PRESENT TENSE
Chapter Twenty-Four

The weeks following Rose’s confrontation with Cal passed in a flurry of term papers, midterms, finals, job seeking, keeping up with news on Cal, and visiting with Jack. Classes resumed at Elias University on May twelfth, and students found themselves swamped with work as professors tried to make up for lost time. Rose, no longer under Cal’s thumb, found herself less frantic about schoolwork than she had been before, but she still worked hard. What she was learning might well prove useful, even if it wasn’t in the way that had originally been planned.

Every afternoon, when she was finished with her classes, Rose went searching for a job. She applied everywhere she could think of—all the places with clerical work, fast-food restaurants, anything—but was unsuccessful until the beginning of June. Just when she began to fear that she would be unable to find employment, she tested for an Office Assistant position with San Diego County and was hired to work in the Masline Mental Health Clinic, which had been only partly damaged in the earthquake and had soon been rebuilt.

Rose continued to keep tabs on Cal, on how things were progressing toward his trial, and on whether he did as she had requested in dropping the charges against Jack. She was gratified when the newspaper reported that he had dropped charges against Jack Dawson, saying that it had been a mix-up. Rose didn’t argue. She knew that Cal would never admit to having framed him, and whatever excuse he used was good enough. Toward the end of May, it was announced that Cal’s trial would begin June eighteenth—two days before Rose and Cal were to have been married. Rose shuddered inwardly, thinking of what her life would have been like as Cal’s wife. She also wondered at the wisdom of holding the trial so soon, with the memory of Sunpeak still fresh in people’s minds. It would be a long time before the families and friends of the victims of Sunpeak’s collapse would begin to forget, but the general public would probably find something new to be upset about within a month or two. At the moment, however, public opinion against Sun Titan Industries, and Sunpeak in particular, ran high, and Rose didn’t think that such an expedient trial was very wise. However, Cal had friends in high places who were expecting him to be freed, and they had arranged that the trial be held soon so that Cal would spend a minimal amount of time in jail. She gave the news to Jack and was surprised to learn that the lawyers hired by Sun Titan Industries had agreed to represent herself and Jack in court. Although she and Jack had also been endangered by Cal, she hadn’t expected anyone to represent them like that. She wouldn’t have thought that Sun Titan Industries, with their reputation for mistreating people, would have had the compassion.

After her job search had been conducted for the day, Rose went to visit with Jack at Memorial Hospital. He was recovering—physically, at least. His leg had healed to the point that it was no longer in traction, and he moved around the room and up and down the hallways on crutches, regaining his strength. The gunshot wound in his back had healed with no lasting damage. It was the head injury that worried Rose.

Despite was the doctor had said, Rose couldn’t help but wonder if there had been some brain damage. The apathy that Jack had displayed the day of the televised memorial service had not gone away; in fact, it often seemed to be worse. He seldom displayed much interest in anything, and Rose felt that for someone who was ordinarily as enthusiastic about life as Jack was, this behavior wasn’t normal.

Several times when Rose arrived to visit, she found Jack lying down or sitting up in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling or wall, his expression pensive. He always greeted her and appeared happy to see her, but Rose noticed that he often appeared distracted and even a little depressed. Weeks after he should have been healing he continued to complain of headaches, which the doctors dismissed despite the increasing severity.

At first, Rose wondered if she was being overprotective, or needlessly worried about Jack—after all, she had been there when he was injured, and had seen how serious it was. But when Helga and Tommy also expressed concern, Rose realized that her worries were indeed founded, since they had known Jack for longer than she had, and because Helga was familiar with this sort of injury. When they asked Jack how he was doing, however, he insisted that he was fine, getting better all the time. The doctors did not appear overly concerned, but Rose still worried.

Jack was finally released from the hospital on June sixth after over a month there. It was Rose who brought him home to Masline, driving the used car that Tommy, who worked as a mechanic, had helped her to select.

Although Rose’s job didn’t start until the beginning of July, and was in the town she would be living in, she felt that she needed transportation. She didn’t have much money—she had only been able to save about twelve hundred dollars from her internship—but she knew that she could afford to use approximately two-thirds that amount to buy a used car and still have enough money to get by until she started working. She wished that she could have used the insurance money from the wrecked SUV, but both the insurance and the vehicle had been in her mother’s name, and Rose was reluctant to even approach her about it.

Rose avoided the car dealers, whose prices were generally too high for her to afford, and instead checked the sales ads in the newspaper. When she came across an ad for a car in good shape that was selling for only eight hundred dollars, she convinced Tommy to go with her to check it out.

When Rose arrived at the home of the woman selling the car, she gaped in shock at the vehicle. It was the same one she had borrowed to transport Jack to safety on the night of the earthquake. The broken window had not been replaced, nor had the broken headlight, and there were still some faint bloodstains on the front passenger seat, although someone had obviously tried to clean it.

Rose test-drove the vehicle, finding that it worked as well as it had when she had borrowed it a few weeks earlier, and Tommy checked it over, declaring it sound except for the broken window and headlight. Rose wondered at the low price, but when she asked the car’s owner, the woman told her that she had been trying to sell it for several weeks, since before the earthquake, in order to make way for the new car she and her husband had purchased. The new car was still parked on the street, undamaged by the earthquake.

The price had originally been higher, she explained to Rose, but the car had been damaged in the earthquake, and someone had used it to transport an injured person, leaving the stains on the seat. She shook her head, saying that she hoped that the injured person had been okay. Rose kept her mouth shut, not telling the woman that she had been the one who had borrowed the car. Although she seemed sympathetic, Rose didn’t want to invite trouble. She had enough already.

Rose purchased the car, paying for it all at once. She covered the stained seat with some leftover fabric that Helga gave her, and Tommy helped her replace the headlight and window, lending her the money to pay for the parts and doing the installation himself. The car would have been a bargain at twice the price, and Rose was pleased with her purchase.

So Rose was able to bring Jack home on June sixth. He was still on crutches, but he could get around, and he was considerably stronger than he had been a few weeks earlier. He had no medical bills to pay, as Medical had taken care of everything, so he was free to go.

Jack stared out the window most of the way home. He paid little attention to the car, though in earlier times he undoubtedly would have asked Rose to pose with the car and drawn a picture of her doing so. Now, however, he showed little interest. Rose had seen his portfolio and had noticed that he had made only a few half-hearted attempts at drawing, though the activity inside a hospital should have proven fascinating to a bored artist.

When they reached Masline late that afternoon, Tommy was there to greet them. Helga was still at work. Tommy helped Jack into the house, then took Rose aside, asking how she thought he was doing. Rose just shook her head. She had hoped that leaving the hospital would brighten Jack’s spirits a bit, but it didn’t seem to have helped. Maybe after things got back to normal, so would he. She hoped so, but her worries didn’t fade.

*****

The quarter ended on June fifteenth, three days before Cal’s trial was to begin. Rose had already packed up her belongings from the dorm and taken them back to her new home in Masline, but she still had to retrieve the rest of her things from her mother’s house.

Rose arrived at Ruth’s house just after noon on the last day of the quarter, having completed her last final that morning. Michelle was already on her way back to Miami, and Mari had returned to Perris the day before. Rose needed to pack up her belongings, including her computer and furniture, before evening. Sophie was returning home the same day, so she had promised to stop by and help Rose, probably around three o’clock.

Rose let herself into the house quietly. Ruth was at work and the house was silent. Before she began packing, Rose wandered through the house, remembering the years that she had lived there and all the things that had happened there. She avoided the dining area, where Cal had attacked her, but wandered through the other rooms, remembering the ten years she had spent in this house. She slipped into her father’s old bedroom and retrieved a photograph she had taken of him with a camera he had bought her for her thirteenth birthday. As an afterthought, she also picked up a picture of the whole family in happier times, before her father’s affairs had become known. Her parents’ faces were strained even then, but Rose was smiling happily, delighted to be with both of them. She was about five years old in the picture.

Rose tucked both pictures inside a small box and began to dismantle her room. She had obtained a large number of cardboard boxes from area businesses who no longer needed them and had been willing to give them to her rather than throw them away. Requests for cardboard boxes were common from college students at the end of the year.

Rose folded the boxes back into shape for carrying things and taped them so that they would stay together. She packed up her computer, her radio, and the small television she’d had in her room since she was twelve. Next came the three lamps, since the sunlight lit the room brighter than the lamps could have at the moment.

After she had packed away her books, cosmetics, jewelry, posters, and old stuffed animals, she began on her clothing. Rose took down each garment, remembering when she had worn several of them. There was the dress she had worn to high school graduation last year, the bridesmaid dress she had worn at Fabrizio and Helga’s wedding, the satin dress she had worn the night she met Jack, now mended. Looking at it, Rose wondered how she could ever have been so stupid as to believe that suicide was the answer to anything.

In the back of her closet, stuffed behind the rack of shoes, were the clothes that she worn the morning Cal had raped her. Rose pulled them out as she remembered what had happened that morning.

The dress and undergarments had faint bloodstains on them. Rose shuddered, remembering how Cal had brutalized her. He had been furious, determined to punish her for an imagined indiscretion, and he had done a good job of it, too. Her body had healed—even her broken ribs were now completely mended—but Rose would never forget the pain and humiliation of that morning.

Pulling the garments out, Rose debated whether to keep them or discard them. She wondered if she might need the evidence someday—Cal had dropped the charges against Jack, but he might decide to reinstate them. She couldn’t take the chance. And she knew that DNA evidence remained useful for years—some criminals had been freed based on decades-old evidence.

Rose retrieved an opaque plastic garbage bag from the kitchen and stuffed the clothes into it. She didn’t want anyone else to see them. She paused as she stuffed the dress in the bag, looking at it.

She and Trudy had been shopping for some new clothes late in February, and had stopped at one of Rose’s favorite stores—L.A.’s Nothing Over $9.99. The dress, a long, off-white gauze sundress, had been on the clearance rack for only four dollars. It had a small rip down the back seam, but Rose knew that she could repair that easily enough. She knew enough about sewing to do that.

Rose had purchased the dress, along with the one she had been wearing the day the earthquake struck, and brought it home with her. It was one of the prettiest dresses she owned, especially after it had been mended. It occurred to Rose that she could probably mend it again, repairing the torn strap, and bleach out the bloodstains, but she didn’t want to see the dress again. It held too many painful memories.

Rose stuffed the dress in the bag and tied it shut, only now realizing that her face was streaked with tears. She missed Trudy terribly, and seeing the dress had brought back memories of their numerous shopping trips together over the years. She was worried about Jack and nervous about being on her own for the first time in her life. She was leaving home, and, as her mother had said, she wasn’t welcome to come back. This would probably be the last time she would ever see her childhood home.

Rose sat back, wiping her eyes on her T-shirt sleeve. She had many things to mourn, but she didn’t have the luxury of taking the time to do so. Not now. She had to move to her new home, get ready for Cal’s trial, and then start work. She needed to count her blessings and move on.

Determinedly, Rose got to her feet and stuffed the bag of clothes into a box, taping the box shut. She began to dismantle her bed, one of the few items of furniture that actually belonged to her, and dragged the pieces downstairs, tying them to the roof of her car. She hauled out the small but sturdy folding table she had purchased with her employee discount from Sunpeak, laying it flat in the back seat of her car. She had also purchased a couple of plastic chairs, a plastic table, a small dresser, and a cheap bookcase from the local Big Lots, and had adequate furnishings for the room she would occupy. She would occupy the master bedroom, which had last been used by Fabrizio, since everyone else who already occupied the house were comfortable in their own, smaller rooms.

At three o’clock, Sophie arrived and helped Rose carry her boxes out to her car. Rose’s eyes were still a little red, but Sophie attributed this to her friend’s worry over leaving home permanently and didn’t question her.

It took two trips, with both women driving, to bring all of Rose’s belongings to her new home. As Rose was loading the last of her boxes into her car, Ruth pulled into the driveway.

Rose looked up from where she was parked on the street, watching her mother expressionlessly. She would miss her, but she refused to admit it. Ruth and Rose really hadn’t gotten along well in a long time, but Ruth was still Rose’s mother, and she was still attached to her because of that.

"I see you’re leaving." Ruth walked up to Rose.

"Yes. I’m almost done. You won’t have to deal with me anymore."

"Rose..." Rose could have sworn that Ruth sounded regretful, but when she looked up at her, she saw only the hardness and determination that had characterized her mother for so many years.

Without another word, Rose walked back into the house, looking around to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind. She wouldn’t be coming back.

As Rose walked into the kitchen, looking for anything she might have left laying around, she noticed that Ruth had followed her. Sophie was lingering in the living room, not wanting to intrude on this last moment between mother and daughter.

As Rose looked at her mother, she suddenly realized how much she would miss her, and she wanted to know why things had turned out the way they had.

"Well, Rose...I guess this is it. You’re leaving."

"As you wanted, Mom."

"Rose..." Ruth hesitated. "Maybe I was a little harsh. About Cal..."

There had been a time when Rose would have wanted to hear an apology from her mother, an acknowledgment that she had hurt Rose through her actions, and an invitation to return home and start over. Now, though, Rose had moved beyond that. She would always love her mother, but she couldn’t live with her. She was ready to be on her own now.

"What about Cal, Mom? Why did you defend him when I told you that he tried to kill me? Why did you defend him for the times he’s beaten me?"

"I was doing the best I could, Rose. I thought that the match with Cal was best for all concerned."

"The best for all concerned? How could it have been the best? I was miserable with him. He beat me, he tried to kill me, he..." She stopped, refusing to talk about anything else that had been done to her. "This is the twenty-first century, Mom. I don’t need a husband anymore than you do. When I marry, it will be for love, not security."

"It seemed like a good bargain."

"A good bargain?" Suddenly, Rose remembered some things that she hadn’t thought about before. Not long after she had become engaged to Cal, her mother had suddenly been granted several new designing contracts, worth a great deal of money. The contracts had been given by Titan Construction.

Rose realized now what had happened. Staring at her mother with shocked, hurt eyes, she choked out, "You sold me. You sold me to that...that monster. So that you could be more successful in a career you don’t even like!"

"I thought that Cal was the best choice for you, and you seemed to like him. That’s important in a marriage."

"I didn’t want to marry him even then. You knew that. And yet, you insisted upon it anyway—to further a career that gives you more stress than you should have to deal with."

Ruth stood stiffly. "I’m perfectly happy in my career. I’m sorry that I used you like that, but at the time it seemed to be the best option."

"It wasn’t, Mom. There were a thousand other things you could have done to promote your career, without using me as a bargaining piece." She paused, furious, wanting to lash out. "Maybe if you didn’t insist upon drinking half a bottle of wine every night, you could have recognized them!"

"Rose!" Ruth’s eyes flashed dangerously. "I’ve always done what I thought was best for those involved. I apologize for pushing you into the engagement with Cal, but I felt it was the best option. Left to your own devices, you might well have chosen a man just like your father."

"Instead, you coerced me into getting engaged to a man worse than Dad."

Rose couldn’t stand it anymore. Head held high, fighting back tears, she marched toward the door.

"Rose!" Ruth called to her. Rose didn’t turn.

"Good-bye, Mom."

And with that, Rose left home for the last time.

Chapter Twenty-Five
Stories