Her face was paler than I remembered and her hair boasted a prominent white streak. She looked significantly older and it frightened me. I could only imagine how I must have looked to her. After a long bout of tears between the two of us, she cupped my face in her hands and brought my eyes to her.

"I stopped praying for miracles long ago, I…" she broke off, "Oh, my only happiness!" she pulled me to her with my nose crushing against her shoulder and began weeping again. "You—you must c-come inside." She slowly rose to her feet, never letting go of me as she did so.

She led me into the house. The main entrance and sweeping, wrap-around staircase appeared as large and as grand as it did when I was a small child. It was almost as if I'd never been in the place before. I nodded to Holden on the way in, signaling that it was alright for him to go. He lingered for a few minutes then made his way to the door. I followed my mother who appeared as if in a trance. Now—these first few precious minutes we had been reunited—were all new to me, but there lay an undeniable difference: I knew she was alive the whole time.

Her clothes were plainer than she might have preferred, but they were still of fine quality. The house was dusty and much of the furniture was covered in white sheets. I knew this woman. Maids under her charge had been known to plunge into near catatonic states or suffer from severe nervous disorders after Ruth DeWitt Bukater discovered something out of place—God forbid a mere dust bunny! If there was anybody here to take care of house, they did not live here or attend on a regular basis.

I was crying over my girlhood bed, clinging to Lydia, my favorite doll when the eeriness and wrongness of the situation finally sank in. Mother was a hermit and a charity case. She shut herself up and made herself pathetic.

"Oh, Mother…why do you live like this?" I looked down at my doll—perfectly groomed. And the room…it was nearly spotless. The white-painted furniture—chairs, my desk, my bureau—as well as the pink curtains and flowered wallpaper were all immaculate and in the exact places I left them. "Why did you do this to yourself?" I stroked Lydia silky curls with a tenderness I hadn't shown another human being for a long time, and then I looked up at my mother. "This must have been torture, Mother. You twisted the knife in your own gut? You're chained in here."

Her eyes were still glazed over and dreamlike, but she understood every word.

"I was wrong. I know that now, but…" she broke away.

"Mother, please." I took her hand in mine.

"Was I so awful?" she asked, looking right into my eyes. "Nothing I did warranted this!" she accused, her voice full of pain and hurt. She pulled her hand away. "If you wanted to run away, you could have let me know you were alive. That you were safe!" She squeezed her and clenched her little fists. She touched her hand to my nightstand for balance. "I wanted my memories! I wanted what was left of my family! It wasn't about the money anymore, Rose. It wasn't about familiarity. I lost your father...first slowly while he was alive…then so all of the sudden. I was going to lose the life I knew, the home I knew, the friends I knew. But I never thought I'd lose you! No mother could dare dream of it!"

"I thought there was no way out! And there wasn't! I'm sorry for all that I've done you, but you did the same by me. But…I'm back now. Not back to be a part of our old world, but I am back with you. I had to do what I did."

"For so long? Eight years I have grieved! EVERY DAY! I grieved!" Her voice had grown strong now.

"You were scared, I understand. But you used me." My heart began to race; I was terrified of where this was going.

"Use my child?" she snorted.

"You sold me!" I pointed at her vehemently, clutching Lydia to my breast.

Mother howled and turned away from me, covering her hands in her face. I let her cry and pound the wall until she was finished. When she retired from that occupation, she stood looking at the flowered wallpaper for a long time.

"My mother drank herself to death…" she began. I knew this. My grandmother, typical of many Victorian women both upper and middle class, was a quiet alcoholic and laudanum addict. The limitations of women of that time quietly killed us all, manifested in sleeping disorders, chronic and unexplainable illnesses like those my grandmother suffered. "I vowed I would never be like that. I would face the day as myself with my own wits about me. I was strong. And even when our marriage became empty…Oh, I thought my life would be so different when I married your father, but no," she shook head, "it was the same as ever if not more so. I saw that the road I went down and I saw it before you too when you were just a tiny girl." She held her chest and choked back the tears. She looked at me for the first time since the fight began. "You trashed your room the night you met Jack Dawson and you ran out without your keys. He never laid a hand on you until, I presume, you solicited him to…" she didn't blush, but she grew awkward as any parent might when referring to their children's sex lives—especially in a time where unmarried children simply were not to have them and they were not to be discussed anyway. "What happened? Don't lie, Rose. I'm not a child. Don't patronize me, you have that look in your eyes," she accused.

"I never looked over the rail to see any God damn propellers, of course." I took a deep breath and looked down at my doll. For the first I was describing in detail and point by point—verbally and to another human being, not on paper— specific events and feelings about Jack and Titanic. And I was also about to tell my mother I really did intend to kill her child at one point. "You know, the idea that Jack came out of nowhere and pulled me back in a split second as I toppled over is logically preposterous…" I laughed emptily and made eye contact again. "I was hanging off the ship. I was going to throw myself off. Jack talked me out of it. He just…talked me down until I wanted to live again…" I tucked Lydia under chin and closed my eyes as if I was drifting off into a dream again. "My foot got caught on my dress and, after a terrible struggle, he pulled me back over the other side to safety. The rest is…history. He did that for me," I pointed to my breast, "a complete stranger. I mattered to him the moment we met. He saw me as a human being from the start. It was all I ever wanted from anybody, don't you understand? He was a good and wonderful person that loved me. Please know that, please." The doll had drifted to my lap and I now held my hands to my chest. "Mother?"

"I cannot respond to that."

"Look at me now. I've had this big life because of him! And because of that one decision!" I held out my arms wide and strong. I got off the bed and went to her. "I'm a self-made woman now. I'm free." I took her hands. "You can be too."

"Were you ever happy?"

"Sometimes, yes. But I'm becoming the person I was meant to be. I look in the mirror and I always know just who I am and I…" As I walked to the pink and white painted mirror to look at myself—the strong and free Rose Dawson—I recoiled at the reflection.

"What is it? Is it about the Dawson girl…and Cal? Holden told me."

My heart nearly leapt from my throat. I still had the dream of being the woman Jack saw inside of me. But that was not the person standing before me in the mirror. This woman selfishly lied to her friends and comrades, and abandoned her mother to torturous hermitage. She was also a disintegrating invalid. I was still holding back even now.

"It's all that and more," I turned away from the hideous creature in the mirror. "I never told Emily or anyone…I just kept waiting for the right moment, wrote it all down, then I stopped planning for a moment and kept the memory to myself. I thought it was mine alone. She may be…dying. And I lost the trust of the one person I trusted most. And Emily may be forever a basket case, I had to ally myself with Cal to get here, and George…and I've got nothing to show for my life. Everything I've done, everything I've built is fading or gone…everyone I care for would rather see me eaten by dogs in the street!"

Mother caught me as I feel—I nearly fainted.

"Something else is wrong, Rose. I know it. Tell me now or you'll never here the end of it."

I might soon, I thought to myself.

"I've only known for a few days, really. So it might not be that bad." This was not the time for Ruth to become maternally perceptive. I knew if told her I'd break her heart again. How could I? "Uh, I'm having a baby…" I said ridiculously. "And I can't say anything about the father at this moment, but I'm so alone with this!" I cried. "I told you I lived a free life…"

Mother looked at me almost coldly.

"You were a fine little actress as a child, but I never heard a more ridiculous lie."

"You can't handle this one. Let it go," I said quietly, regaining my dignity.

"Is that supposed to dampen my interest in the subject? Rose, tell me this instant!"

"Ask me like an adult and you'll get a straight answer perhaps."

"Do not torture me. You are not protecting me by lying."

"I'm sick. I've been feeling unwell for a while, but I only realized what was wrong a few days ago. It's been getting ever since. Soon I won't be able to…"

"What is it?"

"It's, um,…it's T.B, I think…." I scratched my head like an idiot. My mother began walking backwards. "It's just a cough right now. I'm, uh, actually a nurse, Mother. So I have seen people come through out of these things. Just takes time…and patience." I could comfort others about their own ailments, but I was making a hash of telling someone else I loved about my own illness.

"I'll fix us some tea," she said and walked out of the room.

"You'll fix what?" I asked incredulously. I just told I could be dying. And this woman certainly did not fix her own tea.

I gathered my thoughts together before leaving the room. I would give her time to adjust and accept the fact that aspects of my life had changed so dramatically in the last eight years, certainly she changed too.

She made dinner too. It wasn't very good and I wasn't very hungry, but I wanted her to believe my appetite was as strong and healthy as ever. She said some maids came in once a week to attend to certain rooms and that was it. The property was owned by the Hockelys as well as the summer house in Vermont. But she relinquished that to Cal for his own personal use.

I spent the night in my room. The next morning I had an attack coughing blood all over my white sheets. Mother ran in and reacted quickly. Wiping my face with a hot wash cloth, she began lecturing me.

"No hospital! Absolutely no!" I argued. "If I come in with you I'm done for!"

"You've already—quite literally—beaten Cal into submission and I don't hate you. You've won there. Honestly, you're ranting like you're some sort of criminal. Fine. Then you will see the doctor. Doctor Brand. He's from the other side of the city and keeps perfect confidentiality. I know that I am probably talked about now, but when I had influenza I had one of the maids find me a doctor who did not belong to that circle."

"He still might figure out who I am. If I live—" Mother recoiled and I corrected myself. "When I get better, Mother, I want to continue my life as it was."

"Without your friends? Alone? Obsessed?" she asked plainly. "You said yourself everything you'd worked for had been destroyed."

"As Rose Dawson. No Dawson, no Rose. That's the condition. Listen, I know I'm at a crossroads here, but you have to understand me. I'm not hopeless," I realized the truth as I spoke it. "I'm not hopeless. I can fix this; I won't stop until I do. George and Emily mean too much to me. I was wrong, but I'm not unforgivable. If they're worth anything themselves they'll see that." I shook my finger. "Even if I am unforgivable," I relented, "they must know how much I care for them." I sighed.

"Calm down or you'll work yourself into another fit."

I strained to hear Dr. Brand speak. My fever peaked and my mother nearly threw herself into a panic. I relented and allowed myself to be taken to a hospital for the proper examinations.

"Well, Miss Dawson, it appears you are only in the first stage and that your condition is susceptible to drug use. I understand you are staying with a distant relative and would urge you to relocate yourself to a sanitarium. You are currently infectious."

"Do you need to remove anything?" I asked. I'd only ever assisted in one surgery for T.B. It was a Phrenicotomy, a procedure in which you crush the Phrenic nerve. It paralyzes one diaphragm on one side of the nerve by cutting off the nerve supply and allows the lung on the disabled side to heal. Other procedures involved the removal of part of or the entire lung. I was personally attached to both of my lungs, thank you very much.

"No," he said, "at this point I believe we can wait and possibly avoid such measures. I also believe that your violent reactions in the earliest stage of the disease are due to an overly strenuous life-style."

"Huh," I said.

"I'm going to recommend heliotherapy and shot bags and I'll see about any drugs in the coming weeks."

So my mother stuck me out in the sun until it grew cold. We had an Indian summer that year so she kept me outside in a wheelchair and a shawl until mid-November just like a jaundiced infant. While I was inside she had me lie down with shot bags to weigh down my lungs and keep their activities low. She refused to have me go to a sanitarium. I could have overruled her, but I was terrified of leaving her.

I couldn't even vote in the election that year because I couldn't leave the house. Well, that is not completely true. I did vote. But I sent in an absentee ballot back to California. I had so been looking forward to marching up to the voting booth in front of all those men, laughing all the way. Instead, I made mother go out and do it for me. Firstly, so that she may get a small taste of the possibilities ahead of her and secondly so that she would get out of the house and leave me in peace for an hour or so. She was still as obdurate as ever and she had been driving me crazy most of the time. Sometimes, however, we were able to savor the moments.

"No," I laughed on the last warm day, sipping tea on the back veranda, "she looked like this!" I made a hideous and scandalized impression. Mother and I were talking about luncheon at the Abbotts', the in-laws of Cal, in which the future Mrs. Hockley found a frog in her ice cream and wailed like a banshee. My mother nearly spit her tea into her cup.

"Oh, I've never had such a go those people before! Oh, stop laughing so hard! You'll break something!" she scolded, once she regained herself.

"You're laughing too. Besides, it's been so long since we've laughed like this together. We're not entirely incompatible, you know? The world had better watch out when the DeWitt Bukater girls have something to say!"

"You need to rest now."

"Oh, I've been improving everyday."

"What about that fever yesterday and, look, you're sweating now. And what was that awful scar on your back?" During a high fever my mother put me in a cold bath. I had gotten over the idea of being twenty-five years-old and bathed by my mother now that my life might depend on it. "Some acting stunt? Some other kind of stunt?" So far I had told her that I had been a nurse and an actress. I told her about Columbus, New York, California and movies, and the hospital in Baltimore, and nursing school. Some other things I had left out.

"I was in a crash."

"A crash?"

"Yes, a crash, a motor vehicle accident," I spelled out for her like a child.

"Shut up, Rose. I know what you're talking about. Can you explain it to me like a normal human being, please?" she shot icily.

"Well, it was an ambulance actually. It flipped over. It happened…two years ago? Yes, a little over two years ago."

"Why did it flip over?"

"Jesus Christ, Mother, why do you want to know? It flipped over. I got hurt. That's all!" I admired the ease with which I could curse at my mother now.

"Rose!"

"Fine, fine. I'll tell you and it's going to upset you," I pointed. "The ambulance toppled over like it did and I got the happy little scar from a surgical knife lodging itself in my back. I had the knife out because I had a patient with shrapnel in his…just about all over him really…"

"Did you…"

"Yes, I thought I had such fun on the Grand European Tour with you and Cal that I'd just do it again. But France turned out to be very muddy on that trip. Quite noisy too. Anyway, a shell hit near us and we flipped all the way over." I gesticulated the capsizing with my arms. "I am also a miscegenist."

Fire, fire, fire. Troops, fire!

"What?"

"A miscegenist is someone who sleeps with who is not of their own—" I began.

"I know what a miscegenist is for God's sake! What did you miscegenate with?"

"That would be 'who,' and I did it with my friend Manuel in Columbus. We almost got married. Does kissing George count as well? I told he's a Jew, right?"

Mother got up.

"It is really time for you to rest now."