"This is it!"
"Oh, God! Oh, God!"
"Hold on!"
"Oh, God!"
"The ship is gonna suck us down! Take a deep breath when I say! Kick for the surface and keep kicking! Do not let go of my hand!"
The water was getting closer! It was rushing up at them faster and faster.
"We’re gonna make it, Rose. Trust me!"
"I trust you!"
"Ready! Ready! Now!”
"Jack!" Rose sat up and gasped for air, her breath coming fast and hard. Wildly, she looked around the small room, sweat clinging to her body. For a moment, she was confused and didn’t know where she was until she remembered that she was at the boarding house she had come upon the night before.
She sat for a moment, trying to calm herself, but was having little success. Her heart was pounding so loudly she could hear it in her ears. At that moment, as she sat in that small room looking at the unfamiliar surroundings, she had never felt so alone or so lost in her entire life. She wanted to be strong, she wanted to be brave, but she felt none of that. Covering her mouth, she let out a small cry and began to weep.
"Why, Jack, why?" she sobbed quietly. "Why did you leave me?"
For a few moments, Rose let herself give in to her sorrow and cried for all that she had lost. Her heart ached at the thought of never seeing Jack again. She felt empty and hollow, as if nothing of substance was left inside of her. Nothing felt right and nothing mattered.
Finally, after a while, she realized she had to pull herself together. She couldn’t let this go on. Getting upset wasn’t going to help anything and it wasn’t going to bring Jack back.
After a few calming breaths, she glanced down and saw that her dress and Cal’s coat were gone and in their place was a white cotton nightgown. And she was no longer on the bed, but in it. How did that happen? The last thing she remembered was lying down while waiting for Abigail to come back. It must have been her. She must have changed her and put her in bed.
Then she remembered the coat and what was in it. She slid out of the bed and walked over to the wardrobe. The coat was there, along with her dress. After checking the pockets, she found the necklace and the money still there. With relief, she went back to the bed and sat down.
Suddenly, there was a light tap at the door. "Miss Dawson, are you all right?" Abigail asked in a muffled voice.
Rose quickly wiped the remaining tears away. She couldn’t let Abigail see she had been crying. She had been taught never to cry in anyone’s presence. Sliding from the bed once again, she walked over to the door, took a deep breath, and opened it, looking out at the older woman. "I’m sorry if I woke you," she said tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.
"Oh, no, you didn’t wake me. I was already awake,” Abigail replied with an understanding smile. “I thought I heard something and I just wanted to check on you."
"Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine."
Abigail smiled at her, a look of sympathy coming across her face. "God bless you, child. You’ve gone through a horrible ordeal and it’s no shame to be crying over it. I’m guessing you’ve suffered a loss through all of this. Someone you loved very much."
Rose felt her throat constrict. She nodded slightly to confirm the woman’s statement. She sensed Abigail’s sincerity and was amazed that this woman, this total stranger, was showing more care and concern for her than her own mother ever had.
"I’m sure he must have loved you, too. Was he your husband?"
Rose just stared at her. No, technically Jack was not her husband, but she had taken his name nonetheless. If he had survived she had no doubt he would have been. She felt like his widow, just as much a widow as the many women she was with in steerage on the Carpathia who had lost their men.
"Yes, he was my husband," she answered with pride.
"I’m so sorry, Mrs. Dawson. Such a young girl you are, too."
"Thank you, Mrs. Calvert—"
"Not Mrs., Miss, and you can call me Abigail. I’ve never been married myself. I live here with my nephew, Andrew."
"Thank you, Abigail. If you don’t mind, I’m going to lie back down for a while."
"Oh, yes, you do that. I have to get breakfast going for my other boarders. You can come down when you’re ready, or you can stay up here if you’d like and I’ll bring you something."
"That’s very kind of you, but I don’t want you to go out of your way just for me."
"Oh, it’s no problem, child, none at all." Abigail smiled at her again and then headed for the staircase.
Shutting the door, Rose went back over to the bed. Pulling the covers over herself, she stared out of the small window and up into the dusky sky. It would soon be light outside and the start of a new day and new life for her. The only problem was, she had no idea where to even begin.
*****
When Rose awoke the next time, it was to the smell of bacon frying. Her stomach grumbled in protest at being allowed to smell it, but not taste it. She pushed herself into a sitting position and noticed a dress lying at the foot of her bed.
Sliding out of the bed, she took it and held it up. It was light blue with a white collar, white cuffs and white buttons running down the length of it. There was nothing fancy about it, but it was something to wear and it looked to be her size. It must have been Abigail again.
She saw that along with the dress there was a pair of boots, undergarments, and a brush and pins for her hair.
Rose smiled at the kindness that this woman was showing her. She had never been exposed to it this way before. She had never had the chance. Throughout her whole life, she had been sheltered from people like Abigail Calvert. She had never been allowed to associate with anyone outside of the social circle she had been trapped in.
But everything was different now and she was going to make sure to go out of her way to thank Abigail for the kindness she had shown to her.
After washing as best she could in the basin, she brushed and pulled her hair back, capturing it with a ribbon Abigail had provided. She put the dress on. It fit everywhere but the sleeves, which were a little too long. But she rolled the cuffs back once and that problem was taken care of.
She made her way downstairs and followed the aroma of the bacon. She came to a dining room where several men were sitting around the table, talking and laughing. As soon as she entered, everyone stopped and looked at her. Silence hung thick in the air, until finally one of the men stood and nodded slightly toward her.
"Hello. You must be Mrs. Dawson,” he said with a polite smile.
"Yes, I am," she answered.
"Please, have a seat and join us.” He came around the table, pulled out a chair for her, and motioned for her sit down.
Rose took a calming breath and then walked over to sit in the chair the young man held out for her. After pushing it forward, he went back around to his own chair and sat down across from her.
"Mrs. Dawson, let me be the first to tell you how sorry I am for your loss. This must be a very difficult time for you. It is such a tragedy, what happened."
Rose clenched the napkin under the table. Perhaps it was a mistake coming downstairs after all. She lowered her eyes and cleared her throat.
"Thank you, Mr…” she trailed off and looked over at him.
“Calvert. Andrew Calvert,” he replied.
At that time, Abigail came through the swinging door, holding a platter in one hand and a pitcher in the other. She stopped when she saw Rose sitting at the table. She blinked, smiled, and resumed her pace to the table.
"Mrs. Dawson, I’m glad to see you’ve joined us."
"Thank you and thank you for the dress and the other things as well. You’re being very kind to me and I’m especially grateful for it."
"It’s no problem. That’s a dress of mine that I had outgrown, and you needed something to wear." She set the platter and the pitcher down on the table.
The platter held mounds of eggs on one side and bacon on the other. There were also biscuits, jars of jam, a crock of butter, and the pitcher of milk.
Rose looked over the food with hungry eyes. She had eaten practically nothing since the night Titanic had sunk. The days following on the Carpathia she had only existed, the shock of everything too much to bear. But now, her resolve to live and her promise to Jack to survive had taken over.
"Everything here looks wonderful, Miss Calvert."
"Abby," she corrected and then sat down at the table. "Before we say grace, I’d like to introduce you to everyone. This is Andrew Calvert, my nephew. He works at Macy’s as a counting clerk, but he also helps me run the boarding house doing repairs and such."
Rose looked across the table at him. He smiled and nodded his head.
Abigail continued with the introductions, going around the table as she called each man by name. "This is Paul Redmond. He sells insurance. This is Ed Mallory. He’s a brick layer, and this is James Harper. He’s a night watchman."
Each of the men greeted her, but none said much beyond that. They ate the delicious food Abigail had prepared and Rose thought she had never tasted anything so good. For once, she didn’t worry about nibbling her food for appearance’s sake, but she ate heartily and enjoyed it.
After breakfast was over, she offered to help Abigail clean up, but the older woman protested loudly and sent Rose back to her room to rest.
"Mrs. Dawson—"
"Please call me Rose, Abby. You’ve done so much for me that I think formalities can be put aside."
"That’s a fine suggestion, Rose. Now, I want you to go rest. There’s nothing for you do anyway."
Seeing that Abigail was leaving her no choice, she made her way back through the foyer and to the staircase. Directly across from it was the open doorway to the parlor and she could hear the men talking quietly as she approached it.
"The preliminary count is fifteen hundred. Can you imagine that? Fifteen hundred out of twenty-two hundred."
"I have never heard of anything like it."
"This was Captain Smith’s last crossing, too. After this, he was going to retire."
"I hear they’re starting an investigation into it today."
"I heard that, too. I wonder what they’ll discover. Who was really at fault, man or nature?"
"And it was supposed to be unsinkable. How could things have gone so terribly wrong?"
Rose gripped the banister as images flooded her mind. She could hear the screams, the terrifying and seemingly endless screams of the dying in the water. She saw the horrified faces of the people around them as they had hung onto the back of the ship before it went under. She could see the hundreds of men, women, and children frozen to death, floating face down in the water as far as the eye could see.
And she saw Jack.
She saw him holding onto the side of ornately carved piece of wood that became her lifeboat. She remembered the pain and fear of realizing he was dead, that he had frozen to death before the boats could come back to save them. She could still feel the unbearable agony of releasing his hand and watching him sink beneath the freezing water to his grave.
She tried to make it up the steps, but her legs were so shaky she couldn’t walk. The breakfast she had just eaten threatened to come back up as nausea gripped her.
"Rose?" She heard Abigail call her name from behind.
She turned just as Abigail reached her. "I’m sorry. I…" She gripped the railing again as her legs buckled from beneath her and she fell backwards into the astonished woman.
"Andrew!" Abigail shouted as she caught her.
All four men rushed out of the parlor and saw the young woman slumped over on Abigail.
"Help me get her in there," Abigail commanded her nephew. He came over and lifted Rose off of her feet, carried her limp form into the room, and laid her down on the couch.
"What happened?" Andrew asked.
"I don’t know." Abigail shook her head. "I came out of the kitchen and saw her standing by the staircase, almost in a trance. When I called her name, she just fainted dead away."
"Oh, God," Andrew breathed regrettably. "She must have heard us talking. We didn’t know she was out there or we would have never mentioned it in her presence."
"Mentioned what?" Abigail questioned him.
"The Titanic," he answered quietly. "We didn’t know she was there."
Abigail took a deep breath, but shook her head at the same instant. "Don’t blame yourself, Andrew. You had no way of knowing." She moved to the edge of the couch, lifted Rose’s hand, and patted it as she spoke. "Rose, can you hear me?"
Rose stirred and slowly opened her eyes. When she realized where she was and that everyone was staring down at her, she tried to sit up. But her head began to swim, preventing her from accomplishing her goal.
"Don’t try to get up yet," Abigail said calmly. "Just lie here for a moment longer."
"What happened?" she whispered, trying to focus on her surroundings.
"You fainted, child."
"Fainted?" she asked in a confused voice. For a moment, things were still fuzzy in her mind. Then she remembered hearing the conversation between the men as she was walking back to her room. All of the fear and horror of what happened had come back to her and had overwhelmed her. As the memories flooded her mind again, she covered her face and began to cry.
"Miss Rose, I’m so sorry for this. We never meant for you to hear us," Andrew apologized to her. "Please forgive us."
Abigail leaned over her. "Rose, would you like to go to your room?" she asked quietly.
"Yes," she barely managed to get out.
Abigail and Andrew helped her stand while the other men, embarrassed by the scene they were witnessing, stepped back and allowed them to pass.
Once they had put her in her room, Andrew stood back while Abigail helped her to lie down. Rose curled into a fetal position while Abigail pulled the shade down and then laid a quilt over her.
"Come, Andrew. We should leave her alone for now. Sleep is what she needs."
"Do you think she’ll be all right?" he asked with concern.
"She will be…in time. She has to heal before she can move on. But it’s only been a few days, and I’m sure everything is still too fresh," she said before ushering him out. She turned to shut the door and glanced back at Rose before doing so. "Poor girl, I can’t imagine what she’s been through."
"I feel sorry for her, Aunt Abby. She seems so lost."
Abigail nodded before answering. "All we can do is pray for her and give her time to heal. The good Lord will take care of the rest," she told him.
She stepped out of the room and quietly shut the door behind her, leaving Rose alone to grieve once more in the solitude of her broken heart.