TITANIC ROSE
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rose picked up Andrew from his crib and
cradled him in her arms. "You're getting so big," she said. "And
you're only two months old. My, my." She smiled and kissed his chubby
cheek.
"There you are," Thomas said,
entering the nursery still in his pajamas. "I woke up, and you weren't
there. I felt you had gone to off your mother, for sure."
Rose laughed. "No, Thomas. No matter how
much I hate her, I won't kill her. She'll suffer more alive, knowing the pain
she's caused."
"I don't know why she would bring up
your history if you didn't want her to."
"She does everything to spite me,"
Rose replied. "Including not letting me raise my darling baby myself. I
think I'm a good mother."
"I think you are, too," Thomas
said. He placed his lips on her cheek and turned to leave. "I'll be
downstairs."
"All right," Rose said, placing
Andrew on his changing table. "We need to get you in a nice clean diaper
and some nice clothes, now."
The baby giggled and reached for Rose's
curls. He held them in his hands as she changed his diaper. "So, you like
auburn hair, huh, Andrew? Well, that's unfortunate, since you have a full head
of your father's hair."
She heard a knock on the door downstairs, and
Thomas' footsteps rushed to answer it. Rose finished dressing the baby and
walked to the top of the stairway.
"Ruth!" Thomas exclaimed. "I
thought we agreed you wouldn't be a bother to us for a while."
"I wanted to see if my daughter has told
you anything, yet," Ruth replied, pushing her way into the sitting room.
"She's as stubborn as her father, though. Has she told you anything?"
"No, and I don't want her to,"
Thomas said, folding his arms. Rose tiptoed down the stairs and stood behind
Thomas.
"What do you want, Mother? Haven't you
caused enough trouble already?"
"Not until I get you two divorced,"
Ruth answered angrily. "Cal Hockley was the perfect man for you. Rich,
handsome, debonair. But you gave that all up for--"
"Stop!" Rose yelled. "Thomas,
please take Andrew upstairs. I don't want him to hear what I am going to say to
my own mother."
Thomas took Andrew from his wife, and looked
pleadingly into her eyes. "Perhaps we should bring the police into this
matter. It could be called stalking."
"That's exactly what she wants,
Thomas," Rose told him. "So that she can tell my story to the entire
town in the newspapers. No, the police don't have to come."
Thomas took the baby up to the nursery,
hoping the fray below wouldn't get that bad. But soon he heard every word in
the book being used to describe Ruth and her actions.
"Now, get out!" Rose cried when she
finished.
"Fine," Ruth said. "But I'll
be back. The police will learn how you abuse your child, how you use every man
you come across, and how you've never lived a stable life. They'll commit
you."
"Those are all lies, and everyone here
knows me. They know for a fact I never abuse my child or go around whoring
myself to people."
"And what about John, dear? He thought
you loved him, and killed himself. That's a strong enough case right there to
have you jailed."
"Get out of my house, and don't come
back!" Rose shoved her mother out the door, slamming it behind her. She
turned to see Thomas standing at the top of the steps, looking at her.
"John? What was she talking about John
for?" he asked. "Is this true?"
"Thomas, it's not what you think."
Rose ran to him when he came down the stairs. "Back in New York, he tried
to rape me."
"He tried to rape you once, but he
thought he loved you?"
"Well, we were sort of living together,
but it's not like that. We were just friends, and he offered me a place to stay
after Titanic. Please, believe me."
"I do, Rose. I do. Your mother is just
trying to separate us, is all." He hugged her.
"I'm glad you understand, Thomas. My
life is a horrible, horrible mess."
*****
Myrtle held Emily in her arms as she sat on
the couch. "So, we all know about your mother."
"You do?" Rose asked. "What do
you know?"
"That you chased the poor soul away. All
she wanted was to be with you."
"It's more than that," Rose stated.
"She was trying to separate Thomas and me. That was truly wrong, and she
tried to ruin us all."
"She's an old woman," Myrtle
replied. "She just wanted to be close to her only family around. It was
wrong of you to chase her away."
"She's hardly away," Rose told her.
"She's staying at a nice, expensive hotel until things between us calm
down, which I'm sure they never will."
"She's your mother." Rose detected
coldness in her friend’s voice, a coldness she had never heard before.
"Maybe genetically, she is," Rose
retorted. "A mother is a person who nurtures her child, loves them, only
wants their happiness. But when a mother tortures their child and lives on the
child's unhappiness, that is no mother. She is only a mother by birth. She
doesn't love any of us."
"I doubt that," Myrtle said.
"Nobody in town thinks it was right of you to send her out. As a matter of
fact, there is a council meeting tonight to see what can be done. We all liked
Ruth."
"What do you mean by what can be
done?"
"Either you let Ruth back, or--well--we
haven't decided on the ultimatum yet."
"I can't believe you have all turned
against us."
"Even if you do let Ruth back, we might
not feel the same way for you as we did. You ran out your own mother! Have you
no compassion?"
"I have enough compassion to know when a
person does not, and she's one of those without it," Rose replied. "I
can't believe you can't see that."
"I have warned you," Myrtle said,
standing. "And now I must leave. Think it over, Rose."