HEARTS WILL GO ON
Chapter Four

There is a ship and she sails the sea
She's loaded deep as deep can be
But not as deep as the love I'm in
I know not if I sink or swim.

When Josephine was sixteen and little James was six, I found out I was going to have another child. James was thrilled, even though I was a bit surprised, since it had been seven years since I had last been pregnant. I was now thirty-five years old. We had long since moved from Santa Monica to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where James had been transferred to a law firm and was making better money. All in all, we were extremely content. I had begun toying with clay and had taken a liking to sculpting.

Jo had won an award at her school for outstanding artist and had an interview with an art professor just outside Philadelphia in December. I was not looking forward to going to the place I had left and where Caledon Hockley still resided, no doubt. Still, she was the first girl to be accepted in for an interview at the art school, and I had no doubt in my mind she would get in. Unfortunately, by that time, I would not be able to go with her to the interview, since I would be heavily pregnant.

"So, what is this man’s name?" I asked her upon reading the letter inviting her there.

"Um…Professor Rose," she said, reading the name at the bottom. She laughed. "Hey! That’s a good sign, right? Same name!" I laughed and looked at the paper.

"Sweetheart, that is his last name. His first name is right here and it’s…Thomas." I raised an eyebrow. "Hmm," I said, setting the letter down. Looking at the clock, I frowned. James wasn’t home yet, and it was nearly seven.

"Ma, is everything all right?" Jo asked, and I rubbed my head.

"Fine, Jo…take your brother into the kitchen and give him some dinner. I’m going to rest."

*****

That night changed my life again. Eight rolled by…nine…ten…twelve. James didn’t come home. I was panicked and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do. A knock on the door brought me out of my troubled sleep at two in the morning. I met Jo on the way to the front door. She was also alarmed, and grabbed my hand.

"Who would be here at two in the morning?" she asked, and I was truly afraid to answer that question. Opening the door, I found myself staring at two police officers. No. Jo gasped.

"Mrs. Calvert?" one asked. I nodded feverishly. Four months before my baby was due.

"We have some news on your husband," he said, and Jo looked at me.

"Ma, where’s Daddy?"

"Jo, go upstairs with Jamie."

"But…"

"Now!" She raced up the stairs, and I knew she was scared witless.

"Come in," I said, waving them into the parlor and turning on the lamp.

"We apologize for barging in on you like this, but…"

"No. It’s fine. What happened to my husband?" I asked, and the man sighed.

"There was an incident. In town. He was leaving his office and he saw an old woman’s store being robbed. He tried to stop the criminal, not realizing he had a gun, and was shot three times. Once in the chest and twice in the arm." The man’s voice had trailed off, and I could only stare at him in shock.

"Is he…?" I began, and the man nodded.

"There was nothing we could do. He asked us to give you this before he died." He handed me a handkerchief. Inside it was his wedding ring and wallet. My husband was dead.

My wonderful, incredible, astounding husband was dead, and yet, no tears came. They went over some details with me and left me to my thoughts. Josephine came out from behind the corner of the hall. I could see she was crying.

"Mama…" she said, and I held my arms out to her. She crawled onto the couch and lay with her head in my lap. "I’m not going to Philadelphia, Mama," she choked out, and I nodded, knowing we wouldn’t be able to afford it for a while.

"I know, baby. We’ll get you there." I felt numb, as cold as I did that night in the water. I had lost two men in my life, both after two in the morning.

*****

James was put into the ground the following Tuesday, October 23, 1928. Neither of us had parents or siblings, so it was mainly just Liz and Randy with their kids, and the children and I along with Jim’s partner and his wife. We said our good-byes to them, and Liz and Randy came back to the house. They’d caught the train to Des Moines and had come straight here. They were going to stay with us for a while. Dave and Belinda chatted easily with Jo, who had Jamie on her lap. Dave had become quite the handsome young fiend. He had light blond hair like his mother, and her green eyes. Belinda took after Randy, with brown hair and eyes. Jo’s hair was such a brilliant shade of red that people found themselves unable to tear their eyes off of her, and yet, she never noticed. She wasn’t quite the girly girl, as her favorite attire was pants and an old button-down shirt. She owned one black dress, which she was wearing today, and always wore her long red hair in a braid down her back.

Dave and Jo shared an unspoken bond between them, since they were so alike. He was desperately trying to get a scholarship to Harvard, since Liz and Randy didn’t have the money to send him there. Jo referred to Dave as her older brother. Belinda had no interest in anyone but herself at fourteen. Jamie hadn’t cried much. I hardly think he understood what was happening in all this, but when he’d seen his father lying in the casket, it sunk in a bit, and he wrapped his arms around me as if I could forever change what had happened. I didn’t cry until later that night, when Jo came into my room.

"Mama?" I looked up from my book and tried to smile. "I wrote to Professor Rose today."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." She lay beside me for a minute before saying, "Mama?"

"Mmm?" I answered, pretending to read.

"I’m scared. How will we go on without Dad?" she asked, and I could see a tear running down her nose.

"We’ll manage, love," I said, pulling her closer.

"It isn’t fair! Why do horrible things happen to good people?" she asked, and I knew she wasn’t only talking about James.

"I don’t know, Jo. It must be God’s will."

"That’s horseshit, Ma," she said, and I gasped in surprise. She didn’t curse much, but when she did she was mad.

"Josephine," I said warningly, and she sat up.

"No! It is! They teach us all our lives that God loves us and wants to be happy, when in reality, he couldn’t give a damn. Ripping apart families before the baby is born. Sinking unsinkable ships! Starting world wars. What’s next?" she asked, and I held her tighter then, wanting so badly to take her pain away. She looked at me.

"So, in my life, I’ve lost two fathers. One who I want to know more than anyone, and one who I love as much as if he were my real father…it’s not fair!" she sobbed, and as if a barrier had broken, I was able to cry.

"Oh, Ma, don’t cry…I’m sorry. That was dumb," she said, laying her head in my lap.

"No, Jo, it’s wonderful. I needed to cry. And you’re right. It isn’t fair, but unfortunately, life isn’t fair."

She looked up at me then, her broken heart in her eyes, and said, "I love you, Ma. I know I don’t say it much, but I do. I wish I could have told Dad before…you know," she said, pressing her cheek against my pregnant belly. The baby was kicking full force tonight, as if it could tell we were all unhappy.

"Mama?" I looked toward my doorway to see Jamie standing there with his blanket. I reached out and he came running to us. Jo hoisted him onto the bed. That night I slept with both of my children in the tiny room my husband and I had shared.

*****

Luke was born the day before Christmas, with brown hair and blue eyes. He was much quieter than James had been. More like Jo. They bonded right away, and from the moment Luke was born, Jo was his guardian. Jamie had always clung to me, so she hadn’t had the same bonding with him, but Luke much preferred his sister to anyone besides myself. Of course, he liked me; I fed him and bathed him. Jo played with him. After his birth, things seemed to improve a bit for us. I found a job at a craft store, specializing in pottery, and soon became quite good. Money was tight without James, especially with three children, but Jo pulled her weight and somewhat took over as man of the house.

She got a job at a horse farm, making about ten dollars a week. It wasn’t much, but it kept food on the table while I paid the bills. She came home at night, filthy and exhausted, but never complained. The summer after her seventeenth birthday, we’d gone into Des Moines to pick up Liz and Randy with their kids at the train station, and I’d seen Cal. Jo had not been paying attention and was trying to wrangle Jamie into his shoes. She was dressed up, since we were all going out to dinner, and for once her hair was down and tied in the back with a blue bow to match the light blue dress she’d bought. She’d been running after James, who was coming straight for me and had run flat into Mr. Hockley himself.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" she’d cried as I ducked out of the sight line.

"Quite all right, Miss…" he’d replied calmly as she nodded apologetically. As she began to walk away, I saw him turn his head ever so slowly, as if in recognition, and called after her. "Excuse me, Miss!" he said, beginning to run toward us as she reached us and picked up Jamie.

"Ma…that man is Caledon Hockley! The steel mogul!" she said, and I grabbed her wrist.

"We need to go. Now," I said with urgency, and pulled us both into a doorway as he ran past, looking confused.

"Do you know him?" Jo asked, looking at me. Jamie was pouting, since Jo had caught him and put his shoes back on him. Liz and Randy stepped off the train with the kids a few moments later, and I breathed in relief. To my surprise, Dave had grown tall and lithe and was an extremely handsome boy. Belinda was a sweet-looking little thing, but the attitude of her was that of a snobbish pit bull. Liz had written to me about how endlessly vain she was and how rude.

"Jesus, Jo, is that you?" Dave asked, punching her arm lightly. She rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah…" she said, and suddenly, they were gabbing openly about people she’d known in Santa Monica and how this person was married and that person had died. Liz grabbed my arm and gave me a squeeze.

"How are you holding up?" she asked, and I shrugged.

"I don’t know…it still seems like he’s just at work or something. The baby keeps us all busy, but it’s been hard. Money is bad, and Jo is overworked, too."

Randy sighed.

"Poor kid. She shouldn’t be doing that hard labor for nothing but scraps," he said, and I nodded.

"I’ve told her she doesn’t have to work, but her response is always, ‘But, Ma, I want to help.’" I shifted the baby to my other hip since he was getting so big so fast.

"He looks just like you, Rose…" Liz said, laughing at Jamie ,who was holding Jo’s hand and trying to kick every rock he saw. They were quite a pair, the two of them with their fiery red hair. Thankfully, Jo hadn’t gotten the skin of a redhead. She was quite tan from working in the sun. Jamie, however, burned easily, so he had to wear a hat at all times.

"Jo…" Jamie whined to her. "Carry me!" She rolled her eyes, but picked him up.

"James, you are seven years old. You are getting too big for this," she said, and he began to play with one of her curls.

"But it’s hot…I’m tired…" I had to laugh at his whining, because I knew she was gritting her teeth by the way her jaw was set.

"Tell me another, crybaby," she said, putting him on her back and carrying him that way.

"I ain’t no crybaby, Jo!" he said, and she laughed, rolling her eyes and looking at Dave.

"Ain’t is not a word, Jamie."

For the briefest of moments, I saw the playfulness in Jo and Dave that I remembered from my short time with Jack, and it made me smile, but theirs was a different kind of affection for each other. Dave was her best friend, and she thought of him only as a brother, as he thought of her as his sister. It almost saddened me, but at the same time, Jo’s dreams and ambitions to write and draw put a barrier on any attempt to have a relationship. She was still seething over the fact that she had better grades than everyone in her school, but neither Harvard nor any other school other than a women’s college would accept her. She’d begun selling her drawings for fifty cents apiece, only under the name J. Dawson so men would simply assume she was a man and buy them unbiased.

*****

The September before she turned eighteen, we were sitting about in the house on a rainy day when she came in the house with a newspaper, dazed. I looked up at her and became instantly worried. Jamie and Luke were both napping.

"Jo, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. What is it?" She turned the paper around to show me, and I would never forget that headline.

New Evidence May Save the Dawson Soap Fortune. Jackson Dawson, Jr. May Have Left an Heir.

The words ran over and over in my mind. Jackson Dawson, Jr. I read the article, which was brief. It was definitely him. His sister had received word from him while he was on the Titanic, and he’d informed her that he’d met someone and would be returning within the week. His sister was long since married, being seven years older than him. His father, Jackson Dawson, Sr. had grown up in Chippewa Falls and had created his own fortune from the ground up. They’d moved to Boston, leaving the family home but returning for vacations to keep their roots.

"Are you of the Boston Dawsons?" Mr. Astor had asked Jack, whose eyes had widened as he’d shook his head quickly.

"No. The…uh…Chippewa Falls Dawsons, actually," he’d said, and JJ had nodded vaguely.

"Oh, yes…" A faint recognition had been in his eyes, but Jack looked into his champagne before anyone could ask another question. We’d met the Boston Dawsons at a few of Cal’s parties, but Jack had already been gone. In the article, it said he’d left home when he was fifteen after his parents had died and had written his sister Livy on and off. I laughed suddenly as Jo looked at me like I was crazy. He was filthy rich. The poor love of my life had been the heir to one of the biggest soap fortunes in America.

"Ma…you like you’re going to either cry or laugh…what are you thinking?"

I shook my head, my mouth in a small smile as I looked at her, and said, "I’ll be Goddamned."

Chapter Five
Stories