ROSE GOES ON
Chapter Seven

June 17, 1912

Rose puttered around the tiny room she shared with Mary and Nadia, straightening things and trying to avoid smelling the food in the main room. Her stomach lurched, making her breathe through her mouth to escape the scents from the breakfast table.

She opened the tiny window, preferring the smells of the city to the smell of food. She had awakened that morning feeling sick to her stomach, as she had every morning for the past three weeks. Vaguely, she wondered what was wrong as she made the beds and picked up the few things that had been tossed on the floor.

A sudden, overwhelming attack of nausea interrupted her work. Clapping her hand over her mouth, she darted out of the bedroom and ran through the main room and out the front door, ignoring the stares of the others. Racing down the narrow hall of the tenement building, she pushed her way past another person heading for the bathroom and rushed inside herself, slamming the door behind her.

When she was through getting sick, Rose leaned over the small, grimy sink and rinsed her mouth, wondering what was wrong with her. It seemed as though she’d caught some illness, but no one else was sick, and when she’d been ill in the past it had never lasted this long. She already knew from experience that she would feel better later, and be voraciously hungry, making up for what she couldn’t eat in the morning, but she would also be more tired than usual. She usually lay down on her bed after lunch and napped alongside the toddlers, grateful for the chance to rest. Sometimes she also fell asleep early in the evening, again after she had put the girls to bed.

As she left the bathroom and headed back toward the apartment, it occurred to her that her nausea and tiredness could be as a result of not being used to the food she ate or the work she did, but she had only been experiencing this problem the last few weeks, while she had lived this new life since April.

When Rose returned to the apartment, John was waiting for her at the table. He had cleared the dishes and set them on the counter to be washed later, and Mary and Nadia were in a corner of the room, playing with Allegro. The dog wagged his tail appreciatively as Mary sneaked a piece of bread from her pocket and fed it to him.

John beckoned to Rose, gesturing for her to sit down at the table. She approached him reluctantly, repelled by the scent of food still lingering in the air. Sitting down, she covered her nose with her hand.

"Still feeling sick, are you?" John asked, looking seriously at her.

"A little."

"What’s wrong?"

Rose shrugged. "I don’t know. Maybe I’m still adjusting to this way of life."

John looked at her skeptically. "You’ve been living here for over a month, but you’ve only been sick for about three weeks."

"So?"

"So, I think you should go down to the free clinic about ten blocks from here and see a doctor."

Rose shook her head. "I’ll be fine."

John sighed, looking at her seriously. "If you have some contagious disease, I don’t want any of the rest of us catching it. Either you go to the doctor, or you find a new job. It’s as simple as that."

"I’ll feel better later..."

"And then you’ll be sick again tomorrow morning." He looked at her levelly.

Rose stared back at him, considering his ultimatum. She didn’t want to leave the job she had. She had a roof over her head and food when she was hungry, and beyond that, she liked the little girls in her care, and had no wish to abandon them. John was right. If she was sick, she needed to find out what was wrong, so that she didn’t pass it along to her charges or her employer.

"All right," she agreed, nodding slowly. What could it hurt? If she really was sick, a doctor might be able to find a cure. If nothing was wrong, she would eventually adapt and feel better, and there would be no cause for worry by either John or her. She really didn’t have a choice, anyway.

*****

After the dishes were washed and the apartment straightened, Rose walked the ten blocks to the clinic, Mary and Nadia riding on her hips and Allegro trotting along ahead of them, tugging at his leash, which Rose had wrapped securely around her wrist. Once there, she got her name on the list and sat down to wait.

She waited for several hours. The clinic was packed with people, some much sicker than she was, many with small children accompanying them, yelling, crying, and adding to the general chaos. Several people were so sick that everyone else moved as far away from them as possible, not wanting to catch their diseases. A skinny, shrunken woman with three children under the age of five sat across the room from Rose, coughing into a handkerchief. When she set the handkerchief down and picked up a child, Rose saw that the handkerchief was soaked with blood.

She pulled her young charges closer, wanting to protect them from the consumptive woman. Mary whined about being bored, while Nadia curled up in Rose’s lap and sucked her thumb, staring at the crowded room with wide, frightened eyes. Rose did her best to keep them entertained, telling them stories and letting them scribble with a stubby pencil on a piece of paper from her pocket. When Mary tried to run across the room to play with the children of the consumptive woman, Rose pulled her back and refused to let her go, precipitating a screaming fit from the bored, frustrated toddler.

It was noon before a harried-looking nurse called her into a room. Mary was whining hungrily, and even Nadia tugged on Rose’s skirt and looked at her pleadingly, pointing to her mouth to indicate that she wanted to eat.

Rose had no food for them. Pointing to a corner of the room, she directed them to sit there and play until she was done. Mary continued whining, complaining that she was hungry and that Rose was mean. Nadia found a small hole in the wall and crouched down to examine it.

A doctor came in a moment later. He started to question Rose about her problem, but Mary’s whining interrupted him.

"Mary, be quiet," Rose commanded, more harshly than she intended. She’d had enough of Mary’s whining.

Mary immediately gave a wail of misery, plopping down next to Nadia. Nadia stopped poking her fingers into the hole in the wall and began to wail herself.

Rose sighed, moving to get off the table and go to them, but the doctor crouched down beside them and dug into his pocket, fishing out two lollipops.

"Come on, you don’t want to cry," he told the girls, handing each a candy. Distracted by the unexpected treat, the toddlers stopped crying and put the candy in their mouths, sitting quietly while he went back to Rose.

"Thank you," she told him, grateful for the peace and quiet, however temporary.

"Not a problem," he told her. "Pediatrics is my specialty. Now, what seems to be the problem?"

"I’ve been sick to my stomach for the last three weeks. Not all the time, though, just in the mornings. I always feel better later, and hungry. I’ve been tired, too. I usually take a nap when they do." She indicated the children sitting in the corner. "Sometimes, I’ll fall asleep early in the evening, too, usually right after I put them to bed."

The doctor had been taking notes, nodding as he did so. Looking closely at her, he asked, "When was your last monthly?"

Rose blushed at the question, wondering what it could possibly have to do with anything--until she realized that the last time had been early in April. Her eyes widened in understanding.

"Early April," she told him. "Could I be pregnant?" It isn’t possible, she told herself. After all, it only happened once.

"You might be. I’ll need to examine you to be sure."

Stepping behind a screen in a corner of the room, Rose prepared for the examination, blushing at the thought of being examined so intimately. Surely she wasn’t really pregnant. She should just call off the whole thing and leave. John would never know the difference. She would eventually feel better, and everything would go on as it had before.

Shaking her head, Rose stepped out from behind the screen and climbed back up on the examining table, putting her feet in the stirrups and trying to avoid looking at the doctor. Mary toddled over, looking at her curiously.

"What you doing, Aunt Wosie?"

"Just letting the doctor examine me, Mary. Go play with Nadia until I’m done."

"Aunt Wosie..."

Nadia toddled over and tugged on Mary’s hand, leading her back to the corner and showing her the hole in the wall. Rose sighed as the children turned their attention to the mysteries of the dark, dusty space in the wall.

After the examination, she sat up, pulling the flimsy hospital gown more closely around her. "Well?" she asked, her heart pounding nervously as she waited for the answer.

"You’re pregnant," the doctor told her. "My guess is about two months along."

Rose shook her head. "I can’t be," she protested. "It only happened once..." She clapped her hand over her mouth as she realized what she was saying.

"Once is all it takes, Miss Dawson."

Rose heard the emphasis on the word Miss and stiffened. "It’s Mrs. Dawson, actually," she told him. "I’m a widow. My husband and I were married on April 14, 1912--on the Titanic. When the ship sank, my husband went down with it." She looked at him fiercely, determined that no one would ever call her child a bastard.

The doctor gave her a skeptical look, but didn’t argue. He didn’t believe that she had been married, but Rose wasn’t the first unmarried mother to invent a husband.

"All right, Mrs. Dawson. Do you have any further questions?"

Rose shook her head, wanting to leave. "No." Embarrassing as it might be, she thought that she could ask John questions. After all, he had a daughter, and had obviously lived with Mary’s mother through her pregnancy. She certainly wasn’t going to ask questions of this judgmental man.

After changing back into her dress, Rose left, agreeing hurriedly to the man’s admonition to see a doctor regularly. She didn’t know if she would or not. She had little money, and she didn’t want to come back to the clinic. She supposed that she would if she had to, but she preferred to avoid it. There was a woman in the next apartment building that was a midwife. Perhaps she could go to her to be sure that everything was right with the baby.

Lifting the toddlers onto her hips and untying Allegro from the stair railing where she had left him, Rose started back toward the apartment. When Mary again complained that she was hungry, Rose stopped at the cart of a street vendor and bought lunch for all three of them, sitting to eat on a nearby bench and tossing their scraps to Allegro.

As she ate, Rose moved her hand slowly over her still-flat midsection, thinking about the baby growing inside her. Would it be a boy or a girl? Who would it look like--her or Jack, or maybe a combination of their features? As difficult as the prospect of being unwed and pregnant was, she was glad she was having a baby. Jack was dead, but a part of him would live on through their child.

Looking up at the sky, she wondered if Jack somehow knew about the baby. We’re having a baby, Jack. Do you know that? Are you watching over me, even now, with the knowledge that a part of you still lives on? Thank you, so much, for this precious gift. No matter how hard it is, I am going to have this baby and give it all the love and care a child could want.

There was no sign that her thoughts had been heard, that anyone was aware of what she was thinking, but nevertheless Rose felt a sensation of warmth go through her, and she somehow knew that Jack knew and approved.

*****

Rose napped alongside the toddlers that afternoon, then spent most of the rest of the day playing games with them, much to their delight. Even the somber Nadia giggled when they played hide and seek and Rose crawled under the table, still visible to the tiny girls.

Rose’s enthusiasm lasted through dinner, but after the children were in bed for the night, she began to feel uneasy again. John had asked her at dinner if she had found out what was wrong, and she had promised to tell him later. Now, he was at the table again, waiting for her.

She sat down across the table from him, nervously folding and unfolding a pile of the children’s clothes, which she had washed the day before and hung out to dry on a clothesline stretched between her apartment and the apartment across the street. He looked at her intently, but Rose avoided his eyes.

"Did you find out what was wrong?" John asked her after a moment.

"Yes." Rose ducked her head, suddenly finding a missing button on Nadia’s dress extraordinarily interesting.

"What is it?"

She finally looked at him, her face set, as though daring him to put her out on the street after he heard her news.

"I’m pregnant," she told him bluntly. "The baby is due in January."

John nodded, dismayed but not surprised. Having outlived two wives, he recognized the visible symptoms of pregnancy, but he had half-hoped that he was wrong about Rose. She wasn’t married, and he knew what the neighbors would think, how they would gossip. He wasn’t the father of her baby; he had never laid a hand on her, but they wouldn’t believe that.

"Who is the father?" he asked her, equally bluntly.

She stared back at him. "That’s none of your business."

"I think it is."

"It isn’t."

"You do know who he is, don’t you?"

Rose’s face reddened. She gave him an angry look. "Yes," she told him tersely.

"Your ex-fiancé?"

"No!" Rose told him sharply, then clapped a hand over her mouth, realizing that she had said more than she intended. John had also been on the Titanic, in third class, and he might well know about Jack, might have seen them dancing together that night in steerage. If he remembered that, he might put the pieces of the puzzle together, and realize who her baby’s father was. Rose winced at the idea. She wasn’t ready to talk about Jack; she didn’t know if she would ever be ready.

"So it was the other one, then? The one you were dancing with that night?"

Rose glared at him, irritated that he had figured it out so easily. "I’m his widow," she lied. "We were married the last night on Titanic, and then he died in the sinking."

John looked at her levelly. "You weren’t married to him. You just took his name. I saw your fiancé walking around looking for you on the Carpathia."

"I’m his widow," Rose told him firmly, her voice even and steady. "That’s all you need to know. That’s what the neighbors will learn if they ask questions."

"They’ll ask questions. They already wonder why I have an unmarried woman living in my apartment."

"If I’m still here."

"Are you planning on leaving?"

"That’s up to you." Rose looked at him. "This is your apartment, and those are your children. I will understand, of course, if you wish for me to leave."

John looked at the table, thinking. What would he do with another child in the apartment? Would Rose be able to support her baby on the three dollars a week he paid her? He might be able to afford to give her few cents more, but that was all. Of course, the baby wouldn’t be born until January, and she probably wouldn’t have to buy food for the child for several months after that.

"Do you want me to leave?" Rose’s voice interrupted his thoughts. "If you do, I need to know now, so that I’ll have time to try to find a job before my condition becomes visible."

John didn’t answer her. Instead, he asked, "Where is...Mr. Dawson?"

Rose stared at him. "He’s dead. I told you that. He died in the sinking." A look of grief came over her face.

He sighed. "You can stay," he told her, "if you want to."

"Thank you for your kindness." Her voice was sarcastic.

"Look, Rose, I can’t say that I approve of the situation you’re in, but the girls love you, and I’m not going to tear their lives apart again by sending you away."

It was on the tip of Rose’s tongue to tell him to find someone else to care for his children, but she knew that he was right. Mary and Nadia had grown attached to her, and she wouldn’t simply leave them if she didn’t have to.

"I’ll stay," she told him quietly. "You can tell the nosy neighbors that I’m your cousin or some such thing if they ask. In my heart, I am a widow, and I will tell people as much--if they ask."

"How are you going to convince people that you’re a widow? You don’t have a ring."

"A woman has to do something to stay alive when her husband is gone and she is alone. Even if it means selling her wedding ring to survive. I’m obviously not a wealthy woman."

She stared at him, daring him to challenge her. Whenever anyone had asked her name, she had identified herself as Rose Dawson, allowing people to come to their own conclusions as to whether she was married or not. Most people called her Miss Dawson, but a few who had seen her only with Mary and Nadia and assumed that she was their mother called her Mrs. Dawson. Whenever someone called her Miss Dawson after this, she would correct them, telling them that her name was Mrs. Dawson. Any questions about the sudden change she would explain by telling people that she had been so upset over her husband’s death that she hadn’t wanted to be called Mrs. Dawson, because it reminded her to painfully of him. People would understand such an emotion; at least, most of them would.

She would simply have to be strong in the face of the others. Her baby was depending upon her.

Chapter Eight
Stories