ROSE GOES ON
Chapter Seventeen

December 1917

Rose and Christopher stood in the train station, waiting for the train carrying Elizabeth, Mary, and Nadia to arrive. It was December 22, 1917, and a cool rain fell outside.

Christopher gripped his mother’s hand, straining to see out the window. He wasn’t sure of what was going on, only that his grandmother and cousins were coming to visit.

At last, the train pulled into the station. Rose hurried forward, holding Christopher’s hand, as the passengers began to emerge from the train.

Elizabeth, Mary, and Nadia were among the last of the first class passengers to step down from the train. Loaded with suitcases and brightly wrapped packages, they emerged into the crowd.

Mary and Nadia caught sight of Rose first. Dropping their belongings, they raced to see her, exuberantly throwing their arms around her.

"Aunt Rose!" Their voices rang out in unison.

Rose hugged the two girls, glad to see them for the first time in over a year. "Oh, you’ve grown so much! You’re turning into young ladies, both of you!"

Elizabeth followed the two girls. She caught sight of Rose and nodded politely to her. "Hello, Rose."

Rose nodded back. "Hello, Elizabeth."

Christopher had no such reservations. Squealing in delight, he ran to Elizabeth, throwing his arms around her legs.

"Grandma!"

Elizabeth picked him up and gave him a hug. "Hello, Christopher. How big you’ve gotten! You’re growing up so fast!"

Christopher beamed at the praise. As Elizabeth set him down, he ran toward Mary and Nadia, helping them collect their belongings, looking with particular interest at the brightly wrapped Christmas presents. He sulked briefly when they refused to let him carry the presents, insisting instead that he carry Nadia’s suitcase.

"Do you have everything, girls?" Elizabeth asked, collecting her own suitcase and sack of presents.

Mary and Nadia nodded, hurrying to catch up with Christopher and Rose, who had made their way to the street to look for a cab.

*****

After checking into the hotel she had made reservations at before the trip, Elizabeth took Rose, Christopher, Mary, and Nadia out to dinner. Mary and Nadia skipped along, chattering to Rose about how neat Los Angeles was and how strange it was to be without a maid or a governess. Rose had wondered at the absence of servants--she had never traveled without them when she had been a member of the upper class--but Mary cheerfully explained that they were on vacation for Christmas, to spend the time with their families.

After they had arrived at the restaurant--one of the most expensive in Los Angeles--Rose finally had a chance to ask what the girls had been doing.

"So, Mary, Nadia, what have you two been doing? How’s school?"

Elizabeth answered for them. "They’ve been living with me since John left for the war. They’re going to a school near to home, and they have a governess who looks after them when I’m not there."

"Her name is Katie," Mary added. "She’s nice, but she’s not as smart as you, or as pretty."

"Well, thank you, Mary," Rose told the girl, laughing slightly. "I’m glad to hear I’m still appreciated."

The waiter came then, to take their orders. Once he had left, Elizabeth explained the situation to Rose.

"I tried to keep John out of the war, mostly for the sake of the girls, but I was overruled. I explained to those in charge that he was one of Anders best managers, but they just said that he could be replaced while he was gone. Even my explanation that he had two daughters and no wife didn’t sway them. So, I offered to take care of the girls while he was gone. I just pray that he comes back alive."

"I miss him," Mary piped up. "I still don’t see why he had to leave. He said that we live in a democracy, which means that we vote and have a choice about what we do, but he still had to go to the stupid war, even though he didn’t want to. That doesn’t make sense, so I guess that democracy is dumb. We went to Washington, DC, during Thanksgiving, and I still think democracy is dumb. If people are free, why do they have to do things like that? It’s what my teacher calls...uh...hippo-crissy."

"Hypocrisy," Rose corrected, surprised at the eight-year-old girl’s insight. Many adults couldn’t see what Mary saw so clearly. Mary would be a force to be reckoned with one day, Rose realized.

"I’m scared, Aunt Rose," Nadia interjected, her lower lip trembling. "What if Daddy doesn’t come back? Grandma’s maid, Madeline, was married to a man who went over there, and he got killed last October, on Halloween. Madeline cried all the time for a long time. I don’t want Daddy to die."

Her eyes overflowed. Rose handed the girl a linen napkin, trying to think of some way to soothe her.

"He’ll be back, Nadia. Your Daddy’s going to be all right. I’ve gotten two letters from him since he left. He misses you and Mary very much. He’ll take good care of himself, and come back home."

"But he might not," Mary argued. "Like Madeline’s husband didn’t come back."

"Yeah," Nadia added. "Madeline loved him a lot, but he still died. Why do people have to die, Aunt Rose?"

"Well, Nadia...I don’t really know. I guess it’s what God has planned..."

"God didn’t make the war. That was people." Mary was adamant in her stance.

"Sometimes, people do things that don’t make much sense."

"Like go away and not come back." Nadia wiped her eyes. "Daddy’s been gone for five months. I want him to come home. But he might not, because sometimes people don’t."

There was a moment of awkward silence. Nadia stopped crying and started picking at her dinner again, while Elizabeth and Rose tried to think of something to say.

Mary finally broke the silence. "Aunt Rose, we saw Lights just before we came here."

"Did you like it?"

Mary nodded. "Yeah. It was good. I want to be on Broadway, but Grandma says I’m too young."

"You can be in the school play, Mary," Elizabeth told her, unwilling to allow the young girl to embark upon an acting career on her own.

"I still want to be on Broadway," Mary grumbled. "Or be in moving pictures like you, Aunt Rose." She brightened. "You were the best one in the picture. You should have been the star. That other lady was too skinny."

Rose laughed at Mary’s description of Nanette Hartman. In spite of her enjoyment of acting, she had been glad when they finished filming Lights, if only because she no longer had to deal with Nanette. Last she’d heard, Nanette had insulted a reviewer, who had written a scathing article about her. The starlet’s popularity had gone down sharply after that.

"Thank you, Mary," she told the girl. "It was fun, making that picture."

"I want to be a Hollywood actress, too," Mary told her. "Can we see Hollywood while we’re here?"

Rose glanced at Elizabeth. "I don’t see why not," she told Mary, at Elizabeth’s nod of approval.

Mary grinned in anticipation. "Are you going to be in any more moving pictures, Aunt Rose?"

Rose nodded. "Actually, yes. I’m going to start filming a new one in January. I have a small speaking role--where my lines will be on the screen--in a new picture called The Endless Sea. It’s about the family of a man who died on the Lusitania. I’m going to play his oldest daughter."

Elizabeth winced. "How are you...dealing with the subject material?" she asked, looking closely at Rose.

Knowing that Elizabeth was referring to the Titanic, Rose shrugged, not wanting to discuss it. "I have to learn to deal with my memories sometime."

Elizabeth nodded, understanding. She hadn’t been on the Titanic, but her only child had died in the sinking. She understood how Rose felt, and she, too, had had to learn to deal with her memories.

*****

The next day, Rose took them on a tour of Hollywood, accompanied by Julie, who was also going to play a small role in The Endless Sea. Mary and Nadia were openly impressed, especially when Rose took them on a tour of the studio where Lights was filmed. After the tour, Mary was more convinced than ever that she wanted to be an actress. She begged Elizabeth to leave her in California with Rose, but her grandmother wouldn’t hear of it. The girls were in her care, until their father said otherwise, and Rose had enough to deal with already, between caring for a child alone and establishing a career. She didn’t need another child to look after.

On Christmas Day, Elizabeth, Mary, and Nadia joined Rose and Christopher at the boarding house, bringing the gifts they had brought from New York. Christopher squealed with delight at the toys his grandmother had brought him, far more than his mother could afford, and proudly presented crudely drawn Christmas cards to his mother, grandmother, and cousins. He had inherited his father’s talent as an artist, though his young hands weren’t nearly so adept at sketching as they would be later.

On Christmas night, they once again went out to dinner, this time inviting Julie and Christopher’s baby-sitter, Eleanor, to come with them.

The day after Christmas, Rose took her guests to a place she had not yet been able to muster the courage to visit--the Santa Monica Pier. The weather had cleared, and hundreds of people, families, groups of friends, and individuals, milled around the pier, eating, going on rides, playing games, and wandering along the beach. Rose looked at it all with a thrill of excitement mixed with trepidation. This was where she and Jack had planned to go--but he had died before they could ever do the things they had talked about, and so, instead of visiting the pier with him, she was visiting it with their son.

She soon forgot her trepidation, however, at the wide-eyed, delighted looks of the three children. They wandered around, each accompanied by a different adult--Rose had invited Julie to come along--and played games and watched people performing before meeting at the merry-go-round.

Rose laughed as she watched the three children climb onto the merry-go-round, vying for the best horses. Mary and Nadia giggled and waved as they went around, while Christopher stared at everything in wonder. He had never been on a carousel before.

When the ride ended, Julie convinced all of them to go on the Ferris wheel, and then it was time for the ride that Rose had been anticipating--the roller coaster.

She sat in a car with Christopher, while Mary and Nadia sat behind them. Elizabeth was reluctant to ride it at first, but Julie finally convinced her.

The three children shrieked and squealed with delight as the roller coaster whipped them around, while Rose threw her hands in the air and laughed aloud. Julie quickly proved to suffer from motion sickness, much to Elizabeth’s dismay, since she sitting right next to her.

When the ride was over, Rose, Christopher, Mary, and Nadia climbed from their cars, laughing giddily, while Julie stumbled dizzily and Elizabeth dabbed at the mess on the front of her dress. Elizabeth gave the others a disgruntled look, but she had a twinkle in her eyes that betrayed the fact that she had enjoyed it more than she was willing to let on, at least until Julie had thrown up on her.

After Elizabeth had cleaned herself up, the six of them went down to the beach. Everyone pulled their shoes off and walked along, digging their bare toes into the sand. It was a cool day, but not cold, so Rose and Elizabeth allowed the children to go the water’s edge to play.

Mary, Nadia, and Christopher shouted in delight as they splashed through the shallow waves, shrieking at the cold. Even in Southern California, the ocean was cold in the winter.

As they walked along, Rose caught sight of something farther up the beach--a horse stable, the same one Jack had told her about nearly six years earlier. Turning toward the water, she shouted to the children to come out, then took off in the direction of the stable.

A short time later, she emerged, riding a brown mare with a white streak on its forehead. The horse whickered as she guided it out on the beach. Rose had often ridden sidesaddle when she was a member of the upper class, but riding astride was a new experience for her. However, she soon found that it was easier than riding sidesaddle, and gave each of the laughing children a turn riding with her along the beach.

Christopher rode with her last, a little afraid of the horse, though he was soon laughing and enjoying himself right alongside his mother. When Rose came back to the group, she dropped him off, then guided the mare into the surf.

Clutching the reins, Rose urged the horse to go faster, splashing along the edge of the waterline. The others stared after her, but Rose paid them no heed. She could almost feel Jack behind her on the horse, and his words echoed in her mind.

"And we’ll ride horses, right in the surf. But you have to ride like a real cowboy, none of that sidesaddle stuff."

"You mean, one leg on each side?"

"Yep."

"Can you show me?"

"Sure."

Jack had never had the chance to show her how to ride astride, but she had figured it out for herself. Jack had given her so much--encouraging her dreams, no matter how improbable; giving her the courage to get away from the life she had known before; and giving her their son, the light of her life. No matter how short their time together had been, she had never been sorry to have known him. Now, she was doing what they had talked about, fulfilling the dreams that they had made. She was living for both of them.

At last, Rose slowed the tired mare, turning her back in the direction of the stable. The others had wandered down in that direction, waiting for her. None understood why she had ridden off as she had, and none asked. Rose would never have explained it to them, anyway. Sometimes, it seemed like more than she could explain to herself.

As she neared the stable, she saw the others watching her. As she pulled the horse to a stop, Elizabeth took her camera from her bag and gestured to Rose stay still, photographing Rose’s beaming face as she sat atop the mare.

Rose smiled for the camera, feeling as though someone’s arms were around her when the picture was taken. Though no one could see him, she knew that Jack had been there with her in that moment.

Chapter Eighteen
Stories