June, 1912
New York, New York
The downpour of rain was sudden and brutal. It sent businessmen scattering, like marbles, over the sidewalks and streets as they ducked for cover.
It might have been six o'clock in the morning. All those men were on their way to work. Now they had gotten their clothes wet. They would have to go home and change. They would be late.
Rose laughed to herself.
Not funny really, but their inconveniences made her feel something like spite.
She stretched out on the park bench to watch the pedestrians, her chin resting on her arms. Her hair was getting wet. The coat draped over her body didn't quite keep the rain out.
But no matter.
Rose shut her eyes. Sleeping on this bench, getting pounded by the rain…that was all that existed in the moment and it was all that mattered.
The reality of it all made her feel alive.
This was now, and now was what she lived for.
*****
The signs were all there, had been there for weeks. Nausea every morning, headaches and dizziness, her missed cycle.
Rose knew that she was going to have to do something soon.
Just not yet.
She stood in line at the homeless shelter, waiting her turn as volunteers handed out sacks of bread and apples. She ignored the scuffle of people around her. She had gotten very good at tuning out the world, at hearing silence where there was none.
Back in the park, Rose did her laundry—which meant dipping the odd pieces of clothing she'd collected into the pond and spreading them out in the grass to dry. The afternoon was overcast and cool for early summer. The rain had stopped hours ago.
Her hand played absently with the necklace at her throat.
If only she could sell it.
But that would have been much, much too simple.
*****
Sometimes she lay awake in the painful hours of morning and recited conversations to herself, mouthing the words over and over, remembering every facial expression and vocal intonation until she could close her eyes and relive those moments with perfect clarity.
I'm involved now. You let go and I'm gonna have to jump in there after you.
You jump, I jump—remember?
It was rather passive and unconscious. Like a nervous tic.
Sprawled under a tree, on top of Cal's coat, Rose considered her options.
She could continue her futile search for work.
She could go home.
She could give up, lay down, and die.
Momentarily disgusted with her own melodrama, Rose took a deep breath and tried to clear her head.
*****
She had been scrounging the streets of New York City for five or six weeks. She'd originally planned to find a shelter and stay there while she looked for a job—any job. But all the shelters she came to were overcrowded and filthy. She felt like she was suffocating.
Outside, under the stars, exposed to the elements, she could at least breathe.
She slept in Central Park. Took her meals at the nearest shelter. Bathed in the pond at night when she was sure no one was around.
After living the first seventeen years of her life in luxury, this was a long way from what she was used to, but somehow it came naturally to her.
In a way, she liked it.
She spoke to no one.
She was free as the wind.
So. This was how it had been for Jack.
*****
There was simply no work to be found in New York City for a homeless girl without manual labor skills. She hadn't been able to find a job, not after a week, not after two weeks, not after a month.
It wasn't going to happen. Not unless she met someone soon who'd take pity on her and offer to help her get back on her feet.
That wasn't going to happen, either.
It would be so easy to go home, so easy to explain. But the way people would look at her…everything she knew they were going to think and say when they thought she was out of earshot…she wasn't sure she could take it.
It would be a defilement to Jack's memory, somehow sick and shameless, like the rape of a virgin.
Jack wouldn't have wanted it.
Neither would he have wanted her to die in the city streets, carrying his child, the last Dawson blood.
She never wanted to see her mother again.
She never wanted to see Cal again, either.
Cal.
Cal had money, power, influence. Cal's future was secure.
The bitterest, most sickening thought flickered in her mind—
—Cal—
—and she didn't want to linger on that idea. Oh, God, did she hate thinking about it, but when she tried to push it from her mind, it forced its way back, terrible but still so horribly and ridiculously viable.
What would Jack have wanted her to do?
He would have wanted her to live in comfort, fall in love, get married, and have beautiful children when the time was right.
Sitting up in the dark, Rose stared out into the night, at the black glimmer of the pond. A breeze ruffled her hair.
"I'm sorry, Jack," she whispered.
She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. It wouldn't go down.
*****
The man had tried to kill her, for Christ's sake.
Rose wandered down the sidewalk in the early morning light, tapping a walking stick along the ground, alert despite her queasiness.
The Heart of the Ocean burned against her throat. It was an angry reminder of Cal, a tragic reminder of Jack, a permanent token of what was, what had been, what could have been.
She stood ten feet from the post office door. Through the glass she watched a short, round man in a mail hat unlocking the door from inside.
Cal had tried to kill her.
But he could also, quite easily, save her life and existence…
…in return for…
The post office disappeared in a whirl of dizzy color. Rose tried to steady herself while she waited for the wave of dizziness to pass, tried to gulp down her rising nausea.
This was insane.
How could she think of it?
Was this what Jack would have wanted?
No. What Jack would have wanted…was gone, a distant memory, just a thought of what could have been.
It wasn't about her anymore. It wasn't about Jack. It was about their unborn baby.
She had lost Jack. She couldn't stand to lose her last connection to him as well.
Her options were limited and she had to do what was best for their child.
Her heart pounding, she entered the post office.