FAMILY
Chapter Seven
"My real name is Dawson.
Jack Dawson."
Those words were enough to take
Rose back in time. She was still at the wedding, looking at the floor, but in
her mind she was on the Titanic. She saw herself hanging from the back of the
ship and heard Jack’s words.
"I'm Jack Dawson," he
had said.
"I’m Rose DeWitt
Bukater," she had answered.
"I’m gonna have to get you
to write that one down." Rose had smiled at him. He was so good-looking,
and seemed so concerned about her.
Then she moved in time once
again. She was again on the back of the ship, and Jack was with her. But it was
a very different situation. The Titanic was in a vertical position, and she was
sinking fast.
"Take a deep breath and hold
it right before we go into the water. The ship will suck us down. Kick for the
surface and keep kicking. Don't let go of my hand. We're gonna make it, Rose.
Trust me."
"I trust you," she had
replied. And she had trusted him.
Unfortunately, when they had gone
underwater, she had been unable to follow Jack’s orders. Even though she had
kept kicking for the surface, it had been very hard to know which way was up.
And to make things worse, she suddenly hadn’t felt Jack’s hand anymore. She had
been desperate, but she had finally gotten her head out. She had yelled Jack’s
name, but he hadn’t come. Where had he gone?
She didn’t know how it long it
had been, but she had gotten tired of kicking so as not to go back down.
Fortunately, she had spotted a piece of wood and swam to it. That way, she had
been able to remain alive until one of the boats had returned, looking for
survivors.
The next morning, on the
Carpathia, she had searched every corner for Jack, but he had been nowhere to
be found. Unluckily, she had been found by her mother and had been forced to go
to first class.
Jack was dead, and nothing was
left for her to do but try to remember him and cry for him. She had kept
repeating that thought, but eventually she had decided that she had another
choice—to be with him. So…only a couple of days after arriving in New York, she
had lost herself in the few memories she had of the man who had changed her
life.
Suddenly, the memory ended, and
she was back in the Hockleys backyard. Slowly, she started to recognize the
voices of the people around her.
"Dawson! Get the hell off my
property. We don’t want you here. Don’t you see?" That was surely Cal.
"Why do you say we? You are
aware of the fact that she is a human being and that she can talk, aren’t
you?" That was Jack’s sweet voice.
"Oh, this is nothing,
nothing at all. This man? Who knows who he is…darling, tell Mr. Dawson that
he’s bothering you." Ruth was near a stroke, or so it seemed. But she was
trying to keep the guests calm.
"Miss…please…we really need
you say I do," the minister said.
She was still looking at her
shoes, but then it hit her. What was she doing? It was Jack, for God’s sake!
What would he think of her? That she didn’t love him? She did love him, from
the bottom of her heart. Why was she taking so long to say something as easy as
that?
"I love him."