A FATHER'S RESCUE
Chapter Twenty-Two

"Well, where have you been dear?" Caroline put her hands on her hips and turned to Michael. "And you!"

"I know, Caroline. I hate to be rude, but I will tell you another day, when you pay Ruth a visit, I'm sure. We would like to get to the house now. We will have more than enough explaining to do there today."

Michael feared he sounded terribly rude, but Caroline took it very well. "Oh, yes, of course. Tell Ruth I will call on her, in a day or two. It's just so good to see you both, after everyone thought..."

Michael gave a little smile. "And I'm glad to be here. I'll see you soon. We've got to be going now."

He threw a protective arm around Rose's shoulders and ushered her to the door. Caroline, still astonished at seeing the two ghosts, stood in the center of the restaurant and watched them exit.

"We must hurry," Michael whispered. "It won't be long before word gets out that we've returned from the dead."

Rose didn't respond.

"Rose? Rose, what's the matter?"

She was white as a sheet, and trembling. "Daddy, I can't do this. I can't face these people now."

Michael nodded thoughtfully. "I understand, Rosie. It has to be difficult for you; you've changed into a whole new person with a new identity and you're afraid of how people will react."

He glanced back at the restaurant. They could see several diners inside staring openly at them with complete disregard for the rules of etiquette. Apparently, Mrs. Davis could hardly wait to tell complete strangers that the pitiful-looking couple who just left were really the deceased husband and daughter of her good friend Ruth DeWitt Bukater.

"She'll know soon," Rose remarked. "And she'll know that we weren't brave enough to stand face-to-face with her." She met her father's eyes. "I want to see her. With you here, I'll be strong."

"I'm sure you will. We'd better find a carriage and get to the house now. Hopefully we won’t have to stay long; you don't look very well."

"I'll be all right Daddy. I think you need to be more concerned about Mother fainting. Provided we reach her before anyone else breaks the news, I can't even imagine how shocked she will be."

"We'll worry about that when we come to it, darling. Here comes a carriage, I think we really must hurry."

Rose only nodded, and in a moment or two they had boarded the carriage and were on their way. The house was quite close to the restaurant they had stopped at, and so they were standing at the door only about fifteen minutes later.

Rose seemed nervous again, but did not complain as she waited for someone to open the door.

And it was to be a lengthy wait. Michael lifted the brass knocker a second time as Rose glanced around her in apprehension. The front lawn was in a terrible state of disrepair: the grass and hedges needed trimming, and the cobblestone driveway was overrun with weeds. Normally flowers were in bloom in the garden by this time of year, but none were visible now.

Michael raised the knocker one last time, and the door opened. Rose, expecting their butler, gasped.

It was Cal.

He smiled, and malice gleamed in his eyes. "Well, well, well, if it isn't the prodigal husband and daughter! We've been expecting you. Come in, come in."

Rose shook her head and backed away. Her father stepped in front of her. "We are not here to see you. Where is Ruth?"

"Ruth is here, and unless she requests otherwise, I am staying. You see, I have been looking in on her regularly since her only child decided to pull her little disappearing act. She's had no desire to tend to business matters ever since the sinking." He glared at Rose.

"Cal, who is it?" came a weak voice from the foyer.

Rose caught a glimpse of her then, and she couldn't believe her eyes. The thin, frail figure dressed in black and sporting a streak of gray in her once fiery hair couldn't be her mother.

In that same instant, Michael saw Ruth as well. Thought he had to be a bit pushy, Michael made his way inside, Rose following immediately behind him. Then, Rose spoke up. "Mother, it's me."

Ruth turned in the direction of the voice, looking nearly afraid of what she might find, or even worse that there wouldn't really be anyone there at all and she had lost her mind.

Rose flinched. Her mother's eyes were haunted.

"You see?" Cal taunted Rose. "You see what you've done? She barely functions."

"Shut up, you imbecile," Michael hissed. He approached his wife slowly, uncertainly. "Ruth? Please say something."

She looked from him to their daughter, and back to him again, still not speaking. The silence was heavy, and Rose noticed the most absurd thing--a light layer of dust on the stairway banister--before Ruth reached out and slapped her across the face.

Michael rushed to Rose's side. She stood frozen in place, a hand to her reddening cheek.

"How dare you!" Ruth cried. "How dare you come crawling back here now, after we had to endure a church service in your memory!"

"Ruth--" Michael began.

She ignored him. "And with him, of all people, after the hell he put us through!"

Rose said nothing. This wasn't the first vicious tongue-lashing her mother had subjected her to, and she'd always just endured it in silence.

"So did you two come alone, or do you have another surprise waiting outside?"

"That's quite all right, Ruth," Cal said. "Dawson wouldn't dare show his face around here."

Rose wanted to make some comment to that, but could think of nothing to say. She knew she had a stricken look on her face but could not help it. Ruth saw this and without realizing it softened the tone of her voice.

"You're here now, so you may as well come in properly. Come sit down, and we can try to have a halfway decent discussion."

Considering that things had already come to blows, both Rose and Michael were hesitant, especially considering Cal's presence. But they also knew they had to finish what they had started. They silently took a seat in the parlor, and were more than a bit surprised to hear Ruth ask Cal to leave them to discuss things in private. He wanted to protest, as he certainly had an interest in the outcome. But he also knew Ruth could be just as stubborn as her daughter, and did as he was asked. Ruth then turned her attention back to her very unexpected visitors.

"Please do explain yourselves, why you've come here after all I've gone through, without any warning."

Hearing the hard tone return to her mother's voice, Rose lost her patience.

"We came because we didn't want you to find out from someone else that we were alive. And fool that I was, I thought you might actually be glad!"

"Glad? You want me to be glad? Rose, the only reason you are here is because Cal went searching for you and you felt you had to ease your guilt."

"You want me to feel guilty, don't you Mother? You want me to suffer for all the pain I supposedly put you through."

Ruth's eyes were steely. She sat facing slightly away from her husband, and continued to ignore him as she addressed Rose again. "First you made laughingstocks of me and your fiancé by gallivanting around the ship with that--boy. Then, with no concern for me or for yourself for that matter, you risked your life to stay with him. And to what purpose? Look at you. You're dressed like a pauper! You've no money, obviously. Perhaps that's why you're here. Your penniless lover realized you wouldn't be able to support him after all, and he left you. And so you somehow found your father, and he couldn't help you, either!"

She laughed bitterly, and for the first time she looked at Michael. "But he saw an opportunity to come home. He's using you to get his old way of life back. But he underestimated me again, as he always did."

"You've underestimated me this time, Ruth. We aren't here to ask you for anything. I just wanted to save you from worry and grief. Rose hasn't been very well, and I thought for her sake you might...I don't know what I'm going on for. We've wasted our time coming here. We can leave right now."

Ruth made no response, and so Michael stood up, fully prepared to leave. But Rose, for her part, was not ready to give up and remained where she was.

"Daddy is telling the truth, Mother. I'm not here to take anything from you. He and I are managing all right. I really haven't felt that well, but then I didn't expect to, for a while. I have a room in a boarding house right now, which is just fine with me. It's not the best place in the world, but I'm happy to have anywhere to live. Daddy and I at least have each other, and it depends on you whether or not what we say when we leave here is good-bye or we will see you again. So you can choose."

A full minute went by before Ruth spoke. She stood and approached the window slowly. With her back turned, she said, "Is it really my choice? It seems that you made it clear whose decision it was when you refused to get in that lifeboat." When she faced Rose again, she was no longer the stern, imposing figure her daughter had always known, but just an unhappy woman who'd had to face the nightmare of losing both a husband and a daughter in one year.

"You were willing to give your life for your poor, noble, artist. So why isn't he here with you?"

"Because he's dead, Mother. He didn't survive the sinking."

Ruth was genuinely surprised. Rose could see the conflicting emotions in her face; she actually appeared a bit contrite.

She was in for a bigger shock. "I'm sorry," Ruth said. "I thought--well, Cal told me you'd taken his name." She paused. "For what it's worth, I never wished him harm."

"Oh, you did, Mother. You won't admit it, but he was ruining your plans and all you wanted was for him to disappear. But you didn't count on me disappearing with him."

"No, I didn't. But whatever you might think, even though I didn't think he was good for you, I didn't want him to die that way, or any way. How...how have you been coping with it, Rose?"

Rose wondered how many more times her mother was going to surprise her as she answered. "I've been all right, lately. I was sick for a while, but I'm over that now. Daddy has been taking care of me."

"Yes, I'm sure. You look awfully pale, though. Would you like some hot tea, or something?"

"No, thank you, I'm all right."

Rose turned to her father. "Please sit down, Daddy. I don't want to go yet. Maybe this isn't going as well as you would like, but it could be worse."

Michael nodded and sat down. He noticed that Ruth was still barely acknowledging him, but that was all right. Rose was more important, and he was glad to see that they were really talking now.

"All I want to know is why?" Ruth was saying. Her sad eyes pleaded with Rose. "Why did you insist on running off and leading me and your fiancé to believe you were gone forever? You could have come home with us, Rose. A few days in familiar surroundings, and you would have realized the error of your ways and things would be back to normal by now."

Rose shot out of her seat. "Back to normal? The error of my ways? You'll never understand, will you, Mother?" Ruth and Michael stared at her, openmouthed. Their daughter had never stood up for herself quite this vehemently before--except on Titanic.

Rose continued to rant. "Do you call being followed and monitored constantly normal? Do you call beatings normal? Because that's how Cal treated his beloved fiancé! Jack may have not have been the meal ticket that you hoped for, Mother, but he had a hundred times more class than the man you chose for me."

"While we're on the subject of Jack--" Cal had entered the room so stealthily that no one had noticed. "Does a man with such class routinely steal away another man's bride? And if said bride carries on in such a manner as to humiliate her fiancé, does she not deserve his wrath?" His voice was charged with anger, and on the last word he raised it to a shout.

Ruth flinched. Rose did not.

"Does she deserve to be shot at?" she replied in a steely tone. "Really, Cal, pursuing Jack and me with a gun when you knew we'd probably go down with the ship anyway? That's taking revenge a bit too far, if you ask me."

"What's this?" Ruth was stunned.

"I'm telling the truth, Mother. Ask him. I don't doubt he's proud of himself."

Ruth did, and Cal did not deny his actions. "Really Ruth, I was trying to get rid of that...that boy. For you as much as anyone else. He was stealing your daughter away, you know that as much as I do. It turns out fate took care of the job for me."

Ruth had no idea how to respond. Rose, on the other hand, was completely incensed.

"How dare you say that! When we ended up in that water, he sacrificed himself to save me! I don't think I can ever repay that. Can you say you would do the same thing if you had been in his place?"

Cal opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.

"I didn't think so." Rose dismissed his presence now, turning back to her mother.

"However bitter or angry you are at me, I really want you to give me a chance to at least explain. My words haven't come out the way I would like. It will be very hard to talk about, but there are things I want to tell you. Even if you don't understand Jack any better, I hope you will understand me, and why he meant so much to me. That's the only thing I really want. I'd like to be able to see you again after today, but if you don't wish to see me I won't come. I only want us to talk."

She approached her mother slowly, uncertainly, searching her eyes for a response she wasn't sure she'd find. Ruth shifted her gaze to the fireplace--where there was no fire to give the room warmth. Michael finally decided to speak up on Rose's behalf.

"Ruth, when I found Rose I was overjoyed. I knew I had no right to think I could just waltz back into her life after leaving her in such a cowardly manner, but she accepted me without question. I don't expect the same of you, but Rose is your daughter! You have a second chance to reconnect with the child you thought you'd lost. I was ecstatic at that chance. Don't waste yours."

Ruth still said nothing. Cal, frustrated at being outnumbered, moved closer to her, practically shoving Rose aside in the process.

"Are you listening to this claptrap, Ruth? They both left you, of their own free will. They abandoned you, led you to believe them dead, and now they show up on your doorstep and ask you to forgive and forget? It's too late, and you should show them the door!"

Ruth gave him a thin smile, the first time she'd smiled in a month of Sundays, a phrase Michael once was quite fond of using.

"Thank you, Cal," she responded calmly. "You've been an enormous help to me these past few weeks, and I greatly appreciate it. But my daughter is home now, and your services are no longer needed."

Chapter Twenty-Three
Stories