea, her face blank.
Seamen helping survivors up the rope ladder to the Carpathia's gangway doors.
Two women crying and hugging each other inside the ship.
Rose, outside of time, outside of herself,
coming into Carpathia, barely able to stand, helped by Lowe. She’s being draped
with warm blankets.
Bruce Ismay climbing aboard. He has the face
and eyes of a damned soul. As Ismay walks along the hall, guided by a crewman
toward the doctor's cabin, he passes rows of seated and standing widows. He
must run the gauntlet of their accusing gazes.
The group from the church is pale and cold.
Wishing that had never taken the trip. Most of all, losing the one they loved.
Ruth looks at Molly. "I wonder if Rose
and Jack ever made it?"
"I don’t know, Ruth. I don’t know. You
better get Cal to go look for them."
"I did. He’s looking right now."
Cal is searching the faces of the widows
lining the deck, looking for Rose. The deck of Carpathia is crammed with
huddled people, and even the recovered lifeboats of Titanic. On a hatch cover
sits an enormous pile of life belts. He keeps walking toward the stern. Seeing
Cal's tuxedo, a steward approaches him.
"You won't find any of your people back
here, sir. It's all steerage." Cal ignores him and goes amongst this
wrecked group, looking under shawls and blankets at one bleak face after
another.
He hears a woman telling a crew who she is
looking for. Behind him, a woman is seated covered with a blanket, from head to
toe. It is Rose. He does not see her, but she did when she heard, "You
won’t find any of your people here, sir. It’s all steerage." Her heart
stops a moment when she saw her father, covers her head, and waits.
Now that he is behind her, she looks away
before he sees her. He turns to leave. She kept staring at him when he went up
the stairs, and turns and sighs.
Rose: "That’s the last time I ever saw
him. They got back, of course. But when they found out about the Fosters and
me. It hit my father hard, for he truly loved me and puts his gun in his mouth
that year, but two weeks after he died, my mother committed suicide."
Rose smiles. "Or so I read."