Chapter four:

''The farm land we had wasn't the biggest but we made use of what we did have y'know.'' Jack squinted his eyes in the early afternoon sun with his hands tucked into his lap. ''My grandpops had started working down there just after my father was born. He worked his fingers to the bone and when the owner passed he left it all to be grandpops. My father took up working the cattle when he was seven. My brother the same.''

Rose glanced up from beneath her white straw hat. ''Brother? You have siblings?''

Jack shook his head, a darkening expression crossing his handsome features. He seemed to contemplate something deeply as though he was lost, unsettled. It was something which Rose hadn't yet seen within him. He took a deep breath before speaking slowly.

''My brother died when I was three and a half. I can barely remember him.'' He moved his hair from his eyes. He knew what question would come next, and so he went on. ''Our house was about a mile down a dirt track lane with no neighbours. Carts would come and go delivering goods to the farm further up the lane most days. It was a foggy morning in November and Pops sent Daniel out to feed the horses, he didn't know that he had gone as far out at down to the lane.'' Jack felt Rose's delicate hand reach out to him but he had barely registered it. ''He was a tall, weedy kid with no chance of survival. The driver musta not seen him.''

A small tear slid down Rose's face. She had never heard such a cruel story. She cradled Elizabeth even closer, her small face buried in her mother's chest as though she couldn't be any closer to her.

''Jack, no. Your poor parents-''

''Mom screamed, she was covered in his blood. Pops carried her away. I stood and watched. I just didn't understand. Pops took out the shotgun he used when he went out for the birds. I just remember going looking for Daniel, I thought he could tell me what was going on. Why was Mom and Pops acting that way?'' Jack's eyes had glazed over. He could see the land now as he went looking in the stables for his brother. In his mind, he was that kid once more. A place he hadn't thought of for so long. ''Pops come home that night with the sheriff. Mom had tucked me into bed and held me so tightly as she sobbed. I kept asking for Daniel. His bed was empty and it would be getting cold now.''

Rose listened silently to a tale so grim it had almost started in Shakespeare's playhouse; so tragic and yet her Jack had kept this burden for so many years.

''I was eleven when Pops sat me down and he told me everything.'' He sighed. ''Until then I thought Daniel had just gone someplace else. 'He's with the Angels' Mom would say 'he's in a better place.' I waited until I was seven for the Angels to come for me, too. I prayed for them to come just so I could go and play with Daniel. Mom cried when I asked why they didn't come. She told me I had to stay here, Daniel and Grandpops were up with the stars.'' Jack glanced up from the green grass of the public park and out across the field. In the distance they could make out Pikes Peak. He focused on the darker edge, his eyes squinting. ''Just after my eleventh birthday, Pops told me Mom was carrying a baby but just two or three months later the Angels took that away, too. I was so angry. Why wasn't I good enough to go, too?'' His breathing became ragged. ''Pops told me everything that night; how Daniel died, how Mom had had a miscarriage. He told me that he had taken the shot gun out to gun down the bastard who took his son away but the sheriff fetched him home. The driver woulda been from out of town and would be long gone by now. He told Pops to go home and to take care of Mom and me. We were what mattered.''

His eyes met Rose's, her hand hadn't moved from his.

''Pops told me not to be angry, to be grateful to be alive, to live each day like it's your last, to love unconditionally, to still have faith in the Lord for good still existed in all of us, and around us.''

Laced with such sadness, Jack's words lingered in her ears. Her lip quivered as Jack reached out to touch her face. Even though his cruel story, he wiped away the tears which had come down her face. He cared for her whilst discussing his own tremulous past.

''Your parents-''

Jack glanced into his own lap. He shook his head as he failed to remember the last time he had thought of his past life events.

''Christmas after my fifteenth birthday I was out ice fishing with a buddy. I came home to nothing. The house had burned down, the animals were running about, strangers were gathering them in. The same sheriff just put his hand on my shoulder, he said 'I'm sorry young man.' I just knew. Mom's shoe was gathered in dust and I lost my faith right there. A candle they told me must have started it. Mom and Pops were asleep. I took some comfort in that but in that moment, I ran. I ran just like the horses had at the first spark of that flame. I found myself at the railway; a train was coming and I scrambled aboard without a clue of where it was headed and I never went back to Wisconsin. I remember what Pops told me about life. I wasn't about to rebuild that house from the ashes, surrounded by pity.''

He exhaled through his nostrils as he adjusted the way he sat. Rose's eyes hadn't wavered from his. She silently urged him to continue.

''I started to draw after Daniel died, out of boredom maybe, but I did it every day. Mom would tell me how I would be a great artist one day.'' He laughed pitifully. ''It is the only thing from that part of my life I have taken with me, perhaps Pops wisdom too.''

Rose's dry lips parted. The sun was lovely and warm but she was suddenly cold as though something had walked right through her. Elizabeth adjusted in her Mother's arms, wearing a sun hat and a thin blanket to shield her from the sun.

''When I was in that water, I thought maybe it was all part of God's plan to take me too, but that's why I fought so hard to live. He wasn't having me, and he certainly wouldn't take you. Just like nobody would take Elizabeth.''

Jack's jaw was tight. He stroked his hand over his daughter's face. Rose carefully moved their daughter so that she could be laid against her father's chest. She flashed a wide gummy smile in her sleep. Her tiny hands grasping at Jack's shirt as her nails gently scratched as she caught it in the palm of her hands and clung to it, burying her face further into Jack's chest. He stroked over her cheeks before removing her sun hat and kissing softly her now messy, wispy blonde curls. Rose's heart seemed to stop jumping. Another tear escaped before she could stop it.

''Hey, don't cry for me.''

''I cannot help it. I'm sorry.''

In his heart, Jack knew why she cried; she loved him and she too felt the pain he had suppressed but now, for removing the burden and for opening up, he felt fully free for the first time in years. Perhaps keeping such a past memory to himself with buried feelings and harsh opinions had caused more harm than good. His own family had perished in such a way he would have thought unimageable. As a breeze swept Rose's hair from beneath the sun hat into her eyes, it broke his own thoughts. He had his own family now, one who he knew he would lay his own life down for. Wiping away any tears which had crept down her cheeks, Rose adjusted her white straw hat. In that moment, Jack caught a glance of the regal woman who he had first met, the one who stood above him dressed in expensive gowns, looking like an Angel. She took his breathe away. Elizabeth shifted about in her blanket, her eyes squinting open and then closing once more.

''I feel like I never fully knew you until this very second. Thank you for telling me.''

''Life is a gift. I don't plan on hiding anything. I plan on us all living a full, great life.''

Rose couldn't help but smile. ''You speak as though we are so very old.''

''Doesn't it feel it at times? Like we have lived through so much. It is almost a dream.''

''Yes.'' Rose sighed. ''Unhappiness has always lingered nearby. When my own father died, I wished to retreat to my own world but Mother simply dressed herself in widow's black for several weeks before I was thrust back into the bright lights of society. Those events had always been such a chore to me, but to my mother, presence was everything. We attended every function for three years even after my father died, my Mother wanted to dim the whispers which had begun to be spoken.''

''That I can believe.'' Jack raised his eyebrows. Ruth wasn't a woman he ever felt truly cared for his daughter. ''Society image was important.''

''Yes indeed.''

''What happened to your father?''

Pressing her lips together, Rose removed the hat from her head and laid it in front of them on the blanket on which they sat.

''Mother called him lazy; perhaps in a way it was.'' She started. ''He ran the paper, so had his father, my grandfather, also. It had been a steady business but by the time my father was born the Bukater's were one of the most prominent families in town; welcomed with open arms into the elite. Perhaps some had lived in fears of their business becoming print. Affairs could be revealed, illegitimate children, failing businesses...my father was in charge for as long as I remembered. He had seen his fair share of adulterous affairs amongst his peers but he would head off to work with stacks of paper and a briefcase after breakfast whilst my Mother would be chauffeured to spend the money as it was earned.''

Rose laughed recalling such a childhood. She couldn't remember the happier times in her life at all, not even from that part of her past.

''As time passed he spent less time there. The business went under but he fought back but, in the end, his heart left. He told Mother he had waited for a son to take over but I have been an only child. Women were to be married off to a suitable husband as soon as finishing school was through. Then he got ill and my Mother knew that the name was slipping. The business got into debts. He died within weeks of his diagnosis; cancer of the lung.''

Rose paused for a moment, failing to identify with herself during that time.

''His death was a shock but the business was Mother's priority. Father's lawyer suggested a quick sale which paid off most of the debts. Nathan Hockley stepped up at that moment with a priceless opportunity.''

''Nathan?'' Jack asked, curious. Cal's relation no doubt.

''Cal's father. The high and mighty. He would pay off the rest of the debts, only in exchange for my hand to his eldest son.''

Jack smiled a knowing smile. ''Quite a bargain.''

''Mother thought so.''

The moment which Rose had met Cal, the tall, dark and handsome gentleman she had so often heard people praise, admire and the younger girls who swooned over his elegance. ''I knew my life would change forever at that moment.'' Rose raised her eyes to Jack. Her lashes fluttered. ''I knew the same the moment in which I met you.''

A smile played at the corners of Jack's lips causing Rose's heart to flutter.

''You did, huh?''

''Yes, I was very lost. You brought some light into my life, even briefly that first night, which is why I sought you out. I never defied Cal until then, not once.''

Jack took a deep breathe. That had been a moment in their parting which he had thought of often. Had there been a reason for their meeting? Fate or completely by chance? He was yet to decide. Her face was glowing beneath the lovely sun.

''I love days like today.'' She changed the direction of their conversation instantly.

Elizabeth's eyes flickered open and then the other. Her naps had grown less frequent but slightly longer than before as they tried to establish a little routine. She liked to watch people, their faces, movement and new objects. Jack's hand stroking her palms sent her to sleep and her Mother's chest was where she settled the most. These tiny little fractions which were slowly building a personality of this tiny person. She smiled but had yet to giggle. She had tried on numerous occasions to lift her own head from a person's chest whilst unsupported just to glance about. In that moment, she did just that.

''You want to look about, huh?''

Jack laughed softly adjusting her so she could see about with large curious eyes.

''She is a curious one.''

''She sure is. You know my mom was a terrible gossip. All the news in town ran through her at one part of the day.''

Rose giggled. ''I can imagine in such a small town. Although my own Mother was quite the gossip.''

''I remember you also gossiping; the scandal of Madeline Astor and her 'delicate condition'.''

Rose threw her head back as she laughed wildly whilst remembering her telling Jack the night of the dinner aboard Titanic.

''Yes, quite right.''

Jack shook his head in fake disappointment.

''Well between both of my girls, I wonder what I am letting myself in for.''

But he knew in his heart, that he didn't care.