TITANIC ROSE
Chapter Eighteen
Rose lay in bed, three months into her
pregnancy. It was the third day of April, almost a year since she had met and
lost Jack. Her Jack, no one else's. He had been her property until the very
end. The love of her life. And then there was Thomas...
Cramps came and left, and Rose entwined
herself in her sheets. What was wrong with her baby? It had been perfectly fine
until she awoke this morning, with severe nausea and an extreme headache. Never
had it been so severe until now.
"Rose, are you all right?" Ruth
quietly opened the door, peering in on her daughter. "Should we call on
the doctor?"
"Yes," Rose replied. "Please.
I want--I want this one to survive."
"I'll tell Thomas. He's frightfully
worried about you, dear."
"Please hurry," Rose pleaded,
grasping her pillow and burying her face inside. She didn't want anyone to see
her cry, to blink the tears of pain from her eyes.
Ruth hurriedly left, and Rose could hear her
pounding footsteps tramp down the stairs. How everything ached! At only three
months. At least she was beginning to show, unlike her last pregnancy. But
something was wrong. Horribly wrong.
Pulling her knees into her chest, she lay
like that until the good doctor came, examining every inch of her body.
"Nothing wrong that I can see," he told her. "Just normal
pregnancy woes. You're in the throes of motherhood, is all."
"Are you positive? It really hurts,
doctor."
"As positive as I've ever been. That
baby's healthy, I say."
"Thank you for coming," Ruth said.
"Thomas," she called into the hallway, where Thomas was waiting
impatiently. "Please show the doctor to the door."
"I am so relieved." Rose sighed as
the doctor was escorted downstairs. "I was expecting the worst, and I've
heard everything about motherly instincts being right, and all. I was
worried."
"Too worried." Ruth sat next to her
on the bed. "Not every little pain means disaster. Why don't you get some
rest? I can tell you still hurt."
"I do. Very much."
"Don't worry about a thing. I'll make a
lunch for Thomas. I'm sure he won't want to go in for his afternoon shift
today."
"He wants to become a lawyer. Be closer
to home while I'm pregnant."
"It would be best," Ruth stated.
"More money, closer to home...the list of positive qualities is endless."
"I don't see why men always feel the
need to hop from one job to another, when the first was well enough."
"With his salary now, will he be able to
support you and the baby?"
Rose was silent, intently thinking of how
much a family, no matter how small it was, would cost. "I'm afraid not,
and even if it did, we'd barely have enough money for other things."
"He knows what he is doing. Trust
him."
"I always have trusted people," Rose
answered. "Sometimes a little too much."
Ruth knew what Rose was saying and decided
perhaps she should leave now, before the topic of conversation got somewhere it
shouldn't go. "I'm going to start on that lunch. I'll make a little extra
in case you feel a little hungry later."
"I'll try for dinner," Rose said,
snuggling back into her bed.
"All right."
*****
Rose opened her eyes, and the first thing she
noticed was how dark it was in the room. She picked her watch off the night
stand and looked at the time. It was almost six o'clock; she had slept the
entire day.
She got out of bed, pulling on her robe, and
walked slowly down the stairs. Ruth and Thomas sat by the fireplace, Thomas
with his newspaper, and Ruth with her sewing.
"And here's sleeping beauty," Ruth
said, noticing Rose looking at them.
"Beauty, indeed." Thomas helped
Rose over to a chair.
"Oh, please, I must look a fright. My
hair is sticking out--"
"You look beautiful." Thomas kissed
her cheek and replaced himself in his seat.
"You missed dinner, dear," Ruth
said. "I saved you some extra, if you'd like some. It's not much, but it's
the best I could do."
"I'm really not hungry now," Rose
replied. "Maybe later. I hope I feel hungry tomorrow, or else something is
wrong."
"The doctor said there is nothing to
worry about." Ruth sighed. "Pessimistic Rose."
"I'm rarely pessimistic," Rose
stated. "Hell, I was very optimistic when Jack--I mean, in many different
situations."
"In any case, the baby is fine,"
Ruth said, hoping Thomas didn't catch that last part. Indeed, he didn't, for he
was too involved with the black text he was reading.
"Have you heard anything on
Myrtle?" Thomas asked.
"Who is Myrtle?" Ruth asked back.
"My friend across the lake," Rose
answered, happy for a change in conversation. "She's having a child as
well. We hope to raise them together. Myrtle has been very ill lately, and I
haven't heard much."
"Why don't you go over there and find
out?" Ruth interrogated.
"It's not my place. If I hear anything,
it will be when someone tells me, not when I ask them."
"Suit yourself." Ruth sighed.
Rose had thought her mother was getting
better. But in the past few days, Rose could tell Ruth was slipping back into
her old habits, being critical and cynical. Rose hated it and wanted to scream,
feeling constantly smothered.
"I think I'll go back upstairs. Maybe
I'll be able to work myself into a hunger by walking."
Ruth couldn't take joke. "I don't think
that will happen."
Rose eyed her mother angrily and stormed up
to her room. Maybe Thomas would come and be with her soon. She prayed so.
*****
Thomas threw his arm around Rose as they lay
together in bed. "Is something on your mind, dear?" he asked.
"How could you tell?"
"Because you always discuss what's on
your mind before you go to sleep, and today you didn't. I got worried because
you didn't fulfill your habits."
"Oh, well, yes. In fact, there are many
things that are on my mind."
"Like?"
"Like how it has been almost a year
since Titanic, and since I lost--since so many people died. So much tragedy and
unexplained losses. Why do people think they can tempt fate?"
"Because we think we are the most
powerful living creatures on earth."
"And what about the most powerful of them
all? What about God? He saw this coming. He knew what was going to happen to us
all. And yet He didn't try to stop it, either."
"It was a sign that maybe we should
rethink our existence," Thomas told her. "Maybe we are becoming so
superficial we aren't really thinking about our lives anymore."
"I'm thinking constantly about my life,
and I still can find no deeper meaning except that I am alive."
"Maybe that's all we're supposed to
know."
Thomas turned off the light, leaving the room
in darkness. Rose thought about what he had said, taking it all in. She knew
that as the year since Titanic ended, she would begin to think about her time
with Jack again. She wanted to continue loving him more than ever, but she
didn't want the memories to hurt as they did. Would they ever stop?
Rose felt her swelling stomach and knew that
Jack's child had once lived inside of her. And now they were both gone. Both
memories dead. If only the other ones would have the same fate.