First chapter of What Emma Doesn't Know officially up! Enjoy guys!
Oh and a little reminder: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING FROM TITANIC.
Love Always!
Lauren:)
"Come Josephine in my flying machine going up she goes, up she goes," I sang aloud to myself as I laid on the wooden bench in the park, staring up at the sky.
"Up she goes." The familiar lullaby that my mother used to sing to me kept playing in my head even after I stopped singing. It was the first day that it hadn't rained in weeks, so I got up especially early to sketch the sunrise. Mom said I had a natural artistic ability, and that I had gotten it from my father, but I guess I'll never know.
My mother said that my father had died before I was born, heroicly, but even to this day, she still hasn't told me how. The only "clue" I have, is that he sacrificed his life for her. Even though I had accepted the fact that I would never know my father, every once in a while, it got to me, and it got to my mother even worse.
As tears started to well up in my eyes, I grabbed my sketchpad and stood up, brushing off my dress with my free hand in the process.
No Emma, I thought, no tears.
I walked down the path and out of the park into town, and headed towards home. As I walked down the street, I leaned my head back to feel the warmth of the golden sun on my skin. There were many people walking down the street today, but I still felt lonely. Not knowing who my father was had created some type of void within me, and I didn't like it.
"Emma!" two people yelled from behind me in unison, dragging my head out of the clouds. I whipped my head around to find Grace and William, my best friends, running at me. Boy was I glad to see them.
"Hey! What's going -" I started as they both crashed into me, hugging me in the process.
"Emma we did it! We did it!" Will screamed. I smiled wide and hugged them both back.
"What, we did?" I yelled. Grace nodded her head crazily and threw her hand into her pocket, grabbing a small brown box.
My eyes widened, and I grabbed the box from her. I opened it slowly and stared at the shiny gold necklace inside. I held the heart shaped pendant in my hand and flipped it over. In the inscription it read:
Going up she goes...
"It's perfect," I whispered "She'll love it." Grace and Will smiled broadly, and we all ran into eachother again.
"Just make sure she knows we helped." Will joked. Grace and I laughed, and I nodded.
"Of course Mr. Baker." I joked back "And oh! How could I forget about Miss. Reynolds?" We all laughed again.
"Well thank you Miss. Dawson! Hey, do you want me to hold on to it so your mom won't find it?" Grace asked me. I shook my head and closed the box.
"Nah, that's okay, I have the perfect hiding spot," I said "Hey, you guys want to come over?" Will frowned slightly, and explained why.
"Can't. We're burrying Anna and George's pet frog today." he said. I bit my lip, not really knowing what to say. I mean, it was a frog, did I really need to give Will my condolences?
"Oh, sorry." I said. He smiled and shrugged.
"Eh, it was just a frog." Dang, I was right.
"Grace, how about you?" I asked, quickly changing the subject. Grace's face lit up and she nodded profusely.
"Sure! We can talk about clothes to buy for school next year." Will and I both looked at eachother nervously.
"Uh, Grace," Will said "I don't think that there's going to be school next year." Grace's expression sadened.
"The town just doesn't have enough money right now to rebuild it." I continued. Grace scrunched her nose.
"It was just a little fire." she squeaked. William raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"A little fire, Grace, it burned down the entire high school." he explained. I shot him a look saying, shut the heck up, but it was too late, a tear streamed down Grace's face, and she started to twirl her brown hair, something she always did when she was upset.
"But, they already cut school three months early, and next year was supposed to be our first year of high school. What are they going to do, let us grow up dumb?" Grace complained. Will and I both exchanged looks of sadness, and just shrugged. I put my hand on her shoulder and we started to walk home. I looked back at Will and waved, smiling.
Thank you. I mouthed. He smiled back and waved as well.
Your welcome. He mouthed back.
When Grace and I opened the door to Callaghns's, the restaurant that Mrs. Callaghan owned, what we found was certainly not what we excpected. As soon as we walked through the door, we both saw my mother sitting at one of the tables, bawling her eyes out.
"M-mom?" I asked shakily. I was stunneed. My mother never cried, well, that's not entirely true. For some reason, on every April fifteenth, she's up all night crying, and I always stay up to console her, but today, today wasn't April fifteenth, that wasn't for another eight more days. I remember I used to be scared when she did this because it always started with her having some strange nightmare, but because the first time I had noticed this was when I had just turned ten, I was pretty used to it by now, but all of the other times since that, weren't as bad as the first...
I woke up suddenly to the sound of Mom crying.
"Mom!" I yelled. I was nervous. A million questions ran through my mind instantly. Is she okay? Is someone hurting her? What's going on?
"Mom!" I yelled again. I jumped up out of the bed and ran down the hall. I wacked opened the second door on the right and saw mom shaking in her bed.
"Mom!" I ran over to her, stubbing my toe on the dresser in the process. I shook her quickly.
"Mom, mom!" I shouted once more. I shook her crazily untill she finally awoke, sweating and panting profusely.
"Come back!" she yelled. I stared at her wide eyed, not knowing what to do, not knowing what to say.
"Mom, I, I haven't left." I squeaked out like a mouse. She looked at me scared, and sat up slowly.
"I know, I know. I just had, a, a bad dream, Emma, I'm, I'm sorry." she said slowly, trying to catch her breath. I sat down on the bed next to her and held her tight. She rubbed my arms, trying to hold back tears.
"It's okay mom, you can cry." I told her. She sighed, and hesitantley let out a tear. Suddenly, that tiny tear turned into a waterfall cascading all over her nightgown. I was nervous that this wasn't just a bad dream, but I didn't want to ask her if my hunch was right now.
"Come Josephine in my flying machine going up she goes, up she goes." I sang to her softly, untill we both drifted asleep.
"Is, is she okay?" Grace asked quietly, bringing me back to reality. I looked over my mother frightened. Her makeup was running down the sides of her face, along with her tears, and her fiery red hair was tangled into a loose bun, that held barely any of it. The rest was hanging down, mostly stuck to her wet face.
"I, I don't know." I confessed. Grace squeased my shoulder tightly, and smiled at me, almost to reassure me.
"I should leave," Grace said "I'll see you tomorrow." Grace reopened the door and walked out. I slowly moved myslef over to my mother, and touched her gently. She jumped quickly, but then relaxed as she looked up and saw that it was only me.
"Emma?" she questioned. I nodded my head nervously, when Mrs. Callaghan hurried out of the kitchen.
"Here you go Rose," Mrs. Callaghan said "There's no problem too big that a good cup of tea can't fix. Oh, hello Emma!" I smiled. Good 'ole Mrs. Callaghan. Mrs. Callaghan had taken my mother in when she had no where else to go and told her she could stay here as long as she wanted, even when they found out she was pregnant three weeks later. Mom was like the daughter she never had, and I was like her grandchild.
Suddenly, a thought ran through my mind, and I was sure that that thought was also a fact.
"Hey Mrs. Callaghan, would you give my mother and I a minute please?" Mrs. Callaghan smiled as well, and set down the cup of tea in front of mom.
"Of course." Mrs. Callaghan scurried up the stairs into the house leaving mother and I all alone. I sat across from her in one of the creaky old chairs, and rested my head on my hands.
"Are you thinking about... you know?" I asked nervously. My mother raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"What?" she asked between sobs. I gulped, trying hard to stay vague.
"You know... you know who..." I said. My mother's expression was still blank.
"Emma Marie Dawson what in god's name are you talking about?" my mother practically yelled. I sighed.
"Ughh... you know... him." I confirmed circling my hand in front of my face. My mother laughed, now knowing what I meant.
"Haha, oh Emma. Um, yes, him." mom said. She looked away quickly, with a distant look in her eyes and continued.
"I just wish he could be here to see you. You're like him in so many ways." Oh no, I thought Not again! Every time we had a conversation about my father, it was practically the same one over and over. You're like him in so many ways, yada, yada, yada.
"Not just the remarkable resemblence; dirty blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, but also his love of adventure. I mean sure I wanted adventure, but he had one every day, and craved it more and more." There she goes rambling. I could just leave right now and she wouldn't even notice. Trust me, I've done it before. I stood up and wacked my hands down on the table.
"Oh mom, this is the only thing you tell me about my father, I don't even know his name!" I yelled. My mother was taken aback. I never yelled at my mother, never.
"Emma, you don't understand how difficult it is for me to even think about him, let alone talk about him. Every time I do, this happens." she said. I looked down at the floor and shuffled my feet.
"Are the nightmares, are they about him?" I asked. She nodded slowly, and I knew that I should leave. As I walked past her to get to the stairs, I leaned over and kissed her on the head.
"Sorry." I whispered. She smiled and patted my hand. I continued towards the stairs when I heard my mother say something. I spun around to look at her.
"What?" I asked. She turned to look at me as well.
"I said, his name was Jack." I smiled and ran over to hug her.
"Thanks, mom." I said. She smiled and kissed my arm.
As I opened the door to my room, I closed it behind me and locked it tightly. The last thing I wanted was for my mother to find her Mother's day present a month before Mother's Day. I walked over to my vanity table and knelt right in front of the chairs. I then lifted up two lose floorboards, and snuck the brown box under them.
Wow, I thought What other friends would help pay for their friends Mother's Day present? I then set my sketchbook in the drawer of my right bedside table, thankfull I had the friends that I had.
Later, after I had gotten dressed, I laid in bed unable to sleep, mostly because I was thinking about my dad. I had so many unanswered questions, it was unbelievable! One thing I knew was that it was going to take a lot of work for mom to answer them, so I would have to be patient. I flicked off the light and turned over on my side. I closed my eyes and sang to myself...
"Come Josephine in my flying machine going up she goes, up she goes." untill I fell fast asleep.
Well, there you have it! Make sure to R-E-V-I-E-W to tell me what you thought of it! Second chapter will be up very soon; I'll try to do a chapter every day!
