JACK'S ROSE
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rose clutched the letter close to her heart.
It was the first time in almost two years she had gotten a letter from Molly.
Then again, it had been two years since Rose had had an address anyone could
reach her at. She settled down in the warm sand, listening to the horrified and
exhilarated cries of the people on the roller coaster that was right off the
coast. Her horse, Star Queen, stood above her, staring down at the paper. Rose
giggled and patted the horse's muzzle.
"No, love. Paper isn't for you,"
Rose told the mare happily. The mare snorted and began nibbling Rose's hair,
wanting food. Rose laughed again, fished an apple out of the saddlebag, and fed
it to the mare. Then, she lay back in the sand.
She remembered the last letter she had
received from Molly. Not really from Molly. Her mother. It had been from her
mother. She remembered its exact words.
Dearest Rose,
I gave this to Molly before we ever left
New York. But if you are reading this, then you know I am gone. I asked her not
to give this letter to you until I was gone, Rose, to avoid any temptation of
coming back. I checked the passenger list and saw, quite near the bottom, Rose
Dawson. I do not suppose I have ever felt such joy. Cal was with me at the
Grand Central Station, determined to find out whether some Rose DeWitt Bukater
was on the list.
But I knew she was dead. No matter what,
Rose DeWitt Bukater was dead.
Cal is not as smart and intelligent as he
puts off to be, my dear. He never thought that perhaps you would change your
name. But I did. Rose, my love, when I saw that name on there I knew you had
lived. But I also knew that I would never be able to bring you back. I had no
doubt Margaret would find you. And so I gave her this letter.
And I am sorry, Rose. For all the wrongs I
did you. For all the times when you needed someone to hold you, and I shunned
you. For simply being who I was. I cannot apologize enough times to do you
justice, sweet Rose. But I did love you. And I do now. You were my only child,
and I simply wanted to make sure I would have you forever. But I did the
opposite. I drove you away, and I am sorry. I only realized this, though, when
you jumped from our lifeboat. When I saw you leap from our boat to go to him, I
thought I had lost you forever. And I had. All I could think was that I hadn't
told you that I loved you since you were a baby in my arms. When you jumped,
that turned something on inside me. I suddenly realized all the mistakes I had
made. And I hope you can forgive me.
But go now, Rose, and fly. You are no
longer the sheltered bud awaiting the moment when you could blossom. You are
now a beautiful, beautiful rose. You blossomed in the warm light of love. You
ceased to be my Rose April 11, 1912. You became Jack's Rose. So, go fly. Spread
your wings and let them take you where they may. And perhaps, many years from
now, we can be together again, and become the mother and daughter we both
longed to be. Fly, Rose. Fly.
And she hadn't even signed it. Just stopped.
And Rose had flown. She had befriended an
older man who taught her to fly with the small plane he had built, and, when he
had lain on his deathbed, he had left her his plane, bidding her to fly as far
as she could, then turn around, come back, and do it again. She had flown all
the way to India, where she had spent a year and a half riding elephants and
traveling and learning hundreds of things each day. Things about the Indian culture,
history, their land.
She had loved it, but when she found herself
with only twenty dollars of the five hundred Molly had given her, she had flown
back to California and, after realizing that her plane would not be able to fly
again because of the old engine, she used the money she made from selling parts
of her beloved plane to find a decent room to rent and bought the next best
thing to a plane—a horse.
Then, she had gotten a job at a small
sweatshop after having been a waitress in four cafes, trying to be a nanny in
two different households, and attempting to clean houses.
And that's where she spent the next five
years of her life.