"My mother died when I was fifteen and my father died last year. Momma had an ear infection and well, one week she was fine, then she fell a little bit ill and then she got worse and just a few days…she was dead. Dad had a tumor in his stomach. We knew for a long time. It took a long time."

Emily began telling Cal her life story when she woke. She had started it just that way. Or perhaps, that is not correct. Emily stumbled out of bed, went to the cupboard and drank a coffee mug full of rum, then curled back up with her love in bed. She tracked her life through the death of loved ones, as if it was a basic framework with which to put her life together. She handed him the framed photograph on the nightstand.

"And these people are my father's brother and my mother's sister, my aunt and uncle, and their son, my cousin. Actually, we're more like brother and sister since we're from the same set of brothers and the same set of sisters even though we're really cousins. We all grew up in the same house, my father and uncle, Jack and me. We didn't have a lot of money so we all stayed in that house together. Well, we—that is me, Momma and Dad—left Wisconsin when I was nine…then, oh God, Aunt Hannah and Uncle Peter died in a fire so soon after. Cousin Jack left right after that, but didn't come to New York…damn, you know a little part of me has always hated him for that…" She looked up concentrating, "Oh, I love you, darling sweetheart." She nuzzled her nose in the nape of his neck and cooed.

"You…you were saying about your family?" Cal felt sick. It was just a coincidence. God help him, it had to be.

"Oh, sorry…I didn't know I was so interesting." She sat up again, but this time wrapped the blanket around herself and her darling sweetheart.

"Jack?" Cal encouraged her to continue, though he felt sweaty and his stomach filled with painful gas.

"Yes, Jack…Jack went everywhere. California, Cuba, Morocco, Spain, France, England…he used to write every few weeks. Then he stopped." He also drew some these," she indicated the drawing pinned up around her room. Cal said nothing. Emily stared at him and waited to continue after he spoke. She was casual as if she was relating the events of picnic. Her cousin, Jack Dawson, was an artist. "Sorry, off topic about the drawings…I assume he's dead."

Cal said nothing. Emily giggled.

"Want to know why Calvert is so grumpy? Well, besides shell shock, my friend Mary…well, I think I mentioned Mary once or twice, didn't I, Cal?" Cal nodded slowly. "Mary was my distant, distant relation and greatest friend when I was girl. Mary fell in love with George when she was engaged to another man whom she never met. Well, my lovely Mare, she went all the way down to Santa Fe to get married to this old biddy but left him at the altar!" She leaned over, seized a few cigarettes and matches from her nightstand and lit up. "And can you believe it? She spent a year and a half in the Southwest and got dragged into the Mexican Revolution by Rose, my roommate." She swung her lower half over the side of the bed, not facing the anxious Cal. She crossed her legs, inhaled and blew out. "Of course she wasn't my roommate then; my darling father was alive then. And Rose…well, I never figured that bird out. She's both uptight and out of control. I suspect she's got a darker past than any of us…"

Emily had very skinny legs, Cal noted.

"Mary was Catholic. George, well, you know what he is. Her parents disowned her and George's parents almost disowned him, but they got over it just enough to keep their son in their lives, but they don't get along well at all now, might as well disowned him. Mary was shot to death…bystander…gang fight. I was there. God, the blood, there was so much…I had it all over me…" Emily clutched her blanket and pulled it to her neck, forearms tensely pressed against her chest. "You've seen it too," she whispered, staring straight ahead. "You've seen death…and horror…and lost someone you loved. I feel it."

Cal shuddered. He did not like the way she said I feel it. Or the fact that she had said it at all. He had a past too, but Emily's openness disconcerted him more than anything else.

"So what's your big, sad story?" she shrugged casually, "Kill anybody?"

Cal nearly choked on the air in his own windpipe.

"You alright?" Emily, concerned, inched closer to her lover.

"Well, I may never know either way…"

"Is some sort vague metaphor you're using or are you actually amiss as to whether or not you took someone's life?"

Cal looked at her. She was trying to be clever. It seemed so unfair after her dissertation on her horrible, young life to deny her his. But it was impossible to speak of. In fact, he had never spoken of it to anyone. Despite her losses, Emily had little to be guilty about. Cal could not say the same, especially with the thought that Jack Dawson might have indeed been her cousin nagging him and making his stomach churn.

The name "Rose" made his heart skip a beat, but the roommate could not have been his rebellious, unhappy Rose. She was dead...like Jack. At least that he could boil down that to coincidence.

Cal felt ill for days. He frequently fell asleep at his desk after sleepless nights and paid no attention in the meetings he had not canceled that week, all the while his head was spinning. Was it guilt? Fear? Emily was never going to find out. He could keep it a secret forever…if he did not love her, that is.

Emily too seemed to be deteriorating. By September she was given to bouts of frenzy and fits of tears. She often hid in the kitchen of Joe's while at work.

"We are in love, Emily," Cal held her at her shoulders as they stole away in the kitchen of Joe's. "Why—why by God—are we so miserable?"

"Because," Emily whispered quietly, slowly lifting her head, "we are going fail."

Cal began shaking his head. "No, no, Emily…"

"Nobody cares what I do, but you have a whole world of people with their eyes on you."

"Calvert cares what you do; the boys that work here care what you do. They care about you. Those people, the people I work with, attend ridiculous social engagements with…all those people…they do not care about me. Only of scandal. I have few friends."

"I bet your wife cares…" Cal opened his mouth to speak, but Emily cut him off. "And if she doesn't I bet your little girls still do."

"I'll support Mariah after it's all over, we'll raise the girls. Marry me, Emily. Let's get married."

"You know what, Cal?" Emily laughed. "Do you know what you're leaving your wife for?" She backed up and opened her arms wide, indicating herself. "This. Right here, Cal! I'm a liar and a tramp!" Her eyes widened, her smile broadened. "I do as I please, I'm merry and self-serving and no matter how many people let me into their hearts and love, I will still screw them over!"

She spun around in place and stopped in a little pose.

"Calvert is the only family I have left—he won't speak to me now—and I bet if my real family had lived long enough I would have done the same to them."

Cal felt a twinge, by now he was sure Jack Dawson was Emily's cousin. And not some relation she saw on holidays. Jack was the brother of her heart. She loved him. He had taken him away.

"Sonny was my first guy and, sure, he strayed from me all the time, you know why? Because I always told him I'd never marry his worthless, dumb self! Is he really worthless? I don't know! I've never really thought about it that hard, but ya know, it never stopped me from saying it…over and over again. I'm mean and spiteful and I don't think before acting."

"This is madness, Em, please…" Cal pleaded.

"But at least you can't say I'm not self-aware. Hmph…Mobsters are after me too…well, if they're not they will be." She drew in close and whispered in his ear, he almost pushed her off. "You know I work for Calvert. The last package I was supposed to deliver I sold …I sold it for myself. Money was tight after the fire; I saw a way to get more. Noble spy I am! And funds are still low. So I stole from my friend! The only woman who doesn't hate me for sleeping with her man, whether by truth or by suspicion…Look!"

Emily held forth a flash of blue and white. A necklace. The necklace.

"Stole this from my roommate. It's heavy so it has to be real. Where she got it from I'll never know. Unless of course I admit to pinching it or even go through the chest under her bed, broke the lock, then went through everything until I got to the bottom…I am walking impulse."

Did he blush? Did he grow short of breath? Did the awful, stabbing pains in his stomach return?

The Heart of the Ocean continued to dangle from Emily's hand as she waited for her lover's reply.

My roommate, Rose. Emily's cousin was Jack Dawson. Her roommate was Rose. She was alive.

"Does your cousin know?" Cal blurted out in spite of himself.

Emily stopped and lowered her arm.

"What? My cousin? …Jack's dead!" She shook her head in utter confusion.

"What's your roommate's name?" Cal backed up, putting more distance between him and Emily.

"Rose! Cal, what are you talking about?"

"Her full name?"

"Uh…" Emily paused, looking all about the room, but refusing eye contact with Cal. "Dawson, actually. No relation. Just coincidence."

Cal only stared at her for several moments. Emily grew impatient, tapping her foot, frowning, and generally fussing about, trying to gain Cal's attention.

"Have we gone bye-bye?" she put her face right in front of his. "Hmmm?"

"Tricky devil…" Cal smiled as he realized. "Coincidence like I could not imagine…"

"You are far gone," Emily tugged at his arms, "stop this!"

Cal could see the two of them. They ran back into the ice cold water, back into the dark, back into the bowels of the dying ship to avoid his clumsy shots. He could hear her screaming…he could hear the screams of thousands of others as he fought to save his own life and take by force the girl that had run from him.

"Emily, tell me you love me!" he ejaculated.

"You know that…"

"Say it," he pleaded.

"I love you."

"If you could forgive me of my greatest sins…"

Emily covered his mouth with her hand.

"Shh. Who am I to condemn you?"

Cal's head was filled with someone else, another girl he had loved so long ago, but had tried so hard to forget…

"But after all of it, it's you I love…"

"Cal, what is happening with you?"

"If I did something terrible to you would you forgive me?"

"Are you leaving me?"

"No…" he said, almost whispering. "Only if you wish it."

"Then…stay with me…just me…I want you to myself. I heard you say to George you'd switch me with your wife if you could…"

"What?"

"If you're going to go funny, I might as well too! And this is what I want! You! Life with you, you until I'm dead! Don't you see? I'm alive. I've been alive since I met you. I'm happy. It's been so long, I don't remember the last time I was happy." She stopped. "You're so beautiful, you know that…" She touched his hair, the roommate of the woman he was supposed to marry and the cousin of the man that woman loved. And in spite of it all, he loved Emily, and Emily above the others. "See how crazy we've become…it will get worse if we part or keep talking about how we're going to part. You were right before."

"Then we will be together, you and I. I'll…we'll see to that."

"Yes, yes!" Emily embraced him fiercely with her head drilling into his shoulder. "I'll marry you! I'll marry you!"

He had to get his head together first, end his marriage, and then tell Emily of his past misdeeds. The three of them—Rose, Jack Dawson, himself—they were fighting with each other, he told himself. Rose wanted to leave, Jack wanted Rose, Cal could not handle it all. Misunderstandings at a most dangerous time. And Rose…was far away, but curiosity nagged at his brain and perhaps he could finally make peace if they met once more. Emily loved him, all would be well.

Cal decided to speed up the process in which he and Emily would be together properly by carelessly leaving one of Emily's letters in his coat pocket at home for his wife, Mariah, to find.

There were fits of rage and tears. She had never possessed the sense to discover any of his other encounters, which he never took quite the care to cover up—until now—as his love affair with Emily Dawson.

Mariah's melodramatic reaction to Emily's scandalous letter shocked Cal. He never thought Mariah cared terribly for him; he hadn't touched since she became pregnant with Caroline. Was she angry for their children? Certainly she could still raise them along with Cal and Emily. Was she scared she would be put out without support? Or was she just afraid being a divorcee, and lowering herself socially? Did she truly love him? He would never know. He did not want to ask. But with Emily's strategically planted letter, Cal successfully laid the first nail in the coffin.

By September the 10th Cal was living at the Waldorf and had left his wife. It had not yet been made public, but word would soon be out. Emily and Cal grew tense and nervous as they made their plans. Emily had sent a message to Calvert saying she would elope with Cal as soon as he was legally free of his wife.

Calvert was no longer speaking to Emily.

Emily—with Cal's help—managed to anonymously repay her debt to Hans Martin's people for the drugs she had stolen and sold. Unfortunately, there was little she could do about the buyer who never saw his merchandise.

With Cal's financially support, Emily no longer needed to money from the sale of the blue diamond, so she returned to its rightful place under the bed. Cal did not let her know his particular interest in the necklace or its owner. One day, before they were married, he swore to himself he'd tell her everything.

Being the girlfriend of the rich and powerful of Caledon Hockley, Emily felt she had a little more security than most. She was still scared…scared of everything. Scared of being caught. Scared of losing Cal as she waited for her new life to begin. But she was in love, more in love than she'd ever been in her life.

On the night of September 13, Emily had been hurrying down the street to meet Cal at Joe's.

Young Susan Welsh, a local teenager that spent her time in Joe's while skipping school with her best friend Becky Trevors, ran head long into Emily.

"Please, Emily," Susan cried, "It's Becky! I'm scared! I don't know what to do!" She grabbed Emily's sleeves in her sweaty palms, choking on tears and gasping for breath.

"Come on, Sue." Emily gently took the girl's shoulders. "Take me to her."

Emily ran towards Joe's with her arms around the panicking young girl. Her breathing was heavy and time seemed to slow no matter how furiously her legs kicked off the ground. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

In Joe's she found Becky Trevors, alive, with her face swollen and hair and dress soaked in sweat. She was in Cal's arms as he tried to get word out of her. They were the only ones in the bar.

"I said 'no'! I told him, no, no, no!" blubbered Becky. He wanted to know what Calvert knew and that they k-knew things about Rose and that he would expose her and he said he'd kill me too if I didn't. Then I said all right, but then I begged to s-stop and he wouldn't!" Becky let out an awful howl. "It's so painful…"

Susan ran to her friend. Emily came close to Becky, but did not touch her.

"Becky… who?"

Becky only sobbed.

"Who?" Emily quietly demanded.

Becky Trevors did not need to answer. At that moment, Johnny Culbreth opened the front door to Joe's.

Emily's throat went dry. She could see him. Three years on Tenth Avenue. The man that killed Mary.

"You little bitch…" Culbreth stalked closer to Becky.

"Don't you dare!" Cal stood up, placing Becky in her friend's arms. "You will not touch this girl again!"

Emily, in the meanwhile, had removed her coat, revealing her red-sequined dress, walked around the bar and pulled something out from underneath.

"Mary and Carmine weren't enough?" she screamed. Pointing a revolver at Culbreth's face.

"Watch yourself, Dawson." Culbreth barely even blinked at Emily's dangerous gesture. "You're bigger than these girls, but you're not big enough to dance with me." He adjusted his belt, smiling at Becky. "You can't kill me. You're too weak. You don't have it in you! I'm sorry about your friend, but Andolini and the little slut here was just business. You've already interfered enough with business…" Emily winced, apparently Emily's folly had gone unnoticed, nor was it forgiven. "Just leave to us Calvert and the redhead and make your punishment a bit less severe."

Cal winced at the word, "redhead."

"You're right, Johnny, my boy," Emily smiled weakly, "I can't kill you. I can't bring back Mary and I can't bring back Sonny's brother and I can't lock you away for the murders or anything you've done for Hans Martin…" Emily tightened her grip on her gun. "And I can't protect George or Rose…but I can make sure you never to anyone else what you did you did to Becky…"

Emily lowered her gun and fired.

Culbreth fell to the floor with a scream and writhed on the ground holding his bleeding groin.

Emily fired again. And again. And again.