Hours later, after the party had ended and the guests had departed, Rose slipped from her room wrapped in a warm pink robe. She glanced up and down the hall to be sure that neither her sisters nor her parents were about, then walked quietly down the stairs and headed for the kitchen.
As always happened after one of these parties, the combined efforts of Mrs. di Rossi and the caterers had resulted in large amounts of leftovers. Most of it would be thrown out, except for what the servants wanted—the Bukaters seldom ate leftovers. Rose had often thought it was a shame to waste so much good food, especially with so many hungry people in the world, but she had no say in the matter.
Still, the amount of leftover food meant that she could take a tray to Jack without it being missed. She frowned, thinking about how her mother had yelled at him in front of all the guests. Some of them had been appalled at her rudeness, though they hadn’t said so to her face—it wasn’t polite to insult the hostess of a party one was attending. They had said it to each other later, though, as they were leaving—Rose had overheard several of them talking.
Her father hadn’t been happy about it, either, though he had refused to compound Ruth’s error by making a scene in front of their guests. After the guests had left, however, Tom and Ruth had argued loud and long over Ruth’s treatment of the boy Tom had brought home.
Tom understood that Ruth was unhappy with suddenly being “mother” to a strange boy, but he didn’t feel that her unhappiness excused such behavior—there was no reason, in his view, to humiliate the boy in front of people. At the very least, he felt she should have taken him aside and explained what he was doing wrong, not screamed at him for it in front a roomful of prominent politicians and businessmen. He was aware that many of their guests had regarded her behavior as unforgivably rude, something he was sure the gossips in their social circle would pick up on, and hoped she wouldn’t take the inevitable backlash out on the boy.
Rose and her sisters had stood in the hallway, listening to their parents yell at each other downstairs, and whispered to each other, keeping an eye out in case their parents came upstairs and caught them eavesdropping. All three of them felt bad for Jack, though Rose and Lucy had to admit that they were glad it wasn’t one of them their mother had caught—although she was usually more subtle with them, taking them aside when she thought they were being rude.
When Ruth and Tom had come upstairs, still angry with each other, Rose and the twins had quickly scattered to their rooms, though Rose had peeked out long enough to see her father come out of her parents’ bedroom and disappear into one of the guestrooms, carrying his pajamas and rubbing his chest like it hurt.
Now, a half hour later, Rose tiptoed around the kitchen, loading a plate with leftover roast duck, mashed potatoes, and a large slice of chocolate cake. When the plate was full, she quietly carried it out of the kitchen, glancing around to make sure no one saw her.
If she was caught, she planned to tell whoever caught her that she was hungry and was getting a midnight snack, though there was far more food on the plate than she usually ate, and if her mother heard the excuse, she would lecture Rose about eating too much and putting on weight.
It was a lot of food, but Rose had observed more than once that boys her age could eat a disgusting amount of food and still be hungry—her boyfriend, Cal, could eat three burgers at once, then ask Rose if she was going to finish her food.
Fortunately, no one was around when Rose reached the top of the stairs. She walked quietly to Jack’s room and knocked softly on the door, wondering if he was asleep. When there was no answer, she slowly opened the door, finding an empty room and a still-made bed, a cheap suitcase lying open atop the bed. The bathroom door was open and the room was dark, but a cold draft came from the window. Rose moved to the window and looked outside, seeing no one and concluding that Jack had climbed down the trellis—a way in and out of the house that she had used herself on occasion, especially when she got home past her curfew and didn’t want to get caught.
Still carrying the food, Rose went back down the stairs and quietly unlocked the back door, slipping out into the backyard. She looked around, not seeing any sign of Jack, and wondered if he’d run away. She quickly rejected the idea, since his suitcase was still in his room, and started down the brick pathway, trying to think of where he might be.
Thinking of where she and her siblings liked to go when they were upset, she headed towards a large oak tree near the back fence. The tree, with its thick foliage in summer and branches just the right size for sitting on, had been a refuge for all four DeWitt-Bukater kids when they were upset.
When she neared the tree, she knew that she’d been right. The tree was as appealing to the boy from Wisconsin as it was to them. She heard a muffled sob coming from a branch not far above her head and, after setting the plate on a nearby bench and kicking off her slippers, she began to climb, her bare feet aching with the cold.
Though she couldn’t see him in the darkness, Rose had a fair idea of where Jack was, and when she reached the branch, she sat down on it and slid along it carefully until she reached him.
“Go away!” Jack’s voice was choked with tears. After being sent away from the dinner party, he had paced his room for hours, still holding in the grief that wanted to burst forth for fear that someone would see him and laugh at him. Later, after hearing the muffled sounds of his new “parents” quarreling, followed by the slamming of doors, he had decided to see if the trellis was indeed strong enough to climb—anything to get out of the suffocating room. Once outside, he had prowled the backyard, hoping the dog Rose had mentioned wasn’t around, and had finally found the oak tree, whose branches looked, in the faint starlight, to offer a good place to hide, a place where he could finally let loose with the grief he’d been holding inside for more than a week.
Now, someone had invaded his sanctuary. He tried to scoot away from them, but the branch creaked under their combined weight. He stopped, fearing that it would break. He wasn’t sure who had climbed up beside him—it could be a crazed killer, for all he knew—but he didn’t want to fall.
“Jack, it’s me. Rose.” She crossed her feet and tried to cover them with her nightgown.
Now he knew who was sitting beside him, but he still didn’t want her there. He felt more sobs rising up inside and tried to suppress them, not wanting to embarrass himself in front of her by crying. “Please…just leave me alone.”
Rose moved closer to him. She doubted he was crying over her mother’s rudeness—she had overheard her father telling someone that Jack’s entire family had been lost in a car accident recently; she guessed that was what he was so upset about.
Jack tried to stop crying, but the grief that he had been holding inside could no longer be suppressed—not just at the loss of his family, but also at being taken from everything he had ever known and being brought to a place where he didn’t seem to be wanted. When he felt Rose put her arm around his shoulders, his tears began anew and he found himself leaning against her.
Rose was surprised when he leaned against her, but didn’t pull away. She kept her arm around him, feeling his shoulders shake as he sobbed quietly. He didn’t say much, only occasionally whispering someone’s name—Mom, Dad, Betsy—his sister, Rose thought, or maybe a girlfriend he’d had to leave behind.
After a while, his sobs quieted and then stopped. He sat up, embarrassed at his display of emotion.
“Sorry,” he whispered, wiping his eyes.
“It’s okay,” Rose assured him quietly. “This is where all of us kids go when we’re upset.”
Jack took a deep, shuddering breath, but didn’t say anything. He sat quietly on the branch, his emotions spent, feeling somewhat comforted by Rose’s presence. Lots of people had offered their condolences over the loss of his family, but Rose was the first one who seemed to sense that he just needed someone to be there.
Rose finally took her arm from around Jack’s shoulder and reached to rub her feet, which were so cold they were almost numb. She teetered slightly, but managed to keep her balance, though the branch shook with her efforts to warm her feet.
“What’s wrong?” Jack whispered as she gasped slightly and steadied herself.
“My feet are freezing,” Rose whispered back. “Would you mind if we got down from here?”
“Sure.” Jack had been planning to sit there for a while longer, but he was feeling the cold, too, although he’d had the good sense to wear shoes.
His stomach growled loudly as he followed Rose down the tree. He clapped a hand over it, embarrassed.
Rose smiled slightly. “I brought some food,” she told him quietly.
“It’s…uh…it’s not more es—escart—snails, is it?” he asked. He was hungry, but there was no way he was eating slimy garden pests.
She laughed softly. “No,” she told him. “It’s roast duck, mashed potatoes, and chocolate cake. Do you like those?”
Jack nodded, then realized she couldn’t see him. “Yeah,” he responded. “We had those at home all the time…well, the mashed potatoes, anyway.”
Rose led him to the bench where she had left the food, her hand brushing the potatoes as she felt for the plate. To her dismay, the food was even colder than when she’d taken it from the refrigerator.
“It’s…um…it’s kind of cold,” she told him. “It’s not frozen, though.”
Jack shrugged. He was hungry enough that cold food didn’t bother him. Besides, he knew from experience that cold leftover duck was good in sandwiches, and he had eaten half-frozen cake before, too…in his opinion, nothing could ruin cake.
Rose reached into a pocket of her robe, only then realizing that she had snatched a spoon instead of a fork. “Oops,” she mumbled.
“What?”
“I accidentally brought you a spoon, not a fork.”
“I can use it.” He took the proffered utensil and sat down on the bench, spooning food into his mouth.
Rose sat down, too, pulling her slippers back on. “Jack?” she asked after a moment.
“Yeah?”
“Earlier, I heard Dad telling one of the guests that you’d lost your family in a car accident.” She paused, trying to think of how to ask about it. “What happened?”
Jack was silent for a moment, the spoon lying forgotten on the plate. “Um…well…the police think the car hit a patch of black ice, spun out of control, and hit a tree. It must have been going pretty fast…Betsy was thrown from the car—they found her lying about fifteen feet away. The policeman I talked to told me he thought Mom and Dad were probably killed instantly.”
“What about you? Were you hurt?”
“I…uh…I wasn’t in the car. I was at a football game at school. They were on their way to pick me up.”
Rose gasped. “Oh, my…”
“When they didn’t show up, I kept waiting, but people were leaving and the parking lot was getting empty. The principal finally asked me where my parents were, and when I said I didn’t know—I was getting kind of worried by then, because they were never that late—he offered me a ride home. While he was driving me home, we stopped because the road was blocked off. There were police cars all around, and an ambulance—and then I saw the car, and I recognized it. I jumped out of the principal’s car and took off running while he tried to catch me, and I saw them putting Betsy on a stretcher and loading her into the ambulance.”
“Who was Betsy?”
“Betsy was my sister. She was thirteen. We fought a lot, but now that she’s gone…I miss her.” Jack’s voice wavered slightly. He stuffed a bite of food into his mouth, chewing on it until he regained control. “They put Mom and Dad into the ambulance, too, but they weren’t as gentle with them…later the policeman told me they were already dead. Mom’s head was lying at a strange angle…even I could tell she was dead, but I wasn’t sure about Dad, and Betsy was still breathing.
“The police stopped me from going to them, and the principal took me back to his car and drove me to the hospital after the ambulance left. The policeman talked to me there—Betsy died on the way to the hospital, and they had me identify her. They knew for sure who Mom and Dad were, because they had their driver’s licenses…but to make things official, they had me tell them who Betsy was. That was when I found out that all three of them had died…I was the only one left.
“All I could think about was that while I was at the football game, standing near the cheerleaders and hoping one of them would notice me, my parents and sister were on their way to pick me up, slipping on the ice and hitting that tree—which was still standing after the accident, even though it has a big gash in the trunk now. While I was having fun, they were dying. Betsy loved going over to the high school—she never missed a chance to come along if Mom and Dad were picking me up—and now she’ll never go there. She was in eighth grade…but she was really looking forward to high school.”
Jack’s voice cracked. Falling silent, he stuffed another bite of food into his mouth, trying to bring his emotions under control.
Rose scooted closer to him and gave him a hug. “Oh, Jack, how horrible! I don’t know what I would do if I lost my parents, or my brother or my sisters. My brother is in the Navy, and I worry about him all the time…I’m always afraid there’ll be a war and he’ll get killed.”
“I hope it never happens. I hope your whole family lives to be old.”
“Me, too.” Rose fell silent for a moment, thinking. “Dad says you’ll be going to Smithfield High School with me.”
“Yeah…he pointed it out to me on the way here.”
“What grade are you in?”
“Tenth.”
“So am I.” Rose squinted her eyes, peering at him in the darkness. “How old are you?”
“I’m fifteen. My birthday’s in October.”
“I’m fifteen, too, but my birthday’s in August.” Rose smiled. “I guess I’ve got a little brother now.”
Jack shrugged. “I guess.”
“If you like, I can show you around school on Monday, make it easier to find things. It’s not a very big school, but still…I can introduce you to some of the kids, too. Most of my friends go there, and so does my boyfriend, Cal…but he’s a senior, so you probably won’t have very many classes with him.”
Jack glanced at her, barely able to see her in the shadows. “Your dad said there was a good art program at your school…”
“There is. There’s classes and an art club, and the teacher submits really good work to art fairs and even galleries. Are you interested in art?”
“I love art. My mother was a cartoonist, and I’ve been drawing since…I can’t remember when.”
“Did you bring any drawings with you when you came here?”
“I brought my portfolio. It has my best work, plus some of my mother’s cartoons.”
“Maybe you can show it to me tomorrow. I’m an artist, too…or I’m trying to be. I like to paint…you probably already guessed that.”
“You did have paint on your face when I met you.”
“Yeah, well…I was painting when Mom had me come meet you.”
“What do you paint?”
“I like to paint pictures of things going on in the world. I’ll get a photo from a magazine and paint a picture…or I’ll paint a picture of something I’ve seen. I was working on a painting of President Kennedy this afternoon…we got to go to his inauguration a few months ago, and we even got to shake his hand. Dad got so mad at the twins…they switched names, though I don’t think the President noticed. Dad was the only one who’d ever met him before.”
“They did the same thing to me today.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “They think they’re so funny…even when they get in trouble, they think they’re funny.”
Jack finished his food and set the spoon on the plate. He felt Rose shivering next to him and stood up, offering her his hand to help her up.
“I think we should go in before you freeze,” he told her.
Not seeing his hand, Rose got to her feet on her own. “You’re probably right. It’s cold out tonight.”
“Not as cold as Chippewa Falls, but…yeah. It is kind of chilly.”
Jack started to walk back towards the trellis, but Rose stopped him. “The back door is unlocked. That’s how I got out here.”
Jack followed her inside, waiting as she locked up again. She took the plate from him and went into the kitchen, leaving it there before returning to him.
As they started up the stairs, Rose whispered, “Jack…I know it’s hard, but it’ll be okay. You’ll get used to us. The twins can be obnoxious, but they just think they’re funny, and I heard Dad tell Mom that he wants you here. Mom…well…she’ll get used to you. I’m sure of it.”
Jack wasn’t so sure about that, but he didn’t say so. He knew that Rose, at least, was friendly—and he was glad to have at least one friendly face in this new place.
“Thanks, Rose,” he whispered as they stopped outside her bedroom door.
“You’re welcome,” she responded, giving him a quick hug. She yawned, reaching for the doorknob. “Good night.”
“’Night,” he whispered as she went inside and shut the door. He stood for a moment, thinking, before he turned and went inside his own room.