Chapter Twelve
Rose sat at her bed fighting against the tears that wanted to fall. "Not yet, Jack, please, not yet. I have to be stronger than ever. Please, I can't cry."
"Miss, are you alright?" Elizabeth asked
"Yes, yes" lied Rose "I can handle this, Elizabeth. Go see if my mother needs your help"
The maid left the room, but in that moment Ruth came in.
"Rose, may I speak a word with you?"
"Mother, this isn't the best time. I still have to pack a lot of things"
"Please Rose, it's very important" For the first time in almost 18 years Rose felt that her mother was truly concerned about something else than money
"Ok, mother, what is it?"
"I just wanted to ask you what happened in the Titanic."
"What… What do you mean? It sank, don't you remember?"
"I do. But I meant with Jack. How did you meet him? What did he tell you?"
That was too much. For six months Ruth pretended that the Titanic didn't exist, that they hadn't been in it. But now, she was asking all this painful question to Rose. She hadn't spoken about Jack to no one, and the last person she would have chosen to start telling all that staff was her mother.
"I don't understand what you are talking about"
"Ok. Let me put it in a different way. Do you love him"
"Jack's dead" Rose said, and a tear dropped from her eye
"Please, Rose, I need to know. You tried to kill yourself, didn't you? But he saved you."
"How a hell do you know that?"
"What happened?"
Rose still didn't want to talk, but she felt that her mother knew something very important, and the only way she would tell her was after she would tell her own secret.
So she did. She spoke about everything, starting of how she felt about Cal and how she had tried to commit suicide and also about her plans to leave with him. As she talked she couldn't resist any longer and tears began to fall. Once she had ended, she felt somehow better. Maybe it was time to cry for Jack.
Her mother listened silently. She just looked at her very differently of how she had seen her for her whole life. Once her daughter finished her story she said:
"Rose, I wasn't honest with you. I have to tell you something very important. After I do, you may hate, and, trust me, I won't complain about it. I was a horrible person. I should have told you this back in the Carpathia. Jack isn't dead."
Rose stopped crying. She could hardly understand her mother's words. Jack alive. That was impossible. He would have tried to find her. He loved her, he wouldn't have given up hopes. He knew she was safe in a boat. Why didn't he look for her?
Her mother seamed to understand what was going through her head, because she started telling her what really happened. She didn't look at her daughter, instead she looked throughout the window, but when she turned around, Rose could see that she was crying.
"Please, Rose, I hope that someday you can forgive me. I was more interested in the money than in your happiness."
"I… I don't blain you." Rose whispered
A little smile appeared in Ruth's face.
"Rose, I have no idea where the boy is, but if you want we can search for him. He is using a very well known name, it wont be hard to find out what he had been doing in the past six months. We can see if he has been receiving Lovejoy's unemployment insurance. This means that you don't have to go to Washington to marry Cal, unless you want to."
Rose didn't want, so both women went to search for any information related with Lovejoy, but it turned out that there wasn't anything that prove that he had survived the sinking. The only thing that he had done it was a donation to an art school. Ruth realized that it was the exact sum that she had given him.
The came back exhausted late in the evening. Ruth was very disappointed, but Rose was happy. It didn't matter that the couldn't find him. At least he was alive. They decided that they should leave New York as soon as possible, not only because, as Rose said Jack had probably left, but also because Cal would surely send someone to take them to Washington. So, that night they took a train to Boston, where the kept searching for Jack.