WHAT HURTS THE MOST
Chapter Ten

Rose looked blankly at Sarah. Sarah knew that she shouldn’t have done this when there was no response and she was getting more and more wet by the second.

She started shivering slightly in the cool rain. Her arms were cold--but that was also because it was a mid-April evening.

So, she’s just going to make me stand out here? she thought.

"Come in," Rose said, stepping aside.

Sarah walked gratefully into the house. It was definitely small. She expected to see a man sitting in the chair, reading the paper or something of the sorts. But, no. No Jack Dawson that Rose had run away with.

Rose gave her blanket. Sarah wrapped herself in the old quilt that smelled a little like old perfume.

"I apologize for making you wait out there so long," Rose said. "I just figured that if you were selling something and I looked at you long enough, you’d go away." Her green eyes trailed to Sarah’s suitcase. "You’re not selling anything, are you?"

"Oh. Um…no."

Idiot! Sarah thought. Try to sound a little less stupid!

Sarah tried to recover by being quiet. She finally saw where she got her looks from. The thin, brown hair was obviously her father’s, as well as a pair of chocolate brown eyes to go with it. Her skin tone was from her father, too. But she got her big eyes from her mother. And her small nose...she was sure it was from a grandparent. Sarah shared her bone structure from both of her parents. And her lips, just as her father said, were from her mother.

The silence in the room was deafening. Sarah looked down at the hardwood floor. She knew the hard part was coming soon.

"What can I help you with?" Rose asked.

Sarah’s heart sped up even more. It was now past healthy levels.

"My name’s Sarah. Sarah Hockley," she said.

She saw Rose’s face stiffen. She brushed a piece of hair out of her eye. "That’s funny. I used to know a man named Cal Hockley."

"I’ll bet you did," she said quietly, wrapping the blanket closer around her. She was starting to shiver again, but not because of coldness this time.

Rose leaned forward slightly. "I beg your pardon?"

"I’ll bet you know Cal," she repeated.

Rose’s entrancing green eyes met Sarah’s equally beautiful brown ones. Sarah tried to keep her gaze, even though she found it difficult.

"What do you mean by that, Miss Hockley?" she asked.

"Oh, please, don’t act like you don’t know!" Sarah blurted out. "You abandoned us when I was five months old! And for someone who isn’t even here anymore!"

Silence shattered the room. That was beginning to get very familiar for her and Rose already. Long, harsh silences.

Rose’s eyes looked at her curiously. "What are you talking about?"

"Y-you are Rose Dawson, right?" Sarah asked.

"Yes," Rose said slowly.

Sarah’s eyes started filling with tears again. "How could you do that? I’m your daughter!"

Rose only stared at her again. "I don’t have a daughter."

"Yes, you do! She’s sitting here right in front of you, wanting to know why you left her with a father who just committed suicide, and why you had to leave us for Jack Dawson!"

Silence again. This time the tables were turned. Rose’s eyes were the ones filled with hurt.

Maybe I’ve said too much, Sarah thought. I shouldn’t have added Jack Dawson in yet.

"Sarah, how do you know about Jack?" Rose asked.

"My father told me. He said you ran off with him when I was five months old. It was nearly a war in the house."

Rose sighed. Sarah saw something change in her eyes, almost like a revelation. "Why don’t you sleep here for the night? It’s raining, and I’m sure you won’t want to go to a hotel for the night."

Sarah was about to refuse and demand an answer to all of those questions, but she knew that it was pointless. She wouldn’t get an answer, just like she hadn’t before.

Sarah followed Rose up the narrow stairs. They creaked softly beneath her.

I’d rather be at home than take shelter from my mother, Sarah thought. But then she remembered how lonely it was and all the bad memories that had formed there. Maybe not, she thought.

Rose led her into a neat guest bedroom with a small bed near a window. The ceiling was slanted towards the closet. She was sure that she could touch the ceiling at the lowest point.

"Thank you," she said softly.

"If you need anything, I’ll be downstairs," Rose said, closing the door behind her.

*****

Rose remembered how she looked on the Titanic. Or, at least, she tried to remember how she might have looked. If she had any guess as to what she might have looked like, Sarah was a good match. When Sarah walked in, she was wet, and her eyes were large, almost like she was afraid of the unexpected happening.

Why had Cal told her that Sarah was her child? She would never know the mind of him, nor would she want to. But whatever the reason was, this sounded exactly like something that he would do. Because it was always about him. It always would be, too.

Sarah’s voice rang through her head. She’s sitting here right in front of you, wanting to know why you left her with a father who just committed suicide, and...

Wait, Rose thought. She said that he committed suicide?

Yet again, exactly the type of thing he would do.

When Sarah started talking, she was reminded of someone she knew a long time ago. Someone she was very close to, who was her best friend and who told her to listen to her gut instinct and never look back on it twice. It made her do the craziest things, even though it didn’t make sense.

That person was herself.

Why you had to leave us for Jack Dawson! Sarah’s voice yelled into her head again.

Oh, how she had hit the soft spot with Jack. It took everything in her not to tell her what Jack really was. He was not some man she had run off with. No, Jack was more than that. He was her first love and the only person she could trust when no one would even consider listening to her. How she longed to see him just one more time.

She closed her eyes as she curled up in her bed. What a stressful day tomorrow would be.

There was no way that Rose could tell Sarah that she wasn’t her daughter. She was the absolute perfect match of both Cal and Rose.

This is what our child would have looked like if I had been Cal’s slave, she thought. If we got married, I really would have left him. Only I would have taken our child with me. No one deserves to be with him.

She felt sorry that Sarah had to put up with Cal for all those years. She was scarred before his death, and now she was even more traumatized afterwards. Of course, Sarah was bound to be a little angry at people. And Cal’s lies most certainly weren’t helping.

Rose couldn’t help but like Sarah. She knew how it was to be screaming in a silent room and have no one even looking up. That was what it was like when Cal owned her. She couldn’t imagine that being the only thing she knew.

It was clear to Rose what she had to do. Tomorrow she would take Sarah back to Philadelphia and have her get her things. She was about to become a Dawson.

Chapter Eleven
Stories