ALL THE WAY
Chapter Thirteen
He didn't know what he'd expected. Total
change, maybe. It had been nineteen years. There should have been some change.
The town and the landscape had changed, but why not this? It looked as if
someone had taken his house out of 1907 and set it smack dab in the middle of
1926.
Jack scratched his head softly, trying to
make sense of this all. Someone must have been taking care of the place. That
must have been it. He could think of no other reason other than that.
Rose watched Jack as, for the first time in
years, he looked up at his childhood home. She had taken a good, long look
herself a few moments before. It was a very charming house, not big or
overexposed, yet homey and beautiful, even from the outside. Of course, the
entire area was covered in a thick blanket of snow. That had to account for
some of the charm.
Jack's face looked shocked for a moment, and
then, all of the sudden, it changed from shock to something else. It looked as
if he had seen a ghost and was relieved at something, all at once. She gently
reached over and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Jack glanced over at
her and tried his very best to present a calm smile, although Rose could see
anticipation and nervousness in his eyes.
"Ready to go in?" she asked gently.
He just nodded, and then started walking,
almost mechanically, toward the front door. Rose called to the children, who
were busy playing in the snow, already freezing cold and sopping wet, and they
all followed Jack up to the door. Everyone carried one large suitcase, shifting
them from hand to hand as Jack set his down and put the key in the lock. He
took a deep breath, glanced at Rose, who encouraged him with a smile, and then
softly pushed open the door. Jack stepped in first, and then the rest of them
followed. The thing that immediately hit Rose as she closed the door was the
musty smell. Then, the shock of seeing a normal-looking house set in.
Everything looked as if it had been in its place for nineteen years. There was
even a newspaper still sitting in a basket by the front door. Nobody would have
known the tragedy that had happened to the family unless you had lived in the
area for years.
Jack still couldn't believe his eyes.
Everything was still the exact same, except for the layers of dust piled up in
places. The old welcome rug was still under his feet, the same board squeaked
when he walked over it in the front hall. "Dear God, what was I
expecting?" he softly asked out loud to himself.
Rose, overhearing him, motioned for the
children to go look around and to be careful. Everyone went in one direction,
leaving Jack and Rose standing alone in the entryway. She didn't say anything
at first, still looking around. To her left was what looked like a simple
dining room, to her right, a small and delicate parlor or living room. The hall
she was standing in stretched out into what looked like a kitchen, and before
that, a simple wood staircase reached up to the second floor. Taking a few more
steps, she could see another little hall next to the stairs, where a sort of
mud room lay at the end, with a door leading to outside. Jack came up behind
her and softly took her gloved hand in his own.
"Let's to got look upstairs," she
suggested softly.
"Hold on a minute." He reached over
and took a key off of a hook on the wall. He cleared his throat and went over
to the wall under the stairs. There, Rose noticed, was a door cut out that she
hadn't seen before. Jack put the key in the lock and pulled open a door. A
cloud of dust burst into the air, and Jack and Rose began coughing. Once the
air had cleared, he took her hand again and led her into the little room under
the stairs.
Once inside, Jack turned around and closed
the door behind them while Rose looked around with wide eyes.
"This was my hideout," Jack said,
laughing softly as he tried to stand up all the way. The ceiling was just a
little too short, so he had to duck his head. "I guess I've grown a couple
of inches since I was fifteen," he mumbled as he lit an old oil lamp that
was resting on a little table by the door.
Rose grinned at him as she stood at her full
height, her head just barely missing the ceiling. Then she started to look
around again. There were a few crudely made shelves nailed to the wall, with a
few books and various things sitting on them. Tacked to the walls were old,
yellowing sheets of paper with drawings on them. They were amateur compared to
his work now, but they were distinctively Jack's. And an old chair and little
table sat in the far corner.
Rose turned back to Jack. He smiled at her.
"I loved this place. You can't open the door without a key...and there is
only one," he explained as he held up the brass key for her to glance at.
"People were always coming in and out of the house, so when I wanted to
get away from everyone, I would just come in here. The only way for someone to
get in here was if I opened the door. It was great...total privacy."
Rose laughed. "I wish I could have had
this," she said, as she looked around again. Carefully, she reached over
and untacked a drawing of Jack's. She held it closer to the lamp and studied
it. "Wow," she breathed as she admired it lovingly. "This is
wonderful, Jack." She gently traced over the charcoal outline of a couple
sitting on a bench.
Jack smiled, a little embarrassed, and put
his arm around Rose's waist. "Yeah, well," he mumbled.
Rose laughed and leaned over to tack the
drawing back up. She leaned back against Jack as she looked around once again.
"You know," she mumbled, turning her head back toward her husband,
"here we are, totally locked into a room that can only be opened from
inside...with no children."
Jack burst out laughing. "I never even
would have thought about that, Miss Rose...but now that you mention it..."
Rose grinned. "Actually, I was sort of
joking. But, you know...later...maybe we could..."
Jack once again burst into a fit of bounteous
laughter as he turned Rose around and pulled her toward his body.
"You know, my dear, I do think that is a
good idea."
*****
Meanwhile, upstairs, the Dawson children were
busy exploring the various rooms.
"Hail, hail! The gang's all here,"
Michael sang at the top of his lungs as they walked into another room.
"What the hell do we care? What the hell
do we care?" Luke joined in on the next verse as his brother continued to
sing. "Hail, hail! We're full of cheer--what the hell do we care,
Bill?"
Jillian stopped and put her hands on her
hips. "Does Mom know you're teaching Luke a song with the word hell in
it?"
Michael rolled his eyes at his sister.
"Jill, even the priest at church talks about hell. And besides, I didn't
teach it to him. We both heard it from this man on the train."
"If you're bad, you'll go to hell,"
Danielle spoke up as they continued into another room, the last one in the
hall.
"Yes, that's right," Jillian
answered her sister. The boys continued to sing as they explored the newfound
room. Jillian guessed it was the spare bedroom, or spare room at least. There
was no extra bed; just some shelves, books littering the boards, and a crude
looking desk, barely standing. And on the floor was an old tattered rug.
It was very different from the other two
rooms they had seen. Their father's bedroom had been first. It looked like
something their father would like, even when he was younger. His drawings
covered the walls, and there was even an old photograph of Jack, that on the back
said was taken in 1906. A big comfortable bed had sat in one corner, a homemade
quilt covering white sheets. A closest, a simple desk, and a few other various
items made up the room that was their father's.
And the master bedroom was just as simple. There
was a big bed resting against a wall, another beautiful quilt covering that as
well, a chest of drawers, and a small arm chair. But, the best part had been
the five photographs they had found resting on a windowsill. The first two
were, the children assumed, of their grandparents, the first on their wedding
day and then another of them in front of the house. A third picture was of Jack
when he was a little baby, and the fourth of Jack when he was about fourteen.
The last was a family portrait, done, the back read, in the winter of 1906.
"This is boring," Michael announced
after a few minutes of looking around and not finding something of real
interest. "Let's go back downstairs."
Everyone else nodded in agreement and left in
a group, clambering downstairs and meeting up with their parents in the
kitchen.
*****
"Did you find anything
interesting?" Rose asked excitedly as she picked up Danielle and held her
against her hip.
"Yeah, some stuff," Luke answered.
"I didn't understand most of it though," he continued, making
everyone laugh.
"Hmm. Well, your mother and I have come
up with a plan," Jack said after a minute. "We're going to spend the
next few days cleaning up the place and making it nice. Then we can get a tree
and put it up for Christmas and do all that." He stopped and looked
around. "I am still not sure if we're going to keep the old place or not.
We'll see," he said, sighing.
"Is Aunt Sarah Kate and everyone coming
over?" Michael asked after hearing what his father said.
Rose nodded and was about to say something to
Michael about the Bradshaws coming over the next day, providing that the
weather was still good enough, when there was a loud knock on the front door.
Jack and Rose glanced at each other in wonder
and then instinctively counted the bodies in the room. Six people were present.
That was everyone.
"Who's that?" Jillian asked,
putting to words what everyone else was thinking.
"I don't know," Jack mumbled,
walking past her and going to the door. After a few seconds, Rose and the
children followed behind.
Another knock sounded as he put his hand on
the doorknob and then threw open the door. Jack's eyes widened in shock as he
saw who was standing in front of him.
"Sarah Kate! What are you doing
here?"
Sarah Kate grinned as she stood standing on
the front porch. "Oh, nothing much, Jack," she answered. "The
twins and I decided to come over a day early. Robert and the other two will be
out tomorrow."
Jack just stood there gawking at her until
Sarah Kate finally said, "Well, aren't you going to let me in, Jack
Dawson? I'm freezing out here!"
Jack laughed and moved aside, letting his
cousin and the twins past. They were all carrying a dish full of something.
"What's all this?" he asked taking
one of the pans from Sarah Kate and handing the other one to Rose, who echoed
his question. The twins quickly threw off their heavy winter clothes and set
their own dishes on the floor before running off with Michael and Jillian.
"Oh, just some good old Wisconsin
food," Sarah Kate finally answered. She was trying her best to get her
shoes off without any help.
"Sarah Kate, you didn't need to do
that," Rose said gently. She grinned at Jack's cousin. "It's really
nice. We didn't have anything around for dinner. I wasn't sure what we were
going to do."
Sarah Kate shrugged. "Well, that's what
I figured. Now, c'mon Jack, I want to see more of this house. I haven't been in
her since the day of the funeral--well, since a long time ago."
Jack nodded and motioned toward the kitchen
with his head. "All right. Let's go set these things down and then we can
look around. Rose and I haven't been upstairs yet, so let's go look around
there."
Sarah Kate agreed and started walking with
Jack toward the kitchen, talking and laughing over some memory they had just
come up with. Rose was left standing in the middle of the entryway, still
holding the pan of...well, whatever it was.
She sighed and glanced at the area around
her. Clothes, boots, mittens, and even a few dishes were scattered on the
floor. And she was expected to clean them all up? With no help from Jack or
Sarah Kate?
It was Sarah's mess in the first place! she fumed in her head, glancing around angrily again.
Another laugh from the kitchen made Rose sigh and she shook her head.
"You okay, Mom?"
Rose looked at Luke. She had forgotten that
he and Danielle were standing just a few feet away. She forced on a cheerful
smile and then reassured them. "Yes, silly, of course I am. Now, come on.
Let's go find your Dad."
Luke and Danielle grinned and scampered off
toward the kitchen, with a slightly angry Rose following close behind them.