TITANIC ROSE
Chapter Thirty-Nine
March 1, 1918
"Mommy? Mommy!"
Rose sat up, rubbing her eyes and
blinking at the bright morning sunshine as a little hand tugged on her arm.
"Mommy? I’m hungry."
Rose shook her head to clear it,
her eyes settling first on the face of little Lora, then on the clock on the
bedside table. Her eyes widened as she saw that it was already eight o’clock in
the morning—she had overslept. She should have been up two hours ago.
"I’m sorry, darling. I slept
in. Just let me wash my face, and I’ll come downstairs and fix you some
breakfast."
"Andy got some bread, but he
dropped it and the puppy got it."
"Puppy?" They didn’t
own a dog.
"It was crying and he let it
in."
"Oh, no." Rose put her
head in her hands. Everything was going wrong this morning—and she was late for
work, too. "Excuse me, Lora, darling. If you’ll go downstairs, I’ll be
right there."
"Mommy…"
"Go on, Lora. I’ll get your
breakfast soon."
When Rose came out of the
bathroom a few minutes later, she heard a childish giggle and a puppy yelping.
Throwing on her robe, she hurried downstairs.
Her three children were sitting on
the floor of the front room, still in their nightclothes. A scrawny,
unbelievably filthy puppy darted from one to the next, yipping and wagging its
tail. It started to chase its tail, then looked up and saw Rose at the foot of
the stairs. Yipping as fiercely as it could, it raced toward her, then stopped
and squatted, making a puddle on her clean floor.
Rose took a deep breath, then
lost her temper. "Andrew Calvert! What is that dog doing in this
house?!"
The little boy stared at her, his
expression somewhere between defiance and tears. "He wanted in."
"You know what I’ve told you
about strange dogs!"
"But he’s a puppy! He was
crying…" Andrew started wailing. The other two children quickly joined in.
Rose stared at them, at a loss as
to what to do. She knew that she should comfort them, assure them that
everything was all right. Then she should catch the puppy and put it back
outside…or at least insist that it stay in the backyard until she could give it
a bath and decide what to do with it.
But she had been under a lot of
strain for a long time, and she wanted someone to comfort her and assure her
that everything was all right. It wasn’t, though, and no one could make it
right—certainly not the three crying children who were clinging to each other
instead of to her.
Rose bit her lip, wanting to cry,
too. She couldn’t tell them that their father was missing—they wouldn’t
understand, and even if they could, it would only frighten them. She had to be
strong for the sake of her children—even if she didn’t feel very strong right
now.
She looked down, startled, as the
puppy, frightened by the sudden tears from the children, looked for a place to
hide—and chose to crawl under her nightgown, which extended all the way to the
floor. It curled up, trembling, wanting to be comforted, too.
Rose just stared at
everything—her crying children, the mess on the floor, the tip of the puppy’s
tail extending from under her nightgown—and surprised everyone, including
herself, by sitting down on the bottom step and bursting into tears. It was too
much. She hadn’t felt a moment’s peace since Thomas had left, and it had been
even harder since she had received the telegram telling her that he was
missing. This morning had been the last straw.
The three children stared at
their mother, shocked out of their own tears. In an instant, the little group
ran to her, all three trying to crawl into her lap. Little Jack finally
succeeded, while the other two clung to her, all three crying in sympathy with
her now. The puppy crawled out from under her nightgown and tried to climb the
step, then sat on her feet and whined.
"I’m sorry, Mommy. I didn’t
mean to be bad!" Andrew wailed, his arms wrapped around her neck.
Rose sniffed, trying to stop her
tears. "You’re not bad, Andrew. You really aren’t."
"Then why doesn’t Daddy come
home?"
At that, Rose started crying
again. "It isn’t your fault, Andrew. It isn’t any of your faults. Your
daddy is away fighting in that stupid war."
"He’s gonna come back, isn’t
he, Mommy?"
"Of…of course he is, Andrew.
When the war’s over, he’ll come home."
She had hesitated only for a
moment, but the boy had caught it. "No, he’s not! You’re just sayin’ that!
He ain’t never comin’ back!"
Rose took a deep breath. She
didn’t want him to know that he was right, that his father was never going to
come back. He wasn’t even five years old yet; he was too young to have to face
such things.
"He’ll come back, Andrew. I
know he will. We just have to be patient."
"But what if he
doesn’t?"
"He will." Rose felt
terrible about lying to him, but she didn’t know what else she could do. She
couldn’t tell the little boy the truth.
Lora pulled the puppy into her
lap and petted it as it struggled to sit upright in the child’s tight grip.
"Mommy, if Daddy doesn’t come back, can we keep the puppy?"
Rose looked at the pleading faces
of her three children. "He will come back, Lora." She wiped her eyes,
hugging Jack before setting him down beside his siblings. "But I suppose
we can keep the puppy, if his owner doesn’t come looking for him." Perhaps
the animal would be of comfort to the children—and to her—when it finally
became obvious that Thomas wasn’t going to return.
Lora and Jack squealed and hugged
the yelping animal, but Andrew still looked at her uncertainly. "Does that
mean Daddy’s not coming back?"
Rose hugged him, wishing that he
wasn’t so perceptive. "No, Andrew. He’ll come back. I’m sure of it. I
just…I know you want the puppy."
Andrew looked at her, his eyes
sad and too knowledgeable for such a young child. "Okay, Mommy."
Rose could tell he didn’t quite
believe her, even though he wanted to. She wished she could tell him the truth,
but he was too young, even if he did seem to understand more than she wanted
him to.
Instead, she hugged him again,
then got up slowly, tightening the sash on her robe. "Why don’t we go into
the kitchen for breakfast? I’ll make us all a good breakfast as soon as I call
the studio and tell them I won’t be coming in today. Then—then we can give the
puppy a bath and go to the park. Okay?"
"Okay, Mommy." The
twins ran towards the kitchen, looking forward to breakfast, but Andrew clung
to Rose as she went to the telephone to make her call. Rose finally just picked
him up and held him tight, hoping that by some miracle what she had told him
would come true, and somehow, his father really would come home.