Rose
"Mother. What do you want?"
"I need a place to stay. Cal told me to leave earlier after your little escapade at the office. I hope you're happy with what you've done."
"What I've done? What about what you've done?" My mother was searching for an answer to what she had done. "Mother. I can't believe you."
"Rose?"
"You still expect me to take you back with open arms, even after everything you've done to me."
Mother motioned towards James. "I'd like to get to know my grandson. I'd like to get to know you again, as well as the baby you've got on the way. When are you due?"
I ignored her. "So you can what? Raise my son the way you raised me? Raise him to believe that he's better than everyone so he won't socialize with anyone except those in his station? No. No. Mother, no." I shook my head. "My son will be raised to have a normal, happy childhood. He will not come close to that nightmare I called mine."
"Rose DeWitt Bukater!"
"It's Rose Dawson now."
Mother was unnerved. "Your name is Rose DeWitt Bukater. No matter who you marry or where you go, remember where you came from. Remember, I am your mother. You owe me."
I scoffed. "So, of course, you are here to what? Blame me for kicking you out of the lifestyle that you deserve? The lifestyle we had before my drunken father gambled away our family fortune?"
"I didn't raise you to speak to me this way."
I started to shut the door, but my mother's hand held it open. "You have no say in how I live my life. You aren't my mother anymore." Knocking her hand off of the door, I shut it and turned to pick up my son, but before I could reach him, my mother let herself inside. "Get out."
"Rose, I am your mother. You can't speak to me that way!" My mother was doing her best to keep her voice down like a proper lady should, but she was failing. "I have nowhere to go. I have no money. I have nothing except for what Cal's driver left at my hotel."
"Let me guess. The Waldorf-Astoria?" I turned around, ignoring my mother, and picked James up. "Sounds like you're not as hard up for money as you think."
"Cal only paid up the hotel until the end of the month. After that, I have nowhere to go. I have exactly five hundred dollars to my name and my belongings are at the hotel. I have nothing except the money Cal threw at me as he had his manservant drag me to the Renault and out of the Hockley home. His new wife was giving me such a look, it made me sick to my stomach. She never did like me much."
"I like her already." Mother apparently didn't hear me. It was the twenty-second of the month. My mother had eight days to decide her fate.
I knew what she was trying to ask me and I didn't want to have to say yes. This was the woman who practically sold me into indentured servitude with Caledon Hockley. This was the woman who was forcing me to marry a man almost twice my age, and now she was begging me to give her a place to stay. I started to laugh at the irony. "Do you see what's so funny about this?"
"I'm failing to see anything remotely funny about your own mother being homeless."
"I am. Here you are, begging of me to help you after what you've put me through." James apparently thought what I was saying to my mother was funny. Hearing his melodic laughter, I had to smile. "You sold me into slavery with Cal and now you're back, begging me to help you, and what's most disturbing is the fact that you expect me to help you just because you gave birth to me. You don't have the slightest clue as to what it means to be a parent, Mother. I can only hope to God that if I ever start becoming like you, Jack will warn me before it gets out of hand." I started towards the door and held it open. "Get out."
"Rose…"
My mother was pleading with me, but I didn't care. "Get out, Mother."
I watched as she cast one last look in my direction before nodding slightly and walking down the steps. I shut and locked the door and started to go upstairs to put James down for his nap, but stopped and watched my mother through the windows at the front of my house. She had her head down and was slowly walking back towards town. She looked up once again at my house before turning around and looking at Torie's and continuing her solitary walk towards the fate she had made for herself. It was then that I felt my eyes well up with tears, but I quickly wiped them away with the back of my hand and climbed the stairs to put my son down for his nap.
Jack
"No. Not there." I grabbed the mooring rope from one of the new recruits and pulled it away from the moors. "If you leave it there, it'll get caught on the deck railing. You have to throw it over the deck."
He picked up the rope and tossed it over and we watched as it was pulled up onto the ship. Since I had been promoted, I now had staff beneath me. Harry was promoted to third officer and I was now sixth officer. With my promotion came the challenge of training the young man who was planning on taking my spot after the first of the year, when promotions were due to be handed out again. The only problem with that was it'd mean a relocation back to England for Harry and possibly myself as well. I hadn't had the heart to tell Rose yet. Supposedly, after the first of the year, all officers were now required to reside in England, and as far as I knew, Harry hadn't told Torie yet, either.
Stretching, I bent down to tie my boot lace, which had come undone. I turned around in time to watch the crowd behind me waving the ship off. I had just gotten off the ship a few days ago and was home for a week or so until I had to go back to England on another trip. Harry was already at home, having left as soon as we docked. He had gotten a wire on board saying Torie wasn't feeling well and to hurry home.
I picked up my bag and started towards the street, hoping to hail a taxi to avoid having to walk home. The crowd of people was all facing the ship, waving madly at their loved ones on board. I kept my head down and kept moving towards the street, hoping that I'd make it in time to catch the waiting taxi before it drove off.
As luck would have it, by the time I broke free of the crowd, the cab was already gone. Not seeing another one in sight, I sighed and with a grunt, threw my bag over my shoulder and started home.
I noticed a woman approaching me, but didn't pay any attention. The air was crisp, but not cold and many people were out walking. The last snow had just started to melt, creating puddles of mud all across the roads. Being careful not to get soaked with water, I moved to the sidewalk on the opposite side of the road, out of the way of an oncoming vehicle.
"Mr. Dawson."
Looking up, I was face to face with Ruth. "What do you want?"
"I came to speak to my daughter. I'm afraid her reception of me left something to be desired."
"Imagine that." I looked at her. Her boots were somewhat dirty, and she carried only a small handbag and a shawl. Ruth's hair was swept up in its usual style, but something about her seemed off to me. She wasn't her normal self. Last time we met, she was less than thrilled at my presence, but now, it was almost as if she was grateful to run into me. "Why'd you want to see my wife?"
Ruth recoiled slightly at what I called Rose, but quickly corrected herself. "Your disruption at Hockley Steel left a bad taste in Cal's mouth. He wants nothing else to do with me."
The pieces were all beginning to fall into place, "And you expected Rose to welcome you back into our lives with open arms?"
"No." Ruth was quiet a moment. "I'm not sure what I expected, actually. I wish she would have been more compassionate."
"Compassion? Was that what you called it when you basically sold your daughter to Cal?"
"Not compassion, no. Desperation, yes. You don't understand what Rose's father left us with. He left us with nothing, Mr. Dawson. Absolutely nothing."
"And you thought that gave you the right to treat Rose like you did?"
Ruth took a step back, "Don't you tell me how I should have raised my daughter. I did the best I could given the circumstances we were in. I don't even want to imagine what you'd do if you were in my position."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"What would happen to Rose if you were to pass away? Do you honestly expect her to find a job with a young son now and another baby on the way?"
"You know she's pregnant?"
Ruth affirmed it. "Caledon told me right before he had his manservant pack my bags and threw me out of the Hockley home. He told me I could go be with my gutter rat daughter and that his new wife was getting sick of having me around. So, I'll ask you again, what do you think Rose would do? I'll tell you what she'd do. She'd do what she had to do to get by, just as I had to do. Pairing Rose with Caledon was a fine match in all aspects. It suited her needs."
"As well as your own greedy agenda." I hadn't really thought about it until now. The White Star Line paid out a death benefit to the surviving spouse in the event that an officer died at sea, but I knew it wasn't much. "Rose would never do what you did to her to any child of ours. If this next baby is a girl, rest assured, Rose and I will keep her as far away from you as possible." I started to walk away from Ruth, but she followed me. "What?"
"Talk to Rose for me." She was begging for me to help her now. "I have nowhere to go. No family other than my daughter."
"And what am I supposed to say to her? Rose, you need to forgive your mother before she winds up living on the streets? You know what she'll say to me if I ask her that?"
Ruth didn't answer.
"She'll say that the streets are too good for you after all that she went through, not only with Cal, but everything after her father died. Everything from the way you treated her to the way everything leading up to the Titanic trip panned out."
"She's my daughter. How can she turn me away?"
I dropped my bag to the ground. It landed with a thud. "And how could you have done what you did to your own daughter? Was saving face that important to you that you had to treat her like an oil painting, selling her to the highest bidder?"
"Rose loved Cal."
I laughed. "Loved?" I looked down at the ground as I picked my bag up. "Rose loved Cal? Rose tried to kill herself on board the Titanic. Did she tell you that?"
"No." Ruth looked genuinely concerned. "No, she didn't. I suppose she told you?"
"I was there when she did it. Remember when Cal had me arrested on the boat deck? The night Rose slipped?"
"Yes."
"She didn't slip from looking down at the propellers, Ruth. She slipped when I tried to pull her back over the railing to keep her from killing herself. Her life was so miserable that she wanted to jump into an icy grave rather than spend one more minute with you and Cal and the life she had laid out before her."
"My daughter said she slipped." Ruth looked smug. "Rose said she slipped looking at the propellers. I believe my daughter and what she said."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night." I took a step forward, passing Ruth on the street. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get home to my pregnant wife and son."
"But what about me?" Ruth followed me and stood in front of me, blocking my path home. "I don't even have money for meals. Cal only paid for the hotel for the next few days. What do you expect me to do?"
"I guess you should have thought about that before you did what you did." I picked up the pace and braced myself against the chill in the air that wasn't just because of the weather. Rose and I had a problem on our hands, and it wasn't just our impending move back to England.