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.

Chapter Fourteen
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