JACK'S ROSE
Chapter Twenty-Four
"When does the next train that'll get me
to California leave?" Rose demanded, desperate not to let her tears flow
here in front of this stranger. The man sensed her desperateness and quickly
flipped through his schedule.
"Not until tomorrow, miss. Tomorrow
morning at 5:30." She looked into his face and saw his pity.
"Please, sir, one ticket."
"Class?" he asked, trying to keep
his own emotions under control. Seeing a woman in such a condition perturbed
him greatly. She glanced up at him with an expression telling him without a
single word all he needed to know. "Ah…yes," he said, handing her a
third class ticket, "twelve dollars, miss." Rose slid him the money
and grabbed her ticket. The man looked behind her and saw no one else.
"Miss! Miss, wait!" he called as she began to walk away. She turned
and looked at him questioningly. "Wait there one second." Her face
told him she would. He turned and grabbed the plaid quilt he kept in the booth
for cool nights. "Here," he said, returning to the window. "I
think you might need this. It still gets nippy at night." Rose stood there
for a moment, then stepped back to the window and silently accepted the
blanket.
"Thank you, sir," she said weakly.
Tears filled her eyes once more, and she moved away from the ticket window to
an empty bench. Rose pushed her suitcase beneath the bench, lay down, and
stared out across the station. But Rose didn't see the empty tracks. All she
saw was the deep, black, endless sea. Her mind whirled.
Life changes so quickly. Was it truly just
yesterday that I was with William, sure I was with the man I would be with
until I could be reunited with Jack? Just yesterday that I held Nathan in my
arms, sure I would be with him forever? Forever. So quickly.
When had it been she'd had these same
thoughts? She couldn't think. Rose closed her eyes and quickly fell into a
light, disturbed sleep.
She lay on her back, staring up at the
stars, still clutching Jack's cold hand. So cold. Everything was so cold. She
heard herself singing something. What was it? Ah. Come Josephine in my Flying
Machine. Had it only been the past evening that she had been in Jack's arms on
the bow of that great, doomed ship? The past evening that she'd known she was
with the man she would spend the rest of her life with? The man that she had
given her entire heart to?
"Is there anyone alive out there? Can
anyone hear me?" Rose heard the voice swimming in her head. She forced
herself to roll over, draining what seemed to her to be every ounce of energy
left in her body.
"Jack, there's a boat." She
gently shook his hand. But he didn't move. "Jack," she whispered.
"Jack! Jack!" Fear seized her as she never imagined it could seize a
human body. No breath came from his nose, his blue lips. Her heart stopped
inside her. She shook his hand harder. "Jack! Jack! There's a boat,
Jack!" He had to wake up! He had to! He couldn't leave her. Not now. Not
after they'd come this far. He had to wake up. "Jack!" And then, all
hope drained out of her, all strength, all will to live, and Rose lay her weary
head against her love's frozen hands. Then—then, her promise raced through her
head. I'll never let go, Jack. I'll never let go. Her promise echoed through
her mind. She lifted her head and gazed down upon his face one last time. Rose
pried his hand away from hers and kissed the cold, clammy skin. "I'll
never let go," she promised as she watched him sink down, sink down away
from her. She tore her eyes away from the black water, and Rose looked after
the boat, now growing farther and farther away. "Come back!" she
whispered.
No, Rose! You have to do better. Louder!
she could almost hear Jack say.
"Come back! Come back!" she
cried louder. "Come back!" They're too far away to hear me! she
thought frantically. Rose remembered the officer that had been in the water,
just behind them, blowing frantically on his whistle.
Silence.
He had succumbed to the same fate so many
others had. She forced herself off the door and back into the freezing,
unwelcoming, unforgiving, black Atlantic waters, and, half-swimming, half-drowning,
made her way to First Officer Henry T. Wilde. Rose reached out and grabbed the
whistle, prying it from his frozen, dead lips. She put it to her own and blew,
at first shakily, weakly, then stronger and louder. She blew furiously until
finally, the lifeboat reached her and a pair of strong arms pulled her
shivering, half-drowned, half-frozen body into the boat.
Rose slowly sat up from the bench and looked
through blurry eyes at the train station, now lighter. She glanced up and saw
the sky was beginning to lighten. The train would be there soon.
*****
"William, there's a package coming in on
the 5:30 train. I want you to go get it," Ralph said, rudely waking the
boy up from his sleep. "Get up, now, and go!" he demanded. William
jumped from his bed. "Damn it, boy, I swear, if you miss that train,
you'll regret it your entire life." He knew the next train arrived at
5:30. That was the schedule. 5:30. He had to get Will there. And he would. Even
if it was the last thing he would do.
"I can pick it up later, Ralph."
"Boy, get up! Now!" Ralph tore the
quilt from the young man and threw it on the floor. He threw open the closet
doors and tossed the boy's trousers and shirt at him.
"Dress!" he demanded, knowing it
must be five o'clock already. William droopily dressed.
"The horse is saddled already. Now, get
down there!"
William was still half-asleep as he climbed
onto the dun mare, dug his heels into her ribs, and started off at a gallop for
the next town.
*****
"I was going to wake you, but you looked
so tired, I couldn't bear to," the young woman sitting beside Rose on the
bench said after Rose appeared to finally orient herself. The young woman had
been sitting there on that bench since midnight beside the slumbering young
woman. "I mean..." She stopped. "Anyway, you want a smoke?"
she asked, pulling two cigarettes from her pocket. Rose looked at it. She had
never liked smoking, the choking, sickening feeling she got every time she
stuck one between her lips. But her mother had hated it, and that was enough to
stimulate Rose to smoke every chance she got.
"No," Rose said quietly. "No
thanks." The woman nodded.
"Where are you headed?" she asked
good-naturedly.
"California," Rose answered weakly,
as she looked out over the tracks.
"I'm going to Los Angeles," the
young, blonde-haired woman said happily. "My brother bought a theater, and
I'm going to work there. April fifteenth," the woman started dreamily.
"My eighteenth birthday is today. Finally. I've wanted to go since he
bought it last year, but he said I had to wait." Rose began to say
something, but the roar of an approaching train overrode her soft voice. A man
came and collected their baggage. Then, after the flood of people disembarked
from the train, the young woman and Rose stepped in line behind several other
passengers waiting to board. But before the line began to move, Rose remembered
the blanket she was clutching in her hand. She stepped out of the line and made
her way back to the ticket booth, followed by the blonde woman.
"Is the man that worked here last night
still here?" Rose asked as they reached the window.
"No, miss, but he said someone might
ask," the new man answered. She looked at him, then slid the blanket under
the window.
"Please tell him I said thank you."
The man nodded, and Rose and her new traveling companion fought their way back
into a line. The woman never questioned Rose's actions.
*****
William tied his horse in front of the train
station just as the train came roaring in. The horse balked and pawed but did
not buck or rear. William waited until the flood of people disembarking the
train had left the station. Then, he patted the mare's shoulder and walked
through the doors and into the station itself where all the passengers were
waiting to board. He was making his way to the pile of unclaimed baggage when
he saw a flash of red hair. He stopped in his tracks and looked up. William's
eyes fluttered over the sea of people. He didn't see her. He dismissed the
thought and continued to make his way to the pile of boxes and bags. But he saw
it again. This time, he heard her, too.
"Please tell him I said thank you,"
he heard her saying. He looked to the ticket window and saw her handing a
little plaid blanket to the man behind the window. His senses leaped to life.
"Rose! Rose, wait!" he called. But
she didn't turn. She and the woman at her side fought their way back into a
line. "Rose!"
Something inside Rose was telling her to
wait, telling her to pause just a minute and wait for something, but that she
couldn't tell what. She paused and looked around her. There was nothing worth,
from what she could see, waiting for. Rose turned and lifted her foot to step
onto the train.
"Rose!" He saw her again. She was
about to step onto the train. "Rose! Rose, wait!" He tore through the
crowd. "Rose, please!" Tears filled his eyes. "Rose!" he
cried out desperately as he reached the line she'd been standing in. But she
was gone.
Rose turned. She was sure she'd heard her
name. She looked back through the people shoving past her.
"Are you coming?" the young woman
that had spent the night on the bench beside her asked. Rose looked back once
more, still sure she'd heard her name, then sighed and followed the young
woman. She took a seat by a window, and her new companion sat beside her. Rose
stared out the window, hoping to perhaps see who'd been calling her name. She
stared out across the sea of people but saw no familiar faces swimming among
them.
"Rose!" William called again,
backing out of the line. His eyes scanned all the faces in the windows. Maybe
one would be hers. "Rose!"
Now, Rose was positive she'd heard someone
calling her name. A knot formed in the pit of her stomach as she heard her name
again. Her mind was sure it knew whose voice that was, but it was swimming with
so many other thoughts, it seemed pointless to waste energy on trying to
remember. But when she heard her name again, without thinking she leapt out of
her chair and rushed down the aisle, ignoring the cross words and curses of the
other people, pushing her back. She heard her name again, and finally she
thrust herself out of the stationary train and back onto the boarding platform.
And she saw him.
"Rose!" he called. William ran to
her and took her in his arms, ignoring the questioning glances of the other
people still lingering in the station. "Rose, stay," he whispered
into her ear. "Ignore them. Stay with me, Rose. I love you, Rose. Stay
with me," William pleaded softly. Rose could feel his silent tears
beginning to wet the shoulder of her dress, but she could cry no tears.
"I can't, William. I can't. I've done
enough damage to you all. I have to go." She gazed up at his tear-reddened
eyes.
"Rose, please. I love you. Nothing can
be wrong if you are here with me. I don't care what they think, or say. Just
stay with me." She could not take her eyes from his, and, for a split
second, she considered staying. But something told her go. How odd. Her body
was pulling her in different directions.
"All aboard! All aboard!" A man in
a uniform leaned out of the train and shouted his command over and over. Rose
did not move. She was lost in William's eyes. "Miss." She didn't
flinch. "Miss!" Rose finally turned. "Have you a ticket? Are you
boarding?" She turned to look at William. His eyes pleaded pathetically
with her.
"Will you do something for me,
William?" she asked softly. His eyes filled with joy. All he could think
was that she had given in. She had decided to stay!
"Anything." She paused, looking
down.
"Tell Nathan that I love him," she
whispered. "And that I'll be back someday."
"Rose—" He suddenly felt weak and
nauseous. She couldn't go.
But it was too late. Rose withdrew her
ticket, let the man inspect it, and disappeared into the train.
William felt as if his feet were frozen to
that spot. He didn't hear the deafening sound of the train's whistle blowing,
warning any on the tracks to get off. All he heard was Rose's voice. All he smelt
was the lovely smell that seemed to always follow her. All he could see was her
smiling face before him.
And all he could feel was his heart breaking.