JACK'S ROSE
Author's Note/Epilogue
Dear Readers,
I am sorry to say that my prior promise to
finish what little is left of Part II will not be fulfilled. I can no longer
write my characters the way I used to be able to, and I think it would be a
dishonor if you had to suffer through forced writing. And so, I'll just sum
everything up here. William and Rose, of course, go back to California. Molly
is still there and she helps with the finances. Larry shows up and acts as the
man that gives her away.
That's the end of Part II. Part III starts
in 1929. William gets a note that Ralph has died. He and Rose return to
Chippewa Falls to find that Ralph has left them a large sum of money—twenty
thousand dollars and one hundred acres in Cedar Rapids. When they get back to
the city, the Depression starts. At first, they stay. The theater's cafe offers
free meals for one night, but is swamped and forced to shut down because a fire
is started when someone knocks over a lamp. Rose decides she no longer feels
safe in the city, and with no job, she persuades William to leave his job at
the printing press and move to Cedar Rapids. There are two houses on the one
hundred-acre piece of land, and Rose and William settle quickly into one of
them. Back in Wisconsin, Nathan finds out by cleaning the attic who his mother
and father are. Julia, he discovers, has hidden Rose's letters to him since she
first moved away. The letters contain all her experiences from the Titanic. He
doesn't tell them this, but when he gets into a bad fight with Julia, he leaves
and goes to Rose in Cedar Rapids. He does not tell her he knows either, for
when he arrives, she and William have had their first child. Cora and Lilly
also eventually join them, and then Andrew and Susan are invited to live in the
second house when the news reaches Rose that their apartment building has been
condemned. The Calverts and their friends live through the Depression with
little heartache, and it is in this time that Rose and William earn the money
that will fund their many trips in their future.
That's the end of Part III. The Epilogue
is basically the same as the end of the movie. William releases Rose from her
wedlock, and Rose ascends the Titanic's grand staircase once more to join her
love in heaven.
Jo (12-11-99)