So, I ran away from home with Robert Ashley, a man I didn't know a single thing about. I was desperate, and he was my solution. When I finally realized what kind of person Robert Ashley was, and what I had gotten myself into, it was too late.

Soon after I ran away with Robert Ashley, I found out he was a con artist, a real life con artist (which explains why he's always in trouble with people, and why he was arguing with the policeman on the day we met). To Robert, conning people out of their money was like a profession, and he had been doing this ever since he was a fourteen year old boy on the streets of New York City. Yes, he's been on his own ever since he was fourteen. He started off doing simple things: pick pocketing and classic card tricks. He didn't start becoming a confidence trickster until he was seventeen, and he didn't play an imposter in order to get a job until he was nineteen, almost twenty. Robert Ashley has never been to jail or even arrested–but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's never been caught. That is the reason why Robert is constantly hiding and running to every city in America. That was the reason why he was taking a train to Brooklyn. But I didn't know that. I was still seventeen, very young and far too naive.

Of course, when I found out about Robert and his ways, I wanted to leave him. But how could I? I came from a very luxurious life. If I ended up on the streets I wouldn't know what to do. I wouldn't be able to take care of myself properly. And then, when my daughter was born, it would be much worse. And no one was going to want to take care of an unmarried seventeen year old girl, who had gotten into trouble. So, I stayed with Robert, even though I didn't agree with the things he did.

Robert was interested in me, because I knew a lot of people–people with money. But he was also interested in something else.

It was our first day being in Brooklyn and we were in a hotel. I was getting ready for bed, opening my suitcase so I could get my navy blue kimono robe for the night. As I was putting my suitcase back into order, Robert passed me–and noticed something inside my suitcase.

"My God, what there did you get that," he said, placing his hand inside my suitcase and taking out what he was talking about–my necklace.

Oh yes, my necklace. I explained it to him. It's called the Heart of the Ocean, and it once belonged to King Louis XVI–it had a history with French royalty. It's beautiful, very beautiful, with a beautiful chain and in the center, a dark blue, and very, very rare diamond. Of course, this necklace was extremely expensive. I would have loved it, but it has a dark history to it. Cal Hockley gave it to me on the Titanic as a gift. I loved it at first, but now, seeing where it came from and who gave it to me, I now know better than to love it fully. It survived the Titanic, and I had it. I don't know why I took it with me. When I was packing my bags that night, I took it at the last minute and carefully placed it in my suitcase. I guess I didn't want to part with it.

But Robert was only interested in the diamond. He couldn't stop looking at it and asking questions.

"And how much is this diamond worth?" he asked.

I told him the price Cal told me. When he heard the price, he stared at me with his wide blue eyes and asked me to repeat it.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered to himself.

"I thought about selling it, " I said. "I know this can help us a lot in the future–"

"No," he said sharply. He carefully placed the necklace back into the suitcase. "For now, I want you to keep it and take good care of it."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Robert and I found a little apartment in Brooklyn two days later. The apartment was small, but for the most part it was a place to live and it was far away from Cal or Mother.

Life was fine for a little while. Robert would sometimes find a job. I learned how to cook and clean. I was learning how to dust and how to scrub, but I was a horrible cook and I didn't go far in sweeping. But we were fine, and sometimes at night after we had finished eating our dinner, we would go to the small, narrow bed in our bedroom and lay there together and talk all night long, because we didn't have anyone else to talk to. Other times, though, Robert would find a girl on his way home, and then he would come home late at night and fall asleep on the couch in our small living room.

Everything was fine until women begin to find out about Robert and me. The women were so good and generous to me, but when they found out that I was pregnant and wasn't married to Robert but still living with him, they completely turned against me. I was different now, I was a "bad girl", a girl who was suddenly not good enough to talk to the other girls who were still pure and still had their nice, slim bodies. I was a whore, and I was supposed to be shunned. No one was supposed to talk to me.

Finally, there came a time when the insults, the shunning, and the hateful stares all hit a climax, and that was when Robert and I agreed that we couldn't live there anymore. So, the second we were able to, we packed up and took a train to Chicago, Illinois.

It was the same thing in Chicago. We slept in a hotel on the first day, and then, later that week, we found an apartment. And then, we unpacked and I cleaned as much as I could, and then we were fine again. This time, we made up a nice little story for everyone. We told everyone that Robert and I were married for two years and that we were expecting our very first child together (my stomach was beginning to show and I was finally feeling life). Of course, no one questioned it and that's how it went for a while.

The baby was born in that apartment building. I started having pains in the middle of the night of course, and Robert ran straight for a midwife the second I told him (thank God, he wasn't drinking that night). And inside of my bedroom, on December 28, 1912, with the help of the midwife, and surrounded by all of the women that were once mothers and were now encouraging me, my daughter was born. She was beautiful, simply beautiful, with my green-blue eyes, and her father's blond hair. She had beautiful lips. All of the women commented on her ruby red lips. Ruby Josephine was her name and she was my daughter.

She was a wonderful baby. She was so quiet and so good, even if I was a terrible mother in the beginning. If it weren't for the neighborhood women who told me everything I needed to know about child-rearing, I would have been completely lost and crazy long ago.

Things began to break apart at around the time Ruby began to crawl.

Robert had two vices, two very typical vices, two vices that many men have: alcohol and women. Robert, with his young, handsome looks, and his flattering tongue, and his confidence, was a ladies-man by nature. He loved women and he enjoyed the company of them, and even though Robert and I were living together, pretending to be married, Robert still continued to go out and talk to women everywhere he went. I didn't mind the women, but I did mind the drinking. He was a drinker and I hated it when he would come home from one of his nights, and he would be so unpleasant and rude–and sometimes, he would scare me. Whenever he was like that, I would lock myself in the bedroom and hold Ruby as tight and as close as I could, and I wouldn't let him come in or answer him when he knocked. Eventually, he would fall asleep on the couch in a stupor.

One night, Robert was walking home from a saloon, and he was, of course, drunk. Like plenty of other people I met in my life, when Robert's drunk, he's bold and pretty cocky. So, he wasn't at all shy when he decided to flirt and persuade our neighbor's young, virginal daughter. When he did that, the young girl–her name was Rachel–went back to tell her mother, positively scared of Robert and his advances. Her mother, suddenly concerned about the girls in the neighborhood who were within arm's reach of Robert, started warning the mothers about him. Of course they were appalled. They never thought that Robert would be the kind of man that they had to keep away from their daughters. But they did, and now the women were beginning to act the same way the women did in Brooklyn. They shunned us, showing no respect for Robert because he was a drunk and a dirty man, and they didn't show any respect for me because I was "married" to Robert and continued to stay that way.

It ended the same exact way. We finally lost our last ally and we were completely isolated, so we once again, packed up and moved to the other side of Chicago. This time, Robert promised to control himself a little more, and for a good while, he stayed out of trouble.

But only for a little while.