A LADY NAMED ROSE
Prologue
"Come Josephine, in my flying
machine..."
It was too quiet.
"...and it's up she goes, up she
goes."
As Rose regained consciousness, her vision
cleared and she found she had somehow rolled onto her back on the piece of
driftwood, facing a moonless sky. Without realizing it she'd begun softly
mouthing the words to the tune Jack had sung to her at sunset on the bow of
Titanic. Just before that magical, awful night began.
Was it only hours ago?
And then she realized that she still grasped
his right hand for dear life, and that hand was frozen.
It was too quiet. What happened to all the
splashing, those horrible screams?
Suddenly there were shouts, distant and
distorted. Rose turned her head slowly and was nearly blinded by the light of a
lantern, a beacon of hope in the dark and eerie silence. A lifeboat! They were
rescued!
With renewed strength, Rose tapped Jack's
hand. "Jack?"
No response. His head was tilted to one side;
his eyes were shut, tiny icicles forming on the lashes. Despite a growing
dread, Rose persisted in shaking his wrist. The manacle bound to it rattled,
but he remained motionless.
"Jack, there's a boat...Jack?
Jack!"
He had just fallen asleep. He would never
leave her like this. Not after she nearly lost her life to save his.
"There's a boat, Jack!" When he
failed to answer this time, she knew.
"Jack?" she pleaded, and started to
weep quietly. She lay her head next to his, prepared to stay until she, too,
froze to death. And then she remembered her promise, to never give up. Look at
her, about to give in already and so close to being saved! Jack would be hurt.
She willed herself to lift her head and
searched for the lifeboat, which had turned and was making its way in the
opposite direction. "Come back!" she cried out hoarsely. "Come
back!"
But her voice was too weak to be heard, even
in the stillness.
"Come back! Come back..."
******
"Come back! Come back!"
Two nurses rushed into the room where the
teenage girl thrashed about in bed, screaming for someone in a strained voice.
While the younger of the two struggled to hold her arms and whispered
soothingly, the elder prepared a needle.
"Didn't the doctor tell you to have this
patient restrained?" she admonished the younger nurse as she injected the
patient. "These fits of hers are getting to be a nuisance."
"They're not fits," the other nurse
replied in an equally sharp tone. "They're nightmares. She has obviously
been through some sort of trauma."
"Trauma or not, she is disturbing the
entire ward." The older woman sighed as the girl gradually settled back
into sleep. "You do as the doctor orders, you hear me?" The young
nurse nodded her assent.
Once her supervisor had gone, she pulled a
chair alongside the hospital bed where the girl, beautiful despite frightfully
pale skin, dark circles under her eyes and limp, dampened red hair, now lay
still.
She'd been admitted the day before by a
matron at a Christian women's shelter, who'd found her huddled in bed, feverish
and shaking. As the nurse had prepared to take her temperature, she thought she
heard the girl muttering about someone named Jack.
She had only come to life once, when they
tried to remove the man's overcoat she was wearing. What a fight she'd put up
then! Deciding that there must be something of value in the pockets, the nurse
had dutifully placed it under lock and key with her own things in the nurse's
cloakroom.
She sensed there was something tragic about
the girl, and, out of curiosity, found excuses to stay at her side, hoping she
would break out of her delirium. Tonight, she was in luck. Just as she was
about to return to her duties, knowing that someone was bound to come looking
for her soon, the girl moaned and opened her eyes. She stared at the nurse,
puzzled.
"Trudy?"
"No," the nurse replied in a hushed
voice. Without knowing why, she added, "I'm sorry."
"Where am I?"
"It's all right," the nurse soothed
her. "You're in a hospital. You'll be fine."
Then she asked, "What's yer name,
miss?"
The girl seemed lost in thought, then her
eyes focused and the nurse saw clarity and fierce determination all at once.
"My name is Rose. Rose Dawson."