AN OCEAN OF EMOTION
Chapter Two

Pittsburgh
Cal

"Excuse me, sir."

I looked up from my newspaper to see one of my many nameless servants standing in the doorway. I had too many of them to even bother with their names. "What do you want?"

"Breakfast is ready, and Mrs. DeWitt Bukater hasn’t come down for breakfast yet. I sent Angela up to check on her earlier and she didn’t answer the door. Would you like for me to try to wake her up, or would you like to?"

I shook my head at Ruth’s stupidity. She was still in a deep state of shock and mourning after Rose’s private memorial service. I paid for it when we got to Philadelphia. I figured it might give Ruth some closure, but she was worse now than she was at the memorial service.

"I’ll do it. Thank you." I watched as she curtsied and quickly left the room. After staring out the window for a brief moment, I put my paper on the table next to the leather chair I was relaxing in. I took one last sip of my juice before I grudgingly made it up the stairs to wake my most unfortunate houseguest. I beat on Ruth’s door as I waited for her response. "Ruth? Wake up. It’s time for breakfast." I knocked again. No answer. "Ruth?" I jiggled the door handle and it easily opened. She hadn’t locked it. After opening the door and peering around it, I saw her, still sitting in the leather chair facing the window that she retired to last night after dinner with a few business acquaintances and their wives. "Did you not get into bed at all last night?"

"I find that I am unable to sleep. The stress of it all just overwhelms me. What is one to do?"

I walked over to her. She was dressed in the same dress she had on at last night’s dinner. "I’ll summon one of the servants in here to get you ready. Honestly, Ruth. You really must snap out of this all. It’s been six months."

Ruth’s icy gaze shifted up towards me. "Six months ago, I lost my daughter. My only daughter. You can go out and find another fiancée. I can’t just go out and find another daughter."

"And your point is what, exactly?"

Ruth stood up in a furious manner. She could have killed me right then if her eyes had swords in them. She pointed her finger at me.

"You will find another fiancée to carry on the Hockley name. That fiancée should be my daughter. But for whatever reason, that Dawson boy killed her. He’s going to have to live with that for the rest of his life, as I am going to have to live with it as well. Had she just gotten in that boat with Molly and me, everything would have been all right. That Metcalfe girl that Rose befriended survived, didn’t she? So, tell me, why didn’t my Rose?"

"Fate, Ruth. Fate. Rose wasn’t meant to survive. Just like the other fifteen hundred souls on board. They weren’t meant to survive, either. We all have a predetermined fate that we are given at birth. Rose’s was to die young."

Ruth’s icy look quickly melted into an angry one. "What do you mean, fate? My daughter’s fate was to freeze to death in the middle of the North Atlantic? My daughter’s fate was that her body was never to be found? My daughter’s fate was that she was going to be killed that night? My daughter’s fate was that she was supposed to marry you and bear your children. And here you are, six months later, acting as if she never existed and I’m just a guest in your home."

I turned to exit the room. "You are a guest in my home, and she was going to bear my children. However, she’d still be here if she would have just stayed with me. She could have had the life that you wanted for her, the wealth, the riches, the lifestyle, and the society functions that you crave so much. But that all depended on her actions. Had she just stayed with me instead of being a whore with that filth Dawson, she would have lived. I got in a lifeboat, remember? She didn’t."

I shut the door and walked down the hallway before Ruth could finish her sentence. I had had it up to my ears with that woman. I was looking forward to the day she’d leave, but I did tell her that she could stay with me as long as possible.

Ruth

I had to sit back down. Every time Cal entered the room, my energy drained, I felt the room spinning, and a wave of nausea swept over me after he left the room. I put my hand to my forehead to cry yet one more time, only the tears wouldn’t come. I had cried myself out. My heart still ached for my daughter and the life she would have had with Cal. The parties, the society, the money, the status, and everything else, she gave up for a night of lust with that boy. That Dawson boy took my daughter away from me and from Cal.

I stood up when the servant came into the room. She chitchatted with me about the weather, the upcoming holidays, and the New Year’s holiday. "With the New Year comes a new start. After everything that happened, we all need one."

I nodded weakly at her statement. "Yes. I suppose we all do."

She finished dressing me and left me alone in my room. I walked over to my bureau drawer and pulled out a few newspaper clippings I was saving. One was a clipping about the sinking of the Titanic, one was about the inquests, and one was about my daughter’s funeral. Cal evidently had a reporter covering the memorial service. I thought it was tacky at first, but now I was grateful to have a memento of my daughter’s service. I was in such a state of shock that I had forgotten or blocked out most of what went on. I sat down on the edge of the bed and held the article between my fingers. Rose’s picture was at the top of the article, with another one of Rose and Cal towards the middle. I began to read the headline, and the familiar feelings of grief and sadness washed over me.

Pittsburgh Steel Tycoon Nathan Hockley’s Future Daughter-in-Law Laid to Rest Earlier Today.

I didn’t think I could go on reading, but I did.

In a shocking twist of fate, after Caledon Hockley arrived in New York City following the sinking of the Titanic, Nathan Hockley and his son were forced to bury the younger Hockley’s fiancée earlier today in a private ceremony held at an undisclosed location. Rose DeWitt Bukater died as a result of the now infamous Titanic disaster at the tender age of seventeen. She did not make it into a lifeboat, but instead chose to spend her last minutes on earth helping others. According to witness testimony given under strict confidentiality to the newspaper, she was last seen guiding an elderly couple into a lifeboat after helping many immigrants from third class as well. Rose even gave up her lifebelt to a young woman who stated that she could not swim. Their engagement was made public in England over the winter months. The Hockley-DeWitt Bukater party was on their way from England to New York City, and then on to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the engagement party to be held shortly after the scheduled arrival of the Grandest Ship in the World and her maiden voyage. Her voyage was cut short after hitting an iceberg in the early hours of April fifteenth. Hockley managed to survive the sinking, as did Rose’s mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater, but young Rose’s life was tragically among the nearly fifteen hundred lives lost. Flowers from all across the United States were used in a lavish memorial service to celebrate the life and legacy that Rose will leave behind. Caledon spoke briefly, but the grief of losing his fiancée was too much for him to speak longer than he did. The elder Hockley was quoted as saying, "We come together on this sunny day to not only say good-bye to a dear girl and my future daughter-in-law, but also to celebrate the life and legacy she leaves behind. It is a tragic day indeed, and my thoughts and prayers go out to not only Mrs. DeWitt Bukater and my son, but to everyone whose lives were touched by tragedy or joyfulness after the sinking." Rose’s body was never found.

I put the clipping back on the bed as I reached into my drawer one more time for a handkerchief to dab the corners of my eyes. Just when I thought my tears were dried up, they surprised me again by appearing. I couldn’t believe that Cal spun Rose’s final moments into a light that made him come out the winner. It just made me physically ill that he would even conceive of doing this to Rose, to her memory, and to me.

"The Hockley family always gets what they want. Too bad he didn’t want my daughter badly enough," I muttered under my breath. I put the clippings back in the drawer, and after checking my reflection in the mirror one more time, I headed downstairs to breakfast.

I managed to sit through breakfast with Nathan and Cal talking mostly business. I excused myself after breakfast to take a short walk around the block. I wasn’t gone very far from the house when a man selling Titanic memorabilia on the side of the road caught my eye. I hurriedly walked across the street to see what he had.

"Good day, ma’am. How may I help you?" He had a thick English accent.

I scanned over what he had. "Just looking, if you don’t mind. My daughter perished during the ship’s sinking. As morbid as it may seem, I have nothing to remember her by."

The man took off his cap and stood up from behind his cart. "Ma’am…I am so sorry for your loss. What was her name?"

I swallowed a lump in my throat. "Rose. Rose DeWitt Bukater. She was to marry Caledon Hockley when we docked in New York. We were headed to Philadelphia for the engagement party when the ship sank and she was taken from me."

The man nodded. "Your daughter was the future Mrs. Hockley?" I nodded. He continued. "Anything on the table, please take it. No charge."

I stepped back as I looked at him. Cal’s legacy superceded him wherever he went. "Thank you, kind sir. I appreciate what you’re doing." I picked up a miniature replica of the ship, then decided to put it back down. I came across a selection of newspaper clippings about the sinking that were on the table. One was a front page article from the New York Times and another one was from a different paper in New York, but it had photos of the survivors after the sinking. I scanned the photo. "I know this girl." I pointed to the Metcalfe girl. "She was my daughter’s friend on board the Titanic." I read the caption below it. "Seems this was taken at the inquests." I started to put the article back on the man’s table when I saw the background of the photo. "No!" I stared harder. There was my daughter. "No, she’s dead." My heart began to race. "It can’t be her!"

"Ma’am, are you all right?"

I pointed to the photo. "No, I’m not. She looks just like my daughter." I stared harder at the lady behind the Metcalfe girl. "It is her." I began to feel faint. Then everything went black.

Cal

"Ruth!" I lightly tapped her shoulder. "Ruth! Wake up!"

She started to stir in her bed. "What?"

"Wake up. You fainted outside. One of the policemen had to bring you back home. Quite embarrassing, really. What on earth were you doing?"

She bolted straight up in bed. "The man. The newspaper. Where is it?"

I turned around and found an article on her bureau. I held it up. "This?"

Ruth nodded. "Bring it to me." I handed the paper to her. She pointed to a photo. "Look."

"It’s the Metcalfe girl. So what?"

Ruth pointed again. "No, look behind her. Who is that?"

"Some girl. Why?"

Ruth shook her head. "No, that’s Rose. See?"

I squinted at the grainy photo. I couldn’t make it out. "Ruth, honey, Rose didn’t make it, remember? The Titanic sank and she was killed. Do I need to get Dr. Stanford again?"

Ruth tried to get out of bed, and one of the servants held her down. "That is my daughter, and I am going to find her."

I stepped back away from the bed and took one of the servants with me. "Summon Dr. Stanford at his earliest convenience. It’s an emergency."

She curtsied. "Yes, sir."

A little bit later, Dr. Stanford showed up and gave Ruth something to help her sleep. He took me aside. "What set her off this time?"

I pointed to the bed stand. "Ruth found a newspaper article about the sinking and she believes her daughter is in one of the photos. So sad, really, that the woman hasn’t come to terms with her daughter’s death."

Dr. Stanford slowly nodded. "Please let me know if she needs anything else. And I would highly suggest that you take the articles about the Titanic and hide them from her until she’s fully over this. Anymore grief, I’m afraid, will send her over the edge to where there is no coming back."

I thanked Dr. Stanford, and he walked out with one of the servants. I waited until Ruth was asleep and collected the articles from her bed side table. I took the one she just found out into the reading room, where the setting sun supplied ample light to read. I scanned the article and my gaze focused on the photo of Metcalfe and her husband. It can’t be. Rose is dead. I studied the photo of the girl behind the Metcalfe girl. It can’t be. I watched the article float to the floor as I was in disbelief at the thought of Rose actually being alive.

Chapter Three
Stories