With one suitcase in hand I made the journey back home. Traveling alone was easier than I anticipated, save for the occasional trouble breathing, but what can one do? The train ride from New York was only a few hours and by eight o'clock in the evening, Friday, September the 17th, 1920, I found myself back in Philadelphia for the first time in seven years. Not feeling brave enough on the first night, I stayed the night in a hotel. The next morning, I arose, washed up in the bathroom down the hall and left for home. Praying I would not have an attack on the way, I hopped on a trolley. It let me off at Fairmount Park; about a half hour's walking distance from my destination. By now, despite the aches in my chest, exhaustion, and the minor detail of my entire life being flushed down the sewer, I was happy to walk.
I strolled along the waterfront of the Schuykill, under the great stone bridges and ledges covered in moss and ivy. Growing up, especially as I reached puberty, these sights—this whole place—had little effect on me, but only then, returning as an adult and after a long Exodus, did I realize how beautiful it truly was. It was near noon as I approached home on East River Drive. Less than two days ago, I had been cleaning up bodies from a bomb explosion, today I was walking along one of my girlhood haunts, watching white-gloved mothers and their children play and take Saturday lunch in the park.
I knew why I had left my old life—why I had taken such drastic measures—but these happy memories only worsened the aching in my chest.
"You'll never beat me, Agnes!" shouted a young boy to his little sister as they played by the water.
"Careful! Careful!" a woman's voice called to them, worried but less shrill then my mother's voice could be. I'd never be that woman. The one I loved hated me, I was frightened of marriage, and I knew my time could be up soon anyway. Besides, I was violent, reckless, and my entire life revolved around three days when I was seventeen—perhaps I was not mother material.
The two children raced by, their faces flushed with that kind of endless joy children always have but never notice until it's gone away. School would probably be starting for them again soon, I was not quite sure—it had been some time since I'd been in school.
I was happy here. I was happy on days like this.
Past the park I could see my old house, the family estate. The last time I ran here it was only year after Titanic. I had come to the gate, lost my nerve, visited my father's grave and found my own. This time I would walk through the gate.
Just another block, I thought to myself.
"Hello, sunshine," said a voice behind me. I whirled around.
"Hello, bolter." The bitterness in my voice surprised as well as the person to whom I spoke, but I remained calm and natural.
"Heard you were heading for the weekend. I'm flattered you mentioned me, by the way."
"Since when? I speak to Cal more often than you do and until yesterday he thought I was over there." I pointed vaguely in the direction of the graveyard. "You haven't spoken to Calvert, have you?" No answer. In my head I could see the image of George towering over me; the dark shadows and moonlight that made his face look like a demon's. I didn't think George wanted to see me, but I was still frightened. "Holden?"
"Not now. You like him! Psh!"
"How much did that pitiful rat tell you? This is a strange time indeed for latent family bonding. Besides, don't you judge me. Let's remember who left who."
"Wow, Bukater, I'm just pickled to see that despite circumstances—bombs killing people, having to see Cal again, confronting your mother who thinks you're in Davey Jones' Locker, and your friends hating after you lied to them for years to cover your own ass—you're still you. You can still engage bitter sarcastic repartee with yours truly."
"You forgot 'disease.' Or did that fine brother of yours fail to mention?" I looked up the street at the gates to my mother's house. "And," I added, "you mean 'tickled' not 'pickled' unless of course you're attempting to be witty or something."
"I didn't want to mention that…" He said quietly. "It makes me nervous…"
"Oh? Because it isn't as funny as other people dying? Shut up and go away." I narrowed my eyes at him. "Leave me alone, Holden. I'm busy and what I'm about to do is important and difficult. Shoo!" I goaded, waving my hands. "You're not making any friends here so—" I grabbed my chest in pain and wheezed.
Holden got me before my knees hit the ground. When I could speak again I asked him to sit me on the ground. I was so in love with him the last time I was with him, but now all I could feel burning in my throat and chest. We sat there for a while, not saying a word and keeping a few inches distance from one another.
"I know everything because Cal called yesterday. I met with him this morning. He figured I had a right to know. He makes me feel all funny inside when he thinks of other people… Nice day, huh?" He said, sitting next to me. I let him speak. "Remember days like this? Do you miss it any?"
"The pretension? The hypocrisy? Having every aspect of my life controlled and planned by others? Denied the right to be human being? No." I coughed a little and continued. "But I miss my family. My mother, my father, the dogs and cats I had, that house up there and the big willow tree. Sometimes I even miss you," I smiled.
"I like your skirt," he pointed to the dark blue and floral pattern.
"I made it myself this summer. Wore it today…wanted to look nice for my mother, I suppose." I shrugged. I stopped for a moment then looked at Holden. "Let me go alone," I said.
"No," he said softly and shook his head.
"This is my move, Holden. I must do this alone."
"Rose," he said, "there are few people on this earth who make me as uncomfortable as your mother." I opened my mouth, but he placed his fingers to my lips. "Please. She makes me uncomfortable especially now, that she's widowed hermit with a dead child. She was wrong before. To push you into marrying my brother was wrong, but she was doing everything she was taught to do her entire life. And she thought she was protecting you. That said, you cannot just waltz up and ring the doorbell. How can you do that to someone's head? Mommy's little baby is dead, remember? Let me go in and let me talk to her."
I nodded. What was thinking? I couldn't just walk in. This woman thinks her child is dead.
I sat on the veranda on a new bench that had not been there when I was "alive." Facing sideways on the bench, I pressed my cheek to the cool brick wall. I could hear murmurs inside, mostly of Holden making stupid conversation and stalling. But I also heard my mother's voice inside and for once it was not the tuberculosis that was cutting my breath short. I wanted to run to her though when I merely attempted to shift my position on the bench my whole body felt like lead.
As I lit up a cigarette I saw Cal's figure pacing on the other side of gate, but making no attempt to come through. I waited to catch his eye and waved him to me. He hesitated, but then slowly and sheepishly made his way up the path.
"Are you armed?" he asked when he reached the steps. His voice sounded a bit funny, as though he had something in his mouth.
I shook my head and blew out smoke without looking at him. "That's a fair question to ask of you I might add."
"Good, maybe we'll be friends today."
"Friends? Whatever made you entertain that notion?" I looked at him. His face was puffy and ridiculous from the blow I'd dealt him earlier. Holden never mentioned that. Perhaps that was why he was so cheerful after their meeting.
He lightly and carefully touched his swollen, purple cheek.
"You know, I've know idea, really." He let out a sigh. "For the longest time I blamed myself for your death. And his. Considering I tried to have him killed, it sounds fair…and I felt pain and guilt for both of you."
"After eight years I'm going to face my mother and she's about to find I'm alive…if Holden ever gets past the small talk," I stretched my ear closer to the window. "Listen," I said, shining and warm, "I'm hearing her voice again!" I changed my tone once more. "I don't want to talk to you about this!"
"Who better, Rose? Tell me if you think I killed him."
"I did," I said, "oh, I did. But now…I honestly don't know. You could have done nothing and he might have died anyway. I've seen two wars, deserted people purely out of habit," I thought of Manny for a moment, "kept the death my friend's cousin hidden from her—so I know exactly why you never said anything to Emily even though you loved her. I survived Titanic and I've survived since then. You don't go through things like that without doing something really bad. So don't apologize. What is…is what is… Revenge would do worse by me than by you. Perhaps I can't kill the man Emily loves. Perhaps I'm not brave enough after all. Anyway, I don't care. I through with fighting. I'm at the end of my rope."
"You took his name and still keep it. You obviously care quite a bit."
"Doesn't mean I know everything. Look, Hockley, we won't be friends, but as long as you keep my secret safe, I'll keep yours." I tapped my neglected cigarette and stuck it back in my mouth. "Keep your voice down too," I said through the cigarette and looked inside.
"Who else will die because of our secrets?" he said, almost angry.
"I just don't want this shit in the paper. I want to be Rose Dawson. It's who I am." I started hacking again for a moment and Cal made his first advance toward me since I walloped him with the butt of George's gun. He ripped the cigarette out of my mouth and threw it on the ground.
"Oho! Your days of putting out my cigarettes are long over!" I hissed as I smacked his hand away.
"You'll kill yourself that way, sticking fire in your lungs when they're full of blood! Are you suicidal?"
"No, I'm just dying. Don't rile me up right now and don't be an arrogant son of bitch like you are."
"Your new vocabulary becomes you."
He turned around and walked off the porch, down the path, and out the gate. I was mentally and emotionally exhausted, shaking all over. Had I the energy I would have cried—making me crazy at a time like this. Stupid, stupid man.
I wanted to tell him he had been too pathetic to kill, but I restrained myself.
"Holden, this growing tedious. No more tea, no more talk of the weather, no more talk of the old days. You have an agenda. Please, you must stop or you must tell me why you came," I heard my mother speak from within. She sounded…tired.
Holden loudly took a fresh breath of air.
"I want to talk about Rose," he said frankly. It was the first time he had spoken so since he ventured in over an hour before. I heard nothing for near a minute. I'd been staring at my watch constantly since Cal left.
"Oh," she said distantly in that high octave voice she uses when she's been caught off-guard.
"Do you think she was capable…of say…uh, running away…you know, um, before?" I had discerned by now, through their extensive and excruciating exchange, that "before" was an all-purpose word used to describe everything that happened before April 14, 1912.
"She probably fantasized about it. I mean she tried to…right before…with some boy."
"You mean Jack Dawson," Holden said rather jarringly.
"W-what? How do you—did your brother…?" She stopped for a while before Holden spoke again. I noticed a pattern from earlier in their conversation: Mother referenced all the men in her life with disdain—including her late husband, my father, and her benefactor, Cal.
"I knew there was another man. And I knew his name was Dawson. I've known that for a couple years now, however, I learned his first name today when I saw Cal. He had an affair with a young woman named Emily Dawson, a friend of my old sergeant. She is that man's cousin."
"Good God," said Mother rather sincerely. She was probably grabbing her necklace, provided she was wearing one. "What became of them? Did he say anything to this woman? I cannot imagine…" she broke off.
"Emily Dawson found out, but not through Cal. She read a letter describing everything that happened between Rose and Jack Dawson on Titanic. Cal did not write it. Another friend of Miss Dawson and George Calvert—my old friend and sergeant, did."
"Who could possibly?" Her voice was cracking. She sounded confused and frightened. She did not want to remember things and speak of them so frankly.
"Mrs. DeWitt Bukater, I think you'll want to put down your teacup."
I heard china tapping on china, no doubt Mother's tea touching its saucer.
"Rose wrote that letter."
"No, she didn't. She could not have. Holden—Mr. Hockley, I want you to stop this!" she cracked.
"Yes she did," he spoke slowly and emphatically, "Listen. She was able to write that letter because they found her in the water after the ship went down, they pulled her out, she hid on the Carpathia among third class passengers, she gave her name as Rose Dawson, she got off and has been living on her own ever since. Your daughter is alive."
"Wh-what, where? Alive? With the boy? Are you lying to me, Holden Hockley? Is a sick, ill-conceived lie? If it is—"
"No! It's most certainly not. And it's just her. I saw her today and I saw her during the War. I…" he did not finish his other thought. "Please, try to take this slowly."
"Why did she never come? Where is my child? My child? My Rose." My chest contracted in pangs of guilt.
I could hear shuffling and the sound of Mother and Holden's footsteps.
"I want…" she said, choking on her words. "I want to see her!" she demanded desperately.
"You might want to sit down again. She's near. Please, for Christ's sake…sit down already, damn it!" Holden once again spoke like the old Holden I knew.
Suddenly, Mother's voice was strong and clear, a touch wry.
"Don't hold your breath, Mr. Hockley, I'm not going to faint."
I almost giggled. That strong voice of Mother's was inside me at that moment. I could feel love in a thousands places. I wanted to call to her, but I could not move nor speak.
"Ruth," Holden said, exasperated. "She's outside. She's on the porch."
With my position now exposed, I leapt from the bench to my feet and raced down the veranda to the front entrance. Oh, Mother, I'm coming!
The doors swung open and there stood my mother, mere yards away, for the first time in eight years. I stopped. She stopped. We said nothing. We studied one another for a short moment and I began walking toward her.
We were huddled on the ground with our arms around each other.
"Mother…"
"Rose…"
"I'm sorry!" I cried, "I'm so sorry, Mamma!"
"Shhh, child. Not now, not now."
There I was an adult weeping in her mother's arms. She stroked my hair as she did when I was small. She never touched me much those last few years we had spent together. We were cold and distant. But now we were mother and daughter once more. Oh, the miseries and crimes we had done another! But now I was back.