WHAT HURTS THE MOST
Chapter Eleven

Sarah couldn’t remember where she was as she woke up the next morning. She stirred in the small bed as she opened her eyes and saw a cloudy sky. She froze when she remembered that she was in Rose’s house. But she felt her heart stop when she remembered what she had said last night. She wondered how she could be so stupid with her mouth.

Sarah pulled the covers over her eyes. "No," she whined to herself, desperately wanting to redo what she had said to Rose. It wasn’t exactly the best impression to give her estranged mother.

She’s probably thinking Dad raised me exactly how she thought he would, Sarah thought. She probably thinks I’m a brat.

She figured there was no use trying to turn back time and undo the impossible. She got up and went downstairs, using her fingers as a comb. Her brown hair was messy and her eyes were half-open.

"Good morning," she heard Rose say from the kitchen as soon as she reached the foot of the stairs.

Sarah was now completely awake, thanks to the jolt of fear that rushed through her body. She walked into the kitchen and sat across from Rose and the table. Rose had a cup of tea in her hand. One with steam was in Sarah’s spot.

She blew on it, then sipped quietly. She could feel Rose’s eyes boring into her skull.

"I’m sorry," Sarah said. "I shouldn’t have said all that last night. I was just angry at what you did to me and I know that this probably isn’t exactly the best way to meet you for the first time in fourteen and a half years, but..."

"It’s fine," Rose said simply.

Sarah could have sworn she misheard. Was Rose actually saying that everything was all right between them? No. She must have been going crazy.

"What?" Sarah asked.

"It’s fine. I mean, you are going to be living with me, right? We need to be on solid ground."

"Living...with you?" she squeaked out.

"Well, yes. Who are you going to be living with otherwise? If I remember right, everyone on your father’s side is in England now. Correct?"

"Um...yes?"

"Then it’s settled. You’re going to be living with me."

Silence grew yet again between them. Sarah looked down at her tea. The light brown liquid was still. She could feel the heat of it through the cup.

"I don’t want you doing this out of pity for me, Mom," Sarah said.

Mom. It was a new word on her lips. She had never called anyone that before.

"I’m not. I’ve been doing a rather poor job at being a mother, haven’t I?"

Sarah’s eyes still didn’t meet hers. "Well, you weren’t there." But this is my father we’re talking about. If I had the chance, I’d have run away, too.

"But I intend on being there from now on, Sarah. We’ll go back to wherever it is you live now and we’ll get your things. You can live upstairs with me. It’s a new beginning now. Leave everything behind."

"Today, you mean? We’re leaving for Philadelphia today?"

Rose nodded. "As soon as you want to go. We’ll have to stop at my work and tell them I won’t be there for today or tomorrow, though, first."

Sarah was still in shock. "That’s fine," she said quietly.

*****

Sarah held the key in her hand as she walked back up the steps to her familiar home in Philadelphia. Only it didn’t seem as inviting as it once had. It was now decorated with the horrible memories that she had thought about on the train ride when Rose was quiet.

Each time she remembered her father raising his voice or leaving her home alone each night, she winced. But the biggest of them all, the day she found out that he killed himself, made her start crying again. She only did this while Rose was sleeping. She hoped she was never heard.

Sarah took a deep breath as she stepped onto the porch. "I don’t know if I can do this, Mom. I’m scared."

Rose was quiet. Sarah knew it would be a little awkward if she started breaking down. It was awkward to begin with. She knew that Rose had despised her father after all these years, and now to be in his house...

Sarah didn’t want to go back in. Everything would remind her of him. Everything she saw, his bedroom, his favorite chair, everything.

"Mom--"

"You can do this, Sarah," she said. "If you just do it quickly, it will all be over. You’ll never have to come here again."

Right, she thought, slipping the key into the lock. That’s about the only positive thing right now.

Sarah walked into the house. How she had wanted to see her father by the window, saying it was all just a dream, even though half the time she hated him. She just wanted something she never had--security.

"This seems like something your father would live in. Always nothing but the best with him," she heard Rose say behind her.

Sarah nodded. She felt like she was a million miles away from everything.

"I’m going to go get my things," Sarah said, walking to her bedroom.

She quickly packed her things. She realized this would be the last time that she would be in here. After this, she was living in Boston with Rose. No more big, glamorous house owned by her millionaire father. Now it would be a small house with the mother she hardly knew.

After getting everything packed–which took a while–she checked her father’s bedroom one last time. No note whatsoever.

She knew there had to be something. She put her suitcases down and searched through his drawers. His shirts that were once neatly put there were every which way. At the very bottom of the top drawer, there was a folder. She picked it up and sat on the bed. She opened it. Inside was a note from her father, dated April sixteenth. The exact day that her father died.

"Oh, my God," she whispered as she read it.

Sarah,

I’m sorry that I did what I did. Don’t think I don’t love you. I do, sweetpea. Really. There are so many things I wish I could have told you before I went. But I know you would have hated me if I told you the truth about everything. I’m sorry you had to find out this way.

Daddy

"What?" Sarah asked out loud as she re-read the note. She set the note aside and saw her name on a form from St. Katherine’s Orphanage. Below it was a form that her father had filled out on September 17, 1912.

No. This can’t be for me, she thought.

She stared at the paper for probably five minutes. She remained motionless. Cal was not her father. And he filed as a single parent. Which meant Rose couldn’t be her mother. Which meant that both of them had lied.

She walked out to the parlor, where Rose was looking at the newspaper. "Sarah, I found your father’s obituary. Do you want me to cut it out for you?"

"He’s not my father," she said angrily. "I was adopted. And where do you come into play, Miss Dawson? Please don’t tell me you’re my birth mother, because ironically, that’s the last thing I need to hear right now."

Rose stared at her again. "I was wondering when you were going to find that out."

"You knew?" Sarah asked. "When were you going to tell me?"

She folded the paper up. "You just seemed so upset last night that I couldn’t tell you. I’m sorry, Sarah. It’s--"

"All Cal’s fault," Sarah said, putting the folder on the dining table. "It’s not yours at all. You’re...you’re nice, Miss Dawson. My father, he committed suicide, all because he didn’t want me to find out. He left a note, after all." She handed Rose the note.

Rose quickly read it. "Just like him."

Sarah nodded in agreement. "That unimaginable bastard."

Silence between them again. Sarah was trying her hardest not to scream to the heavens, asking why this happened.

"Can I still live with you?" she asked.

*****

"Tell me everything," Sarah said to Rose once they were seated on the train. Sarah had the window seat, while Rose was sitting next to her on the aisle.

"What do you mean?" Rose asked.

"About your life. If I’m going to be living with you, I believe I need to know a few things about you," Sarah said.

Rose started talking about her early life, where she went to finishing school, and how her own father passed away when she was seventeen. "And that’s why I got engaged to your father," she said. "All our money was gone. My mother reminded me of it every day. Even while I was getting dressed. ‘You know the money’s gone, Rose,’ she used to say."

"Don’t call him that. He’s not my father. He’s Cal." She ran her fingers through her hair. "That must have been awful, growing up with your mother like that."

Rose nodded. "She said women’s choices were never easy. And I never thought that Cal could be the man he turned out to be. It didn’t show much at first, but he made it clear that I was his and no one else’s."

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked.

"This didn’t really show until we were on board the Titanic--"

"You were on the Titanic?" Sarah interrupted.

"Yes. The best and worst days of my life."

Sarah was automatically intrigued. "What do you mean?"

Rose sighed. "It’s a long story."

"Miss Dawson, this is a train ride from Philadelphia to Boston. We have all the time in the world."

Rose smiled. "Sarah, it’s Rose. And...I’ll tell you the story of the Titanic."

Sarah returned the smile.

"I was engaged to your–I mean, Cal, at the time. I was set to be Mrs. Rose Hockley. I was only marrying for money, of course."

Sarah nodded.

Rose told about her attempted suicide afterwards. "I felt a lot like you. Screaming in a dead silent room when no one would even look up."

"What...how do you know I feel like that?"

"You lived with him for fifteen years. I just guessed you felt the same way."

She was right. That was how she felt her whole life. Her father would never consider listening to one idea that she had had.

"Who saved you, though?" Sarah asked.

"Jack Dawson. You jump, I jump. Oh, he was a wonderful man."

Sarah gave her a questioning look. "You jump, I jump?" she repeated.

"It was what he said when I was about to jump overboard. How he would go in after me. I mean, he and I were complete strangers. And why he did that, I’ll never know."

Silence. Sarah couldn’t help but look out the window.

"Can you tell me the story of Jack Dawson now?" she asked.

Rose told the tale of Jack. How she had longed for him, even though she was Cal’s. What lengths she went to only to talk to him for two minutes. What great lengths they had gone to in the short amount of time that they had known each other. She continued to tell where they were when they saw the iceberg hit the Titanic. How scared she was when it was going down, how cold the icy water was. All the time, Sarah was wide-eyed with fascination.

"Rose...that’s an amazing story," she whispered.

"Yes. But he was an amazing man. He deserves an amazing story." She sighed. "And he saved my life. Other than when I was about to jump overboard."

"What do you mean?"

Rose’s eyes diverted to the floor. "That one’s for another day."

Sarah couldn’t help but feel curious as to what she had meant. She knew not to interrogate, though.

"I think that it’s so romantic that you took his last name when you docked," Sarah said.

"I owed it to him. I mean...I loved him. I felt married to him.. He was the best thing that ever happened to me."

I hope I find a love like that one day, Sarah thought.

Chapter Twelve
Stories