ROSE GOES ON
Chapter Eight
The months following Rose’s announcement of
her pregnancy passed quickly. She continued to care for Mary and Nadia, acting
as the mothers they no longer remembered. She combined her upper class
education with the more dynamic life of the working class immigrants to teach
them things that few children had the opportunity to learn.
Every day, after the dishes were washed and
the apartment straightened up, Rose would take the toddlers on some sort of
outing. Sometimes they would go to the local park, or would go to the market or
the second-hand store, but other times she took them farther afield, showing
them the city outside of their own neighborhood. While she never ventured into
upper class areas, still fearful of meeting someone she knew, she sometimes
took them into the middle class areas of New York City, or to the places
heavily populated by tourists. Once, she took them to Pier 54, telling them
about the night the Carpathia docked there. Mary seemed to remember something
of the time, but Nadia simply looked confused until she saw the ocean with its
waves and debris. Then she burst into tears and wailed until Rose took her away
from the frightening sight.
As John had predicted, the neighbors did
indeed ask questions about Rose’s pregnancy. She kept it a secret for as long
as she could, but within a few months she began to show enough that it could no
longer be passed off as simple weight gain. Her morning sickness had ended with
her third month of pregnancy, much to Rose’s relief, but the curious looks and
questions of the neighbors made her uncomfortable.
She solved the problem to a certain extent by
telling the biggest gossip in the building about how kind her cousin John was
to take her in after her husband had died so tragically, and how she and John
had met up outside a factory in New York where Rose was trying to find work.
Putting on a sad face, Rose told of how terrible it had been to have to sell
her wedding ring to survive, especially since it was all she had left to
remember her husband by.
The busybody promptly spread the tragic tale,
and many people came to Rose with their sympathy, telling her how lucky she was
to have a child to remember her husband by. John was regarded as something of a
hero, taking in his widowed cousin as well as a child who was no relation to
him. A few people didn’t believe the story, pointing out that there was no
resemblance between Rose and John, and that John was obviously British while
Rose was American, but people who believed the story, or wanted to believe it,
came up with their own explanations. Cousins often looked dissimilar, and it
was entirely possible that Rose’s parents had immigrated to the United States
while John’s had remained in England.
Rose stood by her story, telling it to John
so that he would know what she had said and not ruin her reputation, or her
baby’s, by disagreeing with her. She ignored the condemning looks and whispers
of those who didn’t believe her story, insisting that it was exactly as she had
said, and allowing other people to come to their own conclusions about the
missing elements of the story, so long as they did not make her, the baby, or
her household look bad.
Whenever possible, Rose bought things she
would need in preparation for the coming child. After saving her meager wages
for several weeks, she bought a sturdy secondhand cradle and bedding to go with
it. Later, she bought diapers and clothes for the infant, as well as a couple
of toys and a few other necessary items. Mary and Nadia were fascinated by her
swelling midsection, laughing with delight when Rose allowed them to feel the
baby kicking.
In November, Nadia began to talk again, this
time in English, and Rose was glad that she had stayed to help care for the
girls. The first words Nadia spoke were An Wo, asking Rose for lunch. Hearing
the frightened, silent little girl begin to talk was a delight, even when Nadia
quickly proved that she knew the two-year-old’s favorite word--no.
In spite of the precariousness of life at
times, Rose was content. She had found a family of sorts; John had become a
friend and the toddlers adored her. She was expecting her own baby in January,
a child conceived in a precious, stolen moment with the man she loved, and
everything seemed right with the world.