Disclaimer: I own nothing.
There are certain things you can and can't do when you're dead.
One of them is to leave.
Oh, you're free to wander where you choose, but once you cross, you can't go back.
The others have gone on, but I'm still waiting. I tried leaving, but I couldn't. Not yet.
XXX
We descended with frightening speed as the ship was sucked beneath the depths of the black ocean.
"This is it!" I shouted, tensing for the impact. The stern on its end was higher than some of the taller buildings I'd been on in my life. Water hissed and burbled as windows broke and the ship filled with icy liquid. From below us, I could hear terrified screams of people hanging for dear life to whatever they could hold. Some lost their grip and fell into the foaming water-I saw one man hit the railing with a sickening crunch as he disappeared from sight.
Rose began to whimper. "Oh, God, Jack, oh God, oh God, oh God."
I put my arm around her, as if I could shield her from something stronger than either of us by sheer force of will.
"Hold on!" I shouted. She sat up on the railing, bracing for the icy waters as I did, and we clenched hands tight enough to rub bone. We watched as, one by one, our fellow passengers succumbed to the ocean's throat, knowing that we would soon be swallowed.
I remembered the night—was it just two days ago?—when she had thought to jump into this ocean. How could I have known we would both be forced to endure the Atlantic anyway? I spoke fast, trying to prepare her for what we would both face.
"The ship is gonna suck us down. Take a deep breath when I say. Kick for the surface and keep kicking. Do not let go of my hand." I tilted my head to see her nod vigorously.
We were mere feet above the water line now. "We're going to make it, Rose," I shouted, glancing back at her. I would keep her safe. "Trust me."
"I trust you," she said. The water was at our feet as I yelled, "Ready? Ready? Now!" and filled my lungs with as much air as I could.
The cold was swift and brutal. For a long, strange moment, Rose and I drifted below the surface, pulled in different directions: the suction pulling me down, Rose's life jacket pulling her up, our hands locked together. I kicked upwards, but the current was too strong, and our hands were wrenched apart.
I surfaced and took a breath of air, clearing away the black spots in my eyes with only one thought in my mind. I had to find her.
Around me was a screaming mass of people, all frenzied, all panicking, all slowly freezing to death. I swam through the crowd, screaming Rose's name.
"Jack!" I heard, and swam toward the sound. "Jack! Jack!"
I found her fighting a man twice her size as he tried to climb on anything to get him out of the fiery cold. Already desperate, I flew into a rage immediately.
"Get off her! Get off her!" I shouted, and punched him until he was too dazed to take notice of her. I turned to Rose. "Swim, Rose! I need you to swim for me!"
I took her hand and half dragged her through the water as I looked for something, anything that might prove our salvation. Without a way to get out of the water, we would die quickly.
There. I saw the piece of wood and made for it as fast as I could. "Get on…get on, Rose," I said, and she crawled on to it. I followed, only to find that the board tipped under my weight. Rose screamed as she nearly toppled backwards in the water. "Stay on, Rose!" I said as I hastily moved off. It could clearly only support the weight of one of us. Looking around me, I saw nothing else to be found.
"It'll be all right now," I murmured, moving to be close to her. I willed her to believe it, and even more to make it true. I could in no way guarantee that it would be all right. As I shuddered with the cold, I clung to the only hope we had left.
"The boats are coming back for us, Rose. Hold on just a bit longer," I said. "Th-they had to row away from the suction at first, but now they'll be coming back."
They didn't.
I had been cold many times over the years-cold winters in Wisconsin spent huddled around the fire, shivering outside under bridges or in doorways in the snow. The most vivid memory was the one I had told Rose. This, though, was worse. My fall in the lake had been over quickly-this torment stretched on and on. And then I had had my father to pull me out-there was no one here to rescue me. Death, I knew, was soon to follow.
"It's getting quiet," Rose whispered, bringing me back to the moment. She was right. People were succumbing to the cold.
"It'll just t-take a minute to get the b-boats organized," I stammered. "I d-don't know about you, but I intend to write a strongly worded letter to the White Star line about all of this." It felt good to talk, even if I had to fight for the words. It at least distracted me from the silence around me.
She didn't laugh as I'd hoped she would. Her eyes were blank with misery and dread.
"I love you, Jack," she whispered, and my heart clenched.
"Don't you do that. Don't you say your goodbyes. Not yet, do you understand me?"
"I'm so cold," she whimpered.
"Listen, Rose," I said. "You're gonna get out of here, you're gonna go on, and you're gonna make lots of babies, and you're gonna watch 'em grow. You're gonna die an old…an old lady, warm in her bed. Not here, not this night. Not like this, do you understand me?"
"I can't feel my body," Rose said.
"Winning that ticket, Rose, was the best thing that ever happened to me….it brought me to you. And I'm thankful for that, Rose. I'm thankful."
She could make it, though. She was strong.
I moved closer, looking into her eyes. "You must do me this honor," I said. "Promise me you'll survive. That you won't give up, no matter what happens, no matter how hopeless. Promise me now, Rose, and never let go of that promise."
"I promise," Rose said, and there was a smile on her face at last.
I smiled too. "Never let go," I said, remembering.
"Listen! I've got you. I won't let go."
Maybe it was too late for me, but I wouldn't let Rose leave too. She had had so little love in her life and had given me so much of it. I knew what it was like to have your world come crashing down around you. She had left everything she had known-money, stability, security, her family-for me, and now I wasn't going to be there to help her.
She could make it though. She was strong.
"I will never let go, Jack," she said through chattering teeth. "I'll never let go."
I kissed the hand that I held in mine, and we smiled.
I could feel death coming for me then. I was dizzy, floating at the edge of my consciousness in what was not water, but a void.
"Come Josephine….in my flying machine…going up she goes, up she goes…."
I was so tired, and suddenly warm. This tide that was pulling me away was gentle and gradual, and I had no strength left to fight.
XXX
When I awoke, I thought at first that I was still in the void, the blank empty nothingness of death, except for the light that surrounded me.
"My son," a voice said, and I turned.
"Ma?" I said. "Is it really you? What happened?"
The shining being of light who was somehow my mother looked at me. "You've been so brave. I am so proud of you," she said, and brushed my face gently. Her touch was cold, but somehow I was not bothered it.
"Ma, I've missed you so much… I'm dead, aren't I? Where's Pop? Is Rose going to be all right?"
She held one finger to her lips. "Shh, Jack. I don't have a lot of time. I came to tell you what you must know. Yes, you have died. Rose doesn't yet know. Your father is safe on the other side, and you must decide now if you will join us."
"Join you?" I asked, confused. "Is there another option?"
"If you choose, you can delay your crossing," my mother explained. "There are those who put off their journey to what lies beyond."
"But…what about Rose?" I asked. "How will I know what happens to her? Did you and Pop stay behind?"
She shook her head, eyes filled with infinite sadness. "Your father and I crossed together. Not many make the choice to linger behind: most are waiting for someone, Jack, and it is so lonely most leave before their wait is up." Her sudden smile was glorious. "I came to this in-between place to offer you a choice. Your father and I will wait for you whatever you decide."
"What about Fabrizio? And Tommy, and the others?" I asked, thinking with sorrow of those who had perished on the ship.
"They've gone on as well. But you may have something worth staying for, if you wish it," she said.
I met her gaze for a long moment. The love that I had thought I had lost five years ago was warming me like fire. "I-I think I must stay," I said at last. "I want to wait for Rose."
"So be it," she said gently, kissing my forehead. "I am so proud, my son. I will see you again soon."
"Ma, wait! Don't go!" I said, but she was already gone.
I was alone.
I looked to my surroundings—where I had formerly seen nothing but, well, nothing, I was now hovering high in the air above the Atlantic Ocean. Peering down, I could see a lifeboat making its way towards the passengers.
There was more, as well. I could see the dead.
The spirits of the frozen bodies were congregating in a shining mass above the water, glowing with a faint light. I watched, mesmerized, as they arose like mist into the air, rising higher and higher, and I found myself wanting to join them. To be free, to simply leave this place of cold and death…
I forced myself to concentrate. Rose. Rose was living. Rose would have to deal with this grief of staying, and so would I. I would stay.
I found I could make my way down level to Rose as the lifeboat neared her. The water was still and glassy, and it was easy to believe that everyone was dead. But no—as I watched carefully, I could see the faint rising and falling of Rose's breath.
I studied my inert form. I could now see it backwards—the way it had been to everyone else. It looked quiet, peaceful—empty. Though I was separated from it, it was still mine, and I wished I could join Rose, kiss her, touch her, keep her warm in this freezing ocean. But that way was blocked to me. I suddenly felt lonelier than I ever had in my life.
The lifeboat approached, and I heard the cry for survivors. Rose saw it too, her face turning towards mine. I looked away. I couldn't bear to see her eyes filled with hope and love.
"Jack. Jack, there's a boat," she said, shaking my hand gently, her eyes puzzled. "Jack? Jack!"
I could tell when she realized the truth she could no longer deny.
"Jack, there's—there's a boat, Jack," she sobbed, limp.
She was giving up. Not far from death herself, she was going to let herself freeze.
My eyes narrowed. Don't you dare. You promised me!
I almost wondered if she heard me, for after a long moment, her head snapped up. "Come back!" she called, her voice hoarse. "Come back! Come back!"
She gently loosened my body's hand from hers. Kissing it, she whispered, "I'll never let go. I promise." Letting out a sob, she released my hand, and I watched my body sink into the ocean, drifting forever.
Rose rolled off the board, her body stiff, and swam with shaky strokes to Officer Wilde's corpse.
Yes! I thought as I realized her plan.
Taking his whistle in her mouth, she blew with all her strength. The officer aboard the lifeboat stopped, then gave the order. "Turn about!"
Rose was still blowing on the whistle as she was lifted from the water and covered with as many warm blankets as could be found.
She was safe.
XXX
That was the beginning of the eighty-four years I lingered between life and death, no longer part of the living but refusing to join the dead. My body was frozen in the Atlantic (I thought I could find it if I had tried, though I didn't want to) but my soul wandered the earth. Mostly I watched Rose. I saw her dock in New York and stand staring at the Statue of Liberty.
The wind was fresh in our faces as I stood with Fabrizio on the bow of the boat. I stretched out my arms, exhilarated. I was on top of the world; nothing could hold me down.
"I can see the Statue of Liberty already," Fabrizio said, peering into the horizon. "Very small, of course," he added, beaming at me.
I laughed. "I'm the king of the world!" I shouted, and it was true.
Now, as I watched her, I wondered what she was thinking. On board the Carpathia, she had hidden from Cal. When he had come to find her, Rose had covered her face with a blanket. I had never been more proud of her. I liked to think that I had given her the inspiration to fly.
An officer holding an umbrella approached her. "Can I take your name please, love?" he asked.
She looked at him blankly. "Dawson," she said, returning her eyes to the Statue. "Rose Dawson."
She had taken my name.
Rose went on by train to California, using some of the money Cal had left in his coat pocket. At first, she found the city overwheming and confusing-she had never traveled alone, and she was only now fully discovering how those without the blessing of weath and title were treated. Despite this, she managed to find a simple apartment and work as a seamstress. It was hard work, but she knew sewing, and she learned fast. After three months of work, she saw a notice for auditions in a moving picture show. She went to the audition, nervous, and did her best.
Weeks went by without hearing anything, but eventually she was given a small part in a small movie. She had no lines, but it was beginning.
She performed in many pictures, gaining more and more important roles as her talent was recognized. Rose was mesmerizing. Watching her act was one of the most entertaining things I had ever seen.
Though her life appeared enviable on the surface, with rising stardom and now-comfortable style of living, it was falling apart out of public eye. Many nights Rose couldn't sleep, or awoke screaming from terrible nightmares of ice closing around her, or dreams of my absence.
I hovered near her, helpless, as she sobbed into the night, crying my name.
In the morning she would get up and go about her day, perfectly composed. She allowed no one to see the beyond the surface. She was the ocean: calm and clear, with looming terrors hiding just out of sight. She wanted no pity. Titanic had been a horrible tragedy. So many had lost her lives-she could still hear the screams if she closed her eyes-and Rose counted herself lucky to have hers.
Besides, the pain of loss was too raw and private to be spoken of. If she tried to speak, she might crack open.
Years passed. Even I could see their affect on Rose, watching her as closely as I did. Her adult face had settled on her, leaving behind all traces of girlhood. She was changing inside, as well.
She had been at a publicity shoot in 1919 when she had met John Calvert. In the two years that followed, they had become close friends, one she could lean on and confide in.I remembered my own feeings too well to not recognize he was falling in love with her, and when he proposed marriage, she accepted.
John was good for Rose. He was calm, confident, caring-much more stable than Cal had been, and Rose had come to care deeply for him, if she somewhat lacked the passion she had had for me. I still haunted her-in her sleep she imagined that I accused her of unfaithfulness-but I was able to convince her in her dreams that I was happy that she had moved on with her life.
I wandered for a while after that. Despite being happy that Rose had found John, I did not particularly care to stick around for the wedding night. She deserved her privacy and I…I couldn't take that, honestly. Even thinking about it made me remember the feeling of her body, warm against mine, the soft sweetness of her skin and the warmth of the cold car.
I would never know that again.
I visited my old hometown, where we had bought goods at the store, attended church on Sundays, where I had gone to school (very reluctantly). I visited the ruins of the house where I had grown up, now burned to the ground. It was funny how, years after the fact, this place could still bring back horrific memories of that night—which was why I had avoided the place for so long.
I am fifteen years old and asleep in my bedroom when I hear the screams.
"Jack! Fire! Fire! Wake up! Wake up!" It is my mother, her eyes alight with terror, shaking me. There is too much light, and I can't see. All I can feel is the choking in my lungs that says I can't breathe, and I panic.
Rolling out of bed, we crawl towards the stairs, but the way is blocked.
"Over here!" Ma cries, and gestures to the window. There's a tree next to it, and she tries to open it. It won't budge. I hit it with my fist in desperation and shatter the glass.
"Hurry, Jack, go!" Ma tells me, and I nod and hurry though the window, climbing down the branches to the ground, choking and coughing. I move away from the house, waiting for Ma to follow.
She doesn't.
After agonizing seconds waiting, I go back for her. "Ma! Ma!" I cry, looking in the window, but she is nowhere to be found.
After the fire is out and the house is in ruins, they discover the beam of burning wood that had fallen on my mother and broken her back seconds after I had passed. My father had asphyxiated in his bed from the smoke before Ma knew what was wrong and come to wake me. I had never felt such despair.
Eventually I realized my parents wouldn't want me to be miserable. I had nowhere else to go, so I left. I always intended to come back one day, if only to visit the graves, but I died before I had the chance.
Now, I still felt the black pain of missing them. I thought of Rose and I, parted by tragedy far too soon. For the first time since that night, I wondered if I could really bear staying. All this grief had to end, didn't it? Or did the dead beyond where I could see still carry it with them?
I looked up at the sky, wondering if I could rise like I'd seen the spirits of Titanic passengers do. Where they had gone after they were out of my sight, I hadn't known, but they had vanished like mist on the water. Could I do that? I wondered. Just drift away?
I tried, imagining myself soaring through the air, weightless as the wind. It didn't work. There was no sense of a gate that I could find, no place to cross over. I was weighed down by one thought.
Rose. She was still here, and I would still wait. I couldn't leave, not yet.
Rose and John were to move from California to his hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He wouldn't have forced her to abandon her career, but she was done. As much as she had loved it, she knew it was time to move on, and after tearful goodbyes and promises to keep in touch with her friends, she was ready to leave California.
After one last thing.
She finally had the strength to face the one area she had always avoided. Santa Monica.
"Why can't I be like you, Jack? Just head out for the horizon whenever I feel like it? Say we'll go there, to that pier, even if we only ever just talk about it."
I smiled, imagining us there together. "No, we'll do it. We'll drink cheap beer, ride the roller coasters until we throw up, and ride horses on the beach right in the surf." Despite her delicate looks and fancy dress, I had no trouble imagining her doing such things. "Now you have to do it like a real cowboy, none of that sidesaddle stuff."
Rose seemed intrigued by this idea. "You mean…one leg on each side? Can you show me?"
"Sure, if you'd like."
She smiled wide. "Teach me to ride like a man."
"And chew tobacca' like a man," I said, imitating a cowboy accent.
"And…and spit like a man!" she said.
"What, they didn't teach you that in finishing school?"
Rose looked appalled at the thought. "No!"
"C'mon, I'll show you how."
"Jack, no, I couldn't possibly."
"C'mon!" I urged, pulling her by the hand to the side of the ship.
We never imagined that we wouldn't get the chance to do these things.
After Rose had left her apartment for good, she and John spent all day there. She had never been on a roller coaster before, but she rode it as many times as she could bear. In the afternoon, she was shown how to saddle a horse, and, ignoring the skepticism of the man cinching it up, accepted his hand helping her into the man's saddle.
She took it loping down the beach, leaving John far behind her, and I knew she felt my presence then. She felt glorious and alive to the tips of her toes, and we marveled in the feeling of oneness. Despite everything, we had come to Santa Monica together just as we had said we would nine years ago.
"I miss you," she whispered to me. "I'll always love you, forever."
And although I knew she wouldn't hear me, I replied, "I know."
Rose and John moved to Cedar Rapids, where John bought a house outside of town. Rose loved Iowa. It was so different from the cities she had been raised in-she had rarely spent time in the country as a girl. The house was huge and run down, but over the years they made it into their home.
I was present on one cold January night when Rose gave birth to their firstborn.
"What will we call him?" John asked, holding his son in his arms.
Rose hesitated. "Can we name him Jack?" she asked.
John never knew the significance of this request. Rose had never mentioned me, and to him it was just a name that his wife was fond of. He had no problem with it, and so Jack Andrew Calvert was christened after two dead men.
Rose was a natural mother, something I had barely had time to even think about in the time that we were together. It filled me with a strange longing, different than I had ever experienced, watching them. I loved Jack and his little sister, Mary Elizabeth, almost as much as Rose did. They were her children, and I felt almost like their father.
One night in 1929, I heard a gunshot blast through the night. I was confused—there were no guns here—and realized that it had come from far away. I followed it, curious, to a sitting room in Philadelphia. It was unmistakably the house of a very rich person. I hadn't seen such baffling grandeur since Rose's compartments on Titanic.
I paced the room, searching, and jumped in alarm. There was a dead man in the room.
He lay on the floor, apparently having slumped out of the armchair by the fire, covered in blood. A pistol lay beside him, having had just fallen out of his hand.
Cal, I thought with amazement, and it was. Rose's old fiancé was dead on the floor. What happened? I wondered.
Cal and I had despised each other on principle, seeing as we were both in love with the same girl. Love was probably using the term loosely. One of the first things I had noticed when I had seen him was his casual possessiveness of this strange, beautiful girl I'd talked down from suicide.
She had come running past me when I was out enjoying a cigarette and the stars. I followed her, concerned. She had clung to the railing, her face wet with tears as I convinced her not to throw herself into the water. When she took my hand to help her back over, she slipped on the lacy folds of her dress and plummeted down anyways.
It took all of my strength and her efforts to haul her back up, but her frantic cries had alerted the cops on board. I knew what it looked like, the girl distraught and me lying on top of her. It didn't take long for people to arrive. The Master-at-Arms clipped handcuffs on me as two first-class men came rushing towards us.
One of them, sleek and self-satisfied as a cat, was furious. "What made you think you could put your hands on my fiancee?" he snapped, shaking me. I looked involuntarily at the girl. It would be my word against hers, and who would take the word of a third-class man in plain clothes over a rich woman who was obviously someone of importance? Somehow I doubted she would want me to tell this man that she had been planning on killing herself, though I thought I was beginning to understand some of her anguish.
He noticed my glance. "Look at me, you filth!"
"Cal!" the girl cried. He seemed not to hear her.
"What do you think you were doing?"
"Cal, stop!"
"Look me in the eye-"
She was running up to us now, her hands stretched out as if to shield me. Her face was imploring and indignant at the same time. "It was an accident!" she said.
She made up a story of propellers and slipping. I could only stare in astonished gratitude-he seemed to buy her lies, however inept. He now regarded me with cold embarrassment. Like most rich folk, Cal wore a mask, and in those brief moments he slipped it aside and allowed me to see what lay underneath it. I never believed the charming facade he put up for others: I knew he was dangerous, and I was right.
As Rose boarded one of the last lifeboats off the Titanic, I found myself standing next to Cal.
"You're a good liar," he noted.
"Almost as good as you," I replied, regarding him warily. Though he was calm on the surface, Cal was a wildcat that might spring if provoked. "There's no, uh, there's no arrangement, is there?"
"Oh there is," he said. "Not that you'll benefit much from it." He gave me a twisted smile. "I always win, Jack. One way or the other."
As if Rose were a conquest, as if she could ever care for him. I fought back tears, determined to see all I could of Rose before she was gone.
She jumped.
We had been gazing at each other as she was lowered down in the lifeboat. Suddenly she glanced at gunwhale, and her eyes hardened with resolve. Pushing women aside, she flung herself back on board.
"Rose! Rose! What are you doing? No!" And I was running down hallways, pushing through doors, and there was Rose, making her way through the crowd. We embraced, both of us crying.
"I couldn't go, Jack," she sobbed.
"It's all right," I said. "We'll think of something." That was when I noticed Cal. His careful composure was gone, and I was looking at his true face. It was a split second before I noticed the gun.
I pushed Rose down as we escaped into the depths of the water-laden ship.
Apparently he had survived the disaster and gone on to marry some other unlucky lady, assuming Rose was dead. He had had his money-which was all he had ever cared about. I wondered if I should leave-Cal was the last person I wanted to see-but I was curious. Why had I heard his gun?
His spirit was beginning to stir. I stayed back out of habit. I knew that Cal could not hurt me, but somehow I doubted he would be pleased to see me on the evening of his death, either. He looked around as if he had never seen his surroundings before.
"What—where am I?" Cal said. He didn't appear to recognize me
"You're in your house, I guess," I said. "It looks like something of yours."
"What happened?" he asked.
"Don't you know?" I asked, disbelieving. "You're dead! You killed yourself. Though I'm still not sure as to why."
"So," Cal said, his voice tightening in rage as he recognized me. "Dawson, is it? That gutter rat that stole my wife? You dare to show your face? You dare?" He charged, and I easily stepped aside. Though he could not touch me, he clearly had no experience with street fighting, but I did.
"Calm down there, Cal," I said. "You can't touch me and I can't touch you, see?" I waved my hand through his form, and his eyes widened.
"Why aren't you where you belong, Dawson?" Cal asked. The hatred was not gone from his tone, but his old class was more in place. "I didn't think I'd be seeing you here. Didn't you die on that blasted ship all those years ago? I imagine you're happy since you took my wife with you?"
"Yeah, I did," I said easily. "But Rose didn't die. She's still alive, actually. Lives in Iowa with her husband and two children."
"But—impossible—I never saw her on the ship. I would have seen her name on the survivor's list."
"You didn't check for a Rose Dawson, did you?" I asked cheerfully. I could afford to be cocky now. "She hid from you, and when the boat docked, she went to California. She worked as an actress and married. And," I said, matter-of-fact, "she named one of her children Jack."
If he weren't already dead, I would have wondered if he was about to burst a few veins. I enjoyed the stunned look on his face. "Guess you don't always win after all, Cal," I said. "But tell me, why did you kill yourself? You had everything you wanted." I asked the only question I was sure he could answer. I did not much pity him his fate.
"The stock market crash," Cal said shortly.
I shrugged. That meant nothing to me.
"Oh, for heaven's sake!" he said. "I lost my fortune."
Money. Of course, it all came down to money.
"That's tough, Cal. Real tough," I said, barely able to hide the disdain in my voice. We were silent for a moment, glaring at each other. Finally Cal broke the quiet.
"Do—do you know what to do from here? Why haven't you left yet?" he asked, grimacing as he fought with his pride. He didn't want to ask me, a penniless rival even in death, for anything, but he was genuinely confused.
"I'm waiting," I said shortly.
"Ah, of course," he said.
"And in answer to your question, I don't really know. I assume you can figure it out," I said. "It's—difficult—to linger. It takes…energy. And willpower."
"And you think you have that?" he smirked.
I spread my hands. "I have better things to do than argue with you, Cal. I haven't seen you in seventeen years. It's kind of amazing you can hold a grudge for so long, isn't it?
"You're the reason I lost that little minx!" Cal snapped. "You tricked her away from me!"
"No, I didn't," I said. "I didn't force her into anything. I saved her. And I love her." I broke off abruptly. I had said too much. I wasn't here to bare my secrets to Caledon Hockley.
"I'm done here," I continued. "I'm leaving. You'd better go…wherever you're going."
I left Cal to his grave, and whatever lay beyond. I learned later that when you linger, you have a connection to those you knew in life. Since everyone I had known in life save Cal and Rose was dead, Cal was the only one I watched pass. I never saw him again.
A few days later, Rose was shocked to see Cal's name in the paper, and she read the article of the suicide and his children fighting over what remained of his estate. She shuddered to think of what could have been had she married him. When John came in the kitchen, she folded the paper nervously. He never guessed, of course, that Rose had been engaged to him, and she never mentioned it. Sometimes Rose wondered if John had married a stranger.
Years passed. Rose's life was hard, in some ways-they never had much money, and at the worst times Rose would sit on her bed and think about the diamond that she kept in the pocket of the old coat under the floorboards. She hadn't taken it out since she had arrived at her apartment in California, but she had always kept it safe and hidden. She had thought many times of selling it, but she knew how easy it would be to trace-and she couldn't explain her sudden wealth to John, who knew nothing of her former life.
It was then that she allowed herself snipperts of memories-never much, for to remember everything was to relive the horror that she wasn't ready to experience again. A sideways glance, my fingers laced in hers, the sun on her face, spinning in circles, breathless with laughter.
She thanked God on her knees that my namesake was too young to be drafted when the Second World War broke out, though he had been eager to go. The nightmares were fewer and farther between, although April was always a difficult month: many times John would find her crying by the window, for reasons she never really explained. He didn't pry. Rose had put me in a back corner of her mind, but I was never far from her thoughts, like the heartbeat you never notice but is always there.
The children were eventually gone, marrying and having their own children. Jack's daughter, Elizabeth, named for her aunt, was very close to Rose, and, though of course she never said it, she reminded her of me. When Rose was sixty-nine years old and John was seventy-seven, he had a stroke.
Rose's children and grandchildren gathered around his bed and spoke to him. He was weak, but the doctors were optimistic. Rose held his hand and prayed that her husband would not be taken from her yet.
He returned home, and they celebrated Rose's seventieth birthday together, inviting all their friends and family. John kissed Rose on the lips and said there were many years to come.
Two weeks later, he was dead.
At the funeral, Rose didn't cry, only gripped the back of the chair in front of her.
John, why did you leave me? Why do I have to go through this again? I can't—I can't do this.
Afterwards, she simply stood in the crowd of guests, saying very little, lost and lonely. She had had two loves die. She was numb, feeling nothing.
At times like this, I wanted nothing more than to hold her. She had loved John and lost him as she had lost me, and she had been abandoned by her husband. Though I didn't know where John was, I knew he had left. He hadn't stayed to watch her finish her life.
I'm still here, I whispered. I still love you.
Her children visited often after that, especially Lizzy, and when Rose's body weakened, Lizzy came to help her pack. As Rose watched the vestiges of her life, with its love and loss, be packed into boxes, she remembered the one tie she had left to her young self. While Lizzy readied the last of the furniture, Rose quietly removed the floorboards and picked up the piece of rags that had once been Caledon Hockley's finest coat. She hadn't bothered trying to keep away the moths, and it was slightly damp from the rain that had seeped under the house.
"Are you ready, Nana?" Lizzy asked, coming into the room. "Ugh, what's that? It's filthy," she said, brushing it off.
"Yes, I am, dear. Thank you," Rose said, reaching for it.
"Do you want me to wash this for you? I can run it through the washing machine," Lizzy offered.
"No, that's all right. I'll do it myself later," Rose replied, feeling the thin fabric that had once kept her warm. She found the lump in the pocket that told her what she needed.
"Now, what do you say to a walk, my dear? I believe we still have some time before the moving van comes."
Lizzy had been Rose's closest friend since John had died. She was grateful for the help, as well-she was beginning to need it. I was tired, as well. Despite not having aged in decades, the weight of staying was beginning to drag on me. I felt sluggish and slow, and thought more and more of what lay beyond.
In 1996, mere months before her 101st birthday, Rose returned to the site of Titanic. We had watched the discovery of my drawing—my best one, the nude drawing of Rose—on the local news, and she and I both knew that the time was coming.
I watched as she told the researchers our story, finally giving in to the ghosts of the past. She remembered every detail, and I became lost in the story as well, listening to her retell all of my memories. When she finished, I awoke as if from a spell. Her voice was soft. "But now you know that there was a man named Jack Dawson, and that he saved me, in every way that a person can be saved. He exists now, only in my memory."
Not true, I whispered.
That night, she produced from her pocket the Heart of the Ocean diamond I had sketched her wearing so many years ago. Though her body was frail and stiff, with age spots, wrinkles, and white hair instead of the red that I loved, to me she was still as beautiful as ever.
She held the diamond in her hand.
It was everything.
It was Cal and her mother-the entire life she had fought off. It was years of grief and loneliness. It was the Titanic itself, cracking in half, its icy veins filled with salt water. The faces of the dead that still haunted her. It was me, eyes taking her in as I drew, hands on her skin, my face, blank and hollow as I sank into the depths of the ocean.
It was time.
Rose tossed the diamond into the ocean, finally free.
I flew into the sky, knowing exactly what to do, and found myself on board the Titanic once again. I laughed for the sheer wonder of it. Of course this would be the gateway I had been looking for. Of course this was where Rose and I would cross together. It was just as fancy as I remembered it.
I entered the room to find people waiting for me. "Fabrizio!" I shouted, and we flung ourselves at each other.
So many faces, so many names. There was everyone who had died when the ship went under, safe. I embraced Tommy, danced with little Cora. I could hardly believe the enormity of my relief. I hadn't realized fully how agonizing staying had been-it was an ache that I hadn't felt completely until it was gone.
"There's someone coming you might want to see," Mr. Andrews said, smiling at me.
"Rose!" I cried. For the first time, I had nearly forgotten her.
I ran up the stairs to study the clock. I heard the door open and the soft sound of footsteps.
And there she came.
I turned and saw her, drinking her in. My Rose, come to join me at last, as young and strong as she had been at seventeen. I smiled and held out my hand, and I felt a jolt of electricity as she touched it. After so many years of being insubstantial, nothing was more real than her hand in mine. We could only look in each other's eyes for a moment, beaming with relief and joy until at last, at last, we kissed for the first time in eighty-four years.
I couldn't hear the applause around us, couldn't see the crowd. There was only Rose and her sweet, soft hair and the feel of her lips on mine. We were hungry-filling a need and a longing and a loneliness that had grown around and between us in the long years of our separation. As we poured our pain into each other, we erased the burden of lost years and broken hearts.
I've loved you for so long. The thought was both of ours.
It could have been forever or just a few short moments until we broke apart, but when we did, we were ready. I brushed aside a stray curl and caressed her face. Everything about her was familiar. She was the fiery girl of her youth, the loving mother, the dignified old woman who told tales of strength and courage. She was all of this, and more. She was mine, and I was hers. I kissed her again, very gently.
"I've missed you," she whispered, leaning into me. She had believed all her long life that she would see me again, but she had never known hw close I was to her all those years, and suddenly I knew, without knowing how I knew, that I could show her my memories of those years, my pride in her life.
"I never went anywhere," I told her.
I took her arm and we crossed the gates together.
Heaven held more wonders than I can find words for. Everyone that Rose and I had ever loved had come to greet us, and I realized that the glow I had seen around my mother was now shared by everyone in this place. Heaven was a house of miracles and love, of healing and joy beyond all imagining.
We traveled the endless spaces together, each place more beautiful than the last. Sometimes we would simply sit and talk for hours (or was it years?). We were making up for all the time we had lost.
Finally, after all those years of wandering, we were home.