FALLING STARS
Chapter Forty-Two
A noisy wrap party was in progress aboard the
Keldysh. Crewmembers, researchers, and treasure hunters alike celebrated, along
with one of their unexpected guests. It was a little soon for the party--they
had one more dive to complete--but the Keldysh would be returning to shore as
soon as that dive was completed.
Rose walked slowly toward the deserted bow.
On the deck above, she could hear laughter and pounding feet as people danced.
Glancing up, she saw Lizzy dancing with Brock Lovett, and smiled to herself.
After years of scorning men in general, her great-granddaughter had finally met
her match, even if she didn’t realize it yet.
As she approached the railing, Rose felt
better than she had in months. She walked slowly, but without her cane, the
longest walk she had taken without it in a long time. As she reached the rail,
a shooting star flashed overhead, and she looked up at it, smiling. A
shooting star is a soul going to heaven, Jack had told her long ago. She
had never forgotten those words.
Carefully, she climbed on the lowest railing,
clutching something in her right hand. Opening her fingers, she looked at the
object concealed within--the Heart of the Ocean. She still had it, after all
these years. She had never carried it with her when traveling before, but this
time it had seemed right. It was time, she thought, to put it back where it
belonged--and to allow a new generation to find it.
Lovett would have the coveted diamond, but
first she had to give it back to the sea, back to the Titanic. He would find it
in the ruins, back where it belonged after eighty-four years. Only she and Jack
had ever known about the diamond. Cal had given it to her, but he had never
asked what she had done with it--or if she had even found it. In the struggle
to survive that night so long ago, it was surprising that it hadn’t been lost.
And yet, somehow, it had remained in the pocket of the coat, to be hidden away
and kept safe throughout the decades, and to at last be returned to the sea.
Looking at the blue gem one last time, Rose
let it slip from her hand. It landed with a quiet splash and spiraled into the
depths of the North Atlantic. She watched as it disappeared, sinking ever
deeper into the ocean.
*****
Rose stood before the table in her stateroom,
looking at her pictures, as she had every night for the last three years. So
many pictures--so many memories.
Her gaze traveled over them, memories
sweeping through her mind. So much had happened over the years, so many people
had shared her life. Her gaze fell upon a few photographs in particular. A
publicity shot from her acting days...a movie still from her first film...a
photograph of the Dawson family before World War I...Jack and Rose on their
fiftieth wedding anniversary...the entire family gathered together in the
summer of 1995.
Her eyes lit upon this last picture for a
moment longer, focusing upon one person in particular, a small blonde boy
sitting in his mother’s lap. Two-year-old Jack Dawson-Price, Susan’s son, gazed
calmly into the camera, a scribbled-upon memo pad in his hands. The small boy
was the spitting image of the great-grandfather he had been named for.
Her gaze fell upon a few more pictures as she
turned toward her bed. A picture Jack had taken of her in Europe, posed beside
her plane...a picture of the two of them riding horses in the surf in Santa
Monica...and a series of individual pictures, pictures of loved ones who were
no longer with her.
She stared at them for a moment, remembering
those she had loved and lost...feeling as though they were close by, watching
over her. So many loved ones--her parents, Adam, Cal, Libby, Gregory...and
Jack.
She picked up Jack’s picture, looking at the
lively blue eyes that had never failed to captivate her. She would be with him
soon, she thought, setting the framed photograph down and climbing into bed.
As she lay back, another shooting star fell
past her porthole, lighting the night sky. The first had been a sign, she
thought. The second was a beacon, calling her home.
Smiling softly, Rose closed her eyes.