A LOVE FOR ETERNITY
Chapter Four

Glory of Love

"Come Josephine in my flying machine, going up she goes, up she goes."

Rose opened her eyes and looked directly into Jack's bright, deep blue eyes, which she had fallen in love with. He was smiling at her.

"Good morning, my sweet angel," he said, and kissed her. "It's good you decided to wake up. We'll arrive in Eau Claire in less than an hour. Then we have to get a ride to Chippewa Falls."

"What's the time?" Rose asked him sleepily.

"Already 11:30," Jack answered.

"Oh, my goodness. I've never slept that long in my whole life. There was always someone who would wake me up."

"Well, you missed something."

Only forty-five minutes later, the train arrived in Eau Claire, and they got off.

Jack and Rose looked around. They were standing on a small platform with a not much bigger building. There were not many people around at this time. The kids were in school, the farmers were in the fields, and the women were busy at home.

They walked out of the station and saw a carriage standing nearby. "Do you go to Chippewa Falls?" Jack asked the driver.

"Yes, I do. Get in. We'll be off in a few minutes," the driver answered in a friendly manner.

Jack helped Rose into the carriage and sat down beside her, taking her hand into his. Rose looked into his eyes. Suddenly, a thought crossed her mind.

"Jack, what do we do when someone asks when we were married? It's not proper for an unmarried couple to travel and live together. I don't even have a ring."

"Well, I also thought about that. We'll say that we are engaged—so we won't lie. I can't give you a ring right now. You could use the ring from Cal, if you want to. But I'll see if I can get the right ring for you."

"And what do we say when people ask about our same last name?"

"You could give your old name."

"That would be too long. They would have to get me to write that one down for them." She smiled at the memory of when Jack had said those words when they had first met. "But maybe if I only said Bukater?"

Jack nodded in agreement. "That's good. And we could marry as soon as possible, and then we wouldn't have to lie anymore."

"So, tell me, how long will this ride take?"

"I'd say about twenty minutes. Then we will finally be there."

"You nervous?"

"Yes, I think so. Of course, I'm looking forward to seeing my friends and everything, but when I ran away five years ago, I didn't even say good-bye. I never sent a letter. Maybe they think I'm dead and that I'll never return...I wonder what happened to my old house. My dad said that one day it would belong to me, so if that was true, we could rebuild it. What do you say?"

"That would be great. But where will we be living until then?"

"My friend, Jim Morgan, and his twin sister, Anne, who are a few years older than me, have a boarding house, and maybe they'll let us stay, even if we aren't married yet."

"That sounds good," Rose said, and kissed him.

About ten minutes later, the carriage stopped.

"Here we are—Chippewa Falls," the driver said, and opened the door.

Jack paid him, and he and Rose got out.

Rose looked around. They were standing on a dusty road—the main street. On each side were shops and some other houses. About one hundred yards away was a small church. A river was slowly flowing behind it, and the sun was glittering on the water. The school was on the other side of the town. A few people were on the street this time.

"Where do we go first?" Rose asked.

"I'd say that we'd straight go to Jim. All right?" Jack asked, and Rose nodded.

So they walked down the main street, and after a few minutes they turned left into an alley with big old trees on each side.

The boarding house of Jim and Anne was the third on the right side. It was a small yellow house with a porch on the front. To Rose, it looked very cozy. She was used to much bigger houses, but she liked this one more. It was full of warmth and love. You could even see it from outside, where they were standing.

"I think you'll like it here," Jack said, and rang the bell.

After a few moments, a man opened the door. He was a few years older than Jack, about his size, and had brown hair and green eyes.

"Hello, Jim," Jack said to the man.

He looked at Jack, and suddenly he recognized him.

"Jack, is it really you?" he asked, and Jack nodded. Jim hugged him. "We feared that you would never come back," he said, tears appearing in his eyes.

"Well, we finally made it," Jack said, and smiled.

At the word we, Jim suddenly noticed Rose by Jack's side.

"And who's this?" Jim asked, looking at Rose.

"Hello. I'm Rose, Jack's fiancée." She introduced herself for the first time in her life, and shook Jim's hand.

"You are engaged? Wow, Jack. We never, ever expected you to come back with such a beautiful fiancée. But now we'll go inside and tell Anne that you're finally back. I'm sure she would want you two to stay for supper."

Jim led them into a cozy living room, and Rose and Jack sat down on a sofa—very close and always holding hands.

A few moments later, Jim and a woman at his age entered. She had the same color hair—the same eyes. It was Anne.

"Jack! You're back! You're finally home again! I missed you so much," she cried, and hugged him tightly.

"I missed you, too. It feels good to be back again," Jack answered, hugging her back and smiling, but it was different from the smile he always gave Rose. "May I introduce you to my fiancée, Rose?"

Anne also hugged Rose, who already liked her.

"It's good to see that Jack found someone like you," Anne said happily.

"Thanks. I'm also glad that we've met. But how do you know how I am? You've just met me," Rose said.

"Well, I can tell by looking at you."

Rose smiled at the friendly woman.

"We wondered whether we could stay here until we find something," Jack said to Jim.

"Of course you two can. What kind of friend would I be if I didn't let you stay with us?" Jim answered him. Now it was Jack's turn to smile.

A few minutes later, the four of them sat down at a huge table.

"So, what are you two planning to do?" Jim asked.

"Well, we wanted to go out to my old house to see if we can renovate it," Jack answered.

"Jack, there's something you should know...it's nothing bad," he added, seeing Jack's expression. "About a year after you left, everyone in town thought that you would come back any day. So we put our money together and renovated it for you. We said, if he doesn't come back in the next five years, we’ll sell it. So someone always kept on eye on it to make sure it looked good when it would be sold. And you're lucky—it would have been sold in two months."

Jack stared at him, his mouth open.

"Is it true what you say? Rose and I could go out and live there from now on?"

Jim nodded, smiling at them.

"I don't know how I'll ever repay you all for it."

"It's enough repayment that you came back."

Jack smiled at Rose, and she could read his thoughts—see, everything turned out to be good.

"There's only one thing—there isn't any furniture in the house. So you'll have to stay here until we manage this," Anne told them.

"Oh, that’s no problem for us," Rose answered for Jack.

About half an hour later, they all sat down in the living room, Jack and Rose on the sofa and Jim and Anne each in an armchair.

"So, Rose, where are you from?" Jim asked.

"I grew up in Philadelphia," Rose answered him.

"In which part of the city?" he wanted to know.

"Well, you could say the richer." Rose wasn't ready to tell them everything about her life yet. Especially not about her cruel mother and ex-fiancé.

"How did you two meet?" Anne was curious to know.

"Well, when I met her, she wasn't...so happy with the way her life was. So I made her leave all this and come with me," Jack said, squeezing Rose's hand and leaving the part about Titanic out.

"I was even ready to end my life, but he made me want to live again," Rose added to the short explanation. They were both not ready to talk about everything that had happened, and especially not Titanic.

Jack looked at the clock hanging on the wall. "Wow. It's gotten late. We'll have to hurry to get out to the house," he said.

"We can take you there," Jim offered, and got up.

"That's nice. Thank you."

Not much later, Jack and Rose got out of Jim's old truck. They wanted to walk back, so Jim drove off.

They were standing in front of a rather large white two story house. The porch stretched over the whole front side and the roof was a bright red. Behind it were the barn, the stables, and the silo. Rose could imagine Jack running around here as a child, and she knew she would love it here.

"Jack, it's so beautiful here. I can't wait to see it from the inside."

"Then we'll see it."

He took her hand and led her the up few steps to the front door. He opened it and stepped inside, followed by Rose.

It was quite dark inside, so it took them a few moments to see anything. It was like Jack remembered. In front of them was the staircase that led to the upper story. To their left was a big living room with a fireplace and the dining room. To their right was the kitchen. Just the furniture was missing—like Anne had said.

"So, this is where you grew up," Rose said.

"Yeah. It's almost like it was when I left," Jack said, thinking of some good memories. Suddenly, a thought crossed his mind. "Come on. I'll show you something." He took her hand and led her out of the house. Then, he went behind it, and they climbed up a small hill about two hundred feet behind the house.

Rose was speechless. It was so beautiful. The sun was setting behind the mountains in the distance and the sky was pure orange—almost like fire—and a deep lilac. Everything looked like it was in golden light. She looked up, and above them, the first star was slowly appearing. She looked back down, and then at Jack.

"Jack, it's so...I can't describe it."

"It's beautiful, isn't it? I used to come here when I was younger and watched the sunset. I always wished that one day I would kiss a beautiful woman when the sun set like this—and it really happened. But the woman is much more beautiful than the sunset." He put his arm around Rose's waist, pulled her close to him, and stretched the other hand forward, pointing out the horizon. "Do you see the horizon? That’s where we’ll go. It’s ours. It belongs to us. I promise you that we'll fulfill our dreams. We'll head out for the horizon whenever we feel like it."

He pulled her into a passionate kiss. They both knew that Jack was right. One day they would do everything they had talked about. They would head out for their own horizon.

Chapter Five
Stories