AN UNFORGETTABLE JOURNEY
Chapter Twenty
Jack frantically tried to draw the
wildflowers that were sitting in front of him. He was getting more frustrated
by the minute. If he could just draw something…anything! But his ability to
draw had left him, just as Titanic had left the world, taking his dreams with
it. He threw the paper down angrily. His eyes started to water as the memory of
a beautiful face came into his mind. Rose. She was everywhere. In his thoughts,
in his dreams, in his heart. He couldn’t escape her memory no matter how hard
he tried. Why did she have to die? Why couldn’t I have died with her? He
didn’t understand how he had survived; it was a miracle, a cruel miracle. He
remembered awakening in the freezing water. Instinctively, he had held his
breath; he had no idea how he had gotten under the water in the first place. He
shivered as he remembered the darkness, and the cold. But his love for Rose had
made him live.
"Why, God? Why?" he whispered. He
couldn’t keep the tears from coming. They had come a lot lately, but never in
front of his family. They knew nothing of his time on Titanic, or of Rose, for
that matter. It had been a week since he had arrived in Chippewa Falls.
Thank goodness that my ten bucks made it
through the sinking. I bet that I’d still be stuck in New York, he thought to himself. He suspected that his family
knew something was wrong, but they hadn't questioned him, and he was thankful
for that. He wasn’t ready to relive the horror of that night out loud yet; he
couldn’t bear to speak of it.
His thoughts were interrupted by footsteps
coming from behind him. He was sitting in a grassy field. It was hidden away
from his house, but somebody had found him anyway. He felt slightly annoyed at
the interruption. It was his day off from his new job at the shoe factory. He
just wanted to be alone. Wiping away his tears, he turned around.
Diane Baker, his best friend’s sister, was
standing behind him. She seemed to follow him around wherever he went these
days. He suspected that she had feelings for him. That was the last thing that
he wanted to deal with right now.
"Hey, Diane. What are you doing out
here?" he asked her kindly. "Is Jesse around?" he added,
referring to his best friend.
"Yeah, he’s back at the house. I came to
tell you that Nora has almost finished dinner. I’m not sure how good it’ll be,
though. You know her cooking," she said with a laugh.
He smiled. His sister loved to cook, but
unfortunately she wasn’t very good at it. Katherine, his brother’s wife,
usually did the cooking, but she had been sick the last few days.
"Thanks, Diane, for letting me know. Are
you and Jesse staying for dinner?"
She nodded. "Yeah, we just love Nora’s
cooking!" she joked. Her attention turned to his scattered drawings.
"I see you’re getting some work done," she said, as she gestured to
the papers that were lying on the grass. She noticed a sadness cross over his
face. She knew that he had changed greatly in the past five years. Even his
drawings had changed. She suspected that something had happened to him, but
whatever it was, he never spoke of it, and no one ever asked.
"If you can call it that. I can’t seem
to draw anymore," he said sadly.
Diane suddenly felt uncomfortable. She had
known him all her life; she had loved him all her life, yet he seemed like a
stranger. She wished that he would open up to her. If only he felt the same
way about me, she thought longingly.
Jack got up suddenly. He bent over and
collected his drawings. "Well, I guess we better get back to the house
before Nora gets upset. You know how she hates it when we miss out on her
cooking." That was one thing he had discovered about his sister since he
had gotten back.
They walked back to the house in silence.
Diane felt like crying. Something was obviously wrong with Jack; he must have
experienced something terrible. She had never seen him so distant before; it
was like he was in another world entirely. Diane wanted more than anything to
comfort him, but she didn’t even know what was wrong. She looked at him
longingly. I wish you loved me, Jack. I know that I could make you happy. She
had been in love with him since her thirteenth birthday. She was now nineteen.
But he had never returned her feelings. At least to her knowledge, he hadn’t.
When they entered the house they could smell
the wonderful aroma of dinner cooking. Jack looked at Diane and smiled.
"Doesn’t smell bad. Maybe there’s hope
for Nora after all," he said with a twinkle in his eye.
Diane hadn't seen much of that familiar
twinkle since he had come back home. Every now and then she saw a glimpse of
it. She hoped to see his eyes twinkle more often.