As Rose watched the casket being lowered into its grave, it occurred to her for the first time that her mother was gone.
The idea made her feel strangely light, as though all of her insides had been scooped out and she were nothing more than a hollow shell of a person.
She wasn't grieving.
But she didn't feel free either, as she'd imagined she would.
She didn't feel much of anything.
*****
She stood next to Cal and zoned herself out as everyone lined up to shake her hand and offer their condolences. Of course she cares about you, Cal had said. I understand, he'd claimed.
What exactly did he think he understood? Was that an expression of pity and contempt—you poor, sick child, how sad it is that your perception of everything is so self-absorbed—or, God forbid, could something she said actually have gotten through to him?
They hadn't spoken in the three days since. Neither of them acknowledged what had happened. Rose couldn't quite wrap her mind around it.
But she was beginning to give up on the idea that she could ever hope to understand Cal, so that was nothing to be surprised about.
Still, sometimes she wondered.
*****
"Do you ever wonder about things?"
Across from her in the train car, Cal glanced up from his newspaper. "Do I what?" he asked, as though he hadn't quite understood her meaning.
"I said, do you ever wonder about things?" Rose repeated after hesitating and then deciding she had nothing to lose if she forged ahead in this experiment. "You know…people, and situations, and things like that. Don't you ever look at a person and wonder what's really going on inside them?"
He studied at her for a moment. "Yes," he said finally. "I look at you and wonder every day."
She swallowed. She hadn't really anticipated that he would answer her; she had expected a snappish response about stupid questions.
"What do you wonder about me?"
The Cal she was accustomed to resurfaced in a flash. "I have no idea where you think you're going with this, Rose, but I'm not interested in following you there," he said, returning to his paper.
"Pardon me for trying to have an honest conversation with you. I suppose I'd best just shut up and stop thinking altogether."
He narrowed his eyes at her but said nothing.
"So," she said again, "what do you wonder about me?"
"I wonder why you always seem to want what you know you can't have while rejecting what's readily available," he said, sounding as though he were only giving her an answer so that she would be quiet and leave him alone.
"Are you talking about Jack?"
"No," he said in a deliberate voice. "I'm talking about you."
They stared at each other in silence.
"I wonder about you too, sometimes," she said at last.
He raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"Yes," she said.
She didn't want to elaborate unless he asked her, showed some interest, tried to learn more for himself about her thoughts.
But he didn't ask.
So she owed him no explanation. And she left it at that.
*****
Several nights later, Rose lay awake in her own bed, staring up at shadows that played across the ceiling. She couldn't stop thinking back to her father's funeral a year ago and wondering why she still didn't quite grasp that her mother was dead.
His death hadn't filled her with emptiness. It had stirred something within her. She'd never had what could be considered a loving relationship with either of her parents, but her father had at least tried to think about her, and she would have ventured to say that she'd loved him.
You get along so much better with Mother than you do with me, so why don't you just marry her and leave me out of all this? she had screamed at Cal once in a rare moment of revelation; she had always kept her feelings stuffed down and shoved aside because she knew that if she tried to express them everyone would look at her as if she were something from another planet and they would tell her how ungrateful, how selfish, how outright stupid she was being, and the thought that people like that would respond in such a way to what was inside her made her feel naked and sick.
And, of course, Cal had given the typical reply. You're being stupid. Snap out of it. I can't comprehend what's the matter with you, sweet pea? You have everything that anyone could ever dream of wanting.
Cal and her mother were always arm-in-arm, making idle chatter and laughing together like they were the best of friends.
Rose had thought it was because together they knew they were in good company. Both of them were textbook models of what they had tried to make her into, both of them thought they knew what was best for her, and for those reasons they were right at home with each other.
Each of them was bad enough on their own, but together they had made her positively ill. They complemented all the qualities in each other that Rose found repulsive and intensified them to the power of ten.
Sometimes she wasn't sure if Cal went along to impress her mother or whether they were truly kindred spirits.
Rose climbed out of bed and tiptoed down the dark, still hallway.
Cal always slept with his bedroom door shut.
She knew the hour was unreasonable. She pushed open the door anyway.
Cal was in bed, but he wasn't asleep. He was sitting up, in the dark, with a cigarette in one hand trailing smoke as his eyes focused on some point beyond reality. For once, he didn't look intimidating…he looked lost.
His head snapped in her direction. "What in God's name are you doing awake, Rose?" he demanded, obviously startled at her sudden appearance.
She took a few steps closer to the bed. "I…will you come for a walk with me?"
"What?"
"You know I enjoy the occasional midnight stroll. I thought I'd see if you might join me for one."
"Your suggestion is beyond ridiculous—"
"You don't have to throw a fit. I just thought I'd ask." She backed up again. "I was hoping we could talk, but if you'd rather sit there and pretend you're resting, then I won't bother you."
She slipped from his room and was halfway down the hallway when she heard him call her name.
"Rose. Wait."
He went to her, hurriedly tying his robe shut. "This is insane," he muttered.
…that's why I trust it.
*****
It was a mild late summer evening, not too humid or too still. They wandered together alongside the pond, neither of them speaking.
"Do you really think Mother cared for me?" Rose asked at last.
His answer surprised her. "In her own way," he replied. "I—don't believe she understood the difference between what was convenient for her and what was best for you."
"You didn't, either."
He gave her a quick, uncomfortable sideways glance. "I know," he said.
Rose was stunned.
"Rose, I've never made a pretense of understanding why you were always so discontent, and there were times when I didn't even care if you were happy, just as long as you did what you were supposed to, but it never quite left the back of my mind."
"I tried to kill myself that night."
"I'm sorry?"
"On the Titanic," she said. "The night that Jack…saved me…I had planned to jump. But he talked me out of it and pulled me back over the rail when I slipped—"
"Why would you even think to do such a thing?" he asked, looking stricken.
She took a deep breath. "I was trapped," she answered, "and I saw it as an escape."
He didn't respond.
They continued their walk.
"Didn't you realize that I loved you?"
She froze and looked over at him in the dark. Her pulse was racing.
"I've told you before…I had nothing to gain from our arrangement. You came with only baggage and debt. Did you honestly think that I didn't give a damn about you?"
"You wanted to own me," she said, her throat suddenly dry as cotton. "You were possessive, not affectionate. You tried to buy my submission."
"I tried to buy your respect. I—" His voice faltered. "I can see now that I was only driving you further away."
"You were," she said.
Her head spun.
Was Cal actually saying these things to her? Had something in his understanding of her finally shifted?
She took a step closer, tried to see into his eyes…and realized something about him.
He couldn't fulfill her deepest needs and he would never be able to.
Even if he did care about her, even if he did try his best, even if he had drawn some new conclusions about her, he could never be consistent. He could never allow himself to be caught in the moment with her. He couldn't let go, have fun, be spontaneous or warm. He would never be able to pour his heart out to her the way she wanted him to.
He might have moments of vulnerability where he opened up to her the only way he knew how, but he could not bond with her like she needed to bond.
He couldn't be what she wanted. And she knew that he knew it.
They locked eyes in the dark, the acknowledgement unspoken.
"I'm getting a little chilly," said Rose finally, rubbing her arms through the sleeves of her nightgown. "We should…maybe we should both go back to bed."
"I can't imagine why I came out here with you in the first place," Cal replied as they started back toward the house.
Rose knew that a rare moment had ended and that she would never be able to get it back. It had slipped right through her fingers like silk, although there was nothing she could have done to hold on.
She would have to learn to cherish those moments.