Chapter 18

"Mother?" I stammered. "Momma, is Ruth your mother?"She didn't answer, just stared at Ruth. Suddenly the similarities between them seemed painfully obvious. Not just their hair but the way their eyebrows arched reproachfully, the sharpness of their cheekbones and the milky white of their skin were all traces of resemblance I should have recognized before.

Ruth's eyes, as cold and grey as the sky outside, didn't even meet my mother's. They blazed past with extreme intensity, singeing into the temples of Caledon Hockley. He smirked. She gave one last searing glance before turning back to the judge.

"I let the girl in that night, against my better judgment." She added bitterly. "I left her in the study as I went to wake Master Nathan. After he was alerted I promptly returned to my room. I was awakened at about quarter to three in the morning by a faint noise I thought to be a child weeping."

She lowered her head, her papery eyelids fluttering. Everyone watched silently as fine, invisible tears slid off Ruth's ashen cheeks, making hard taps as they fell to the floor below. She looked back at Judge Anderson with glassy eyes.

"I checked everywhere, Mr. Anderson." She said quietly. "I checked the nursery and the small bedroom; the children were all sound asleep. And then I checked the master bedroom..." She swallowed hard. "Madeleine Hockley was asleep too...alone. Mr. Hockley was not in his bed and at first I thought he was perhaps working in his study as he usually did late at night. It was then I remembered I had left the girl in the study." Her fingers were tremoring as she fidgeted with the sleeve of her threadbare blouse. She bit her lip so hard it turned white.

"As I advanced downstairs to check on Mr. Hockley it became very clear what was going on. From the noises I was hearing from the cellar I-I could just..." Her voice seemed to catch in her throat. "I did nothing. Once I realized what was going on I simply turned around and retired to my room."

"Why, Ruth?" I found myself saying, my voice rising above the silence. "Why didn't you help me?" My mother hushed me but Ruth's sharp voice cut her own. Another similarity. They both had those lovely, slightly hoarse voices. Slightly accented and full of emotion.

"Because life is all about knowing one's place. Isn't that right, Rose?" She raised her thin eyebrows at my mother who in turn wrapped one arm around my chest protectively. "I am not just a woman but a housekeeper. It is not my place to interfere with the affairs of my employers."

"Then why did you interfere?" My mother asked, coldly.

"I found out just this morning, Rose, that the daughter I thought to be dead is alive and living happily with a family of her own. My elation was short lived when Mr. Hockley informed me that the girl he assaulted was none other than your daughter, my granddaughter. You didn't think once I knew that I wouldn't do anything? Do you think I'm that heartless, Rose?" My mother didn't answer, but the fire in her eyes seemed to die down a little.

"Well?" Ruth snapped at the judge. Everyone in the court room was waiting in silence for his input. My mother gripped my father's hand and squeezed it. Caledon Hockley dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief as his lawyer whispered something fierce in his ear. His wife reached out from the front row and put a hand on his shoulder. My nails dug harder into Nate's knuckles, he didn't seem to mind.

"Um...well...I-I." His broad forehead was shining from the sweat that concentrated on his brow. His thick, grey eyebrows knit together as he looked out at all the black suited men all of whom would certainly be outraged if Mr. Hockley was charged with assault. He was struggling to find a weak spot, something that didn't fit or maybe some way he could turn all the blame around on me. He could not.

"The court sentences Caledon N. Hockley to three years' probation and one hundred dollars compensation for sexual assault against a minor." He sighed, and with the loud crack of the gavel against wood court was over. I had won.

The whole room erupted, there conflicting voices clashing with one another. There were cries of outrage, cheers of congratulation. I found myself being whisked up in the air and spun around in Nate's tight embrace before he kissed me. It was the kind of kiss that you would expect at happy endings, warm and sweet and beautiful. Unfortunately, my story is not a happy ending. It doesn't end here. It can't.

Ruth walked up and without saying a word I hugged her. She must have been hugged very little in her life because she seemed so stiff with my wiry arms around her chest. She returned the affection with a pat on the top of the head. After all, I was her granddaughter.

We were the last ones out of the courtroom, ushered out by the bailiff. The judge still sat in his chair, holding his head in his hands. I think he might have been trying to convince himself he did the right thing, without considering how many angry letters he'd be receiving in the days to come.

As we entered the lobby I watched as my mother started to engage in conversation with Ruth. She mentioned something about making up for lost time. I watched as my father hung back and put a hand on Nate's shoulder, smiling. They talked as I was suddenly bombarded with people I had never even met. They shook my hand and told me how brave I was, it was then I realized I had done something big.

But most of all, some of the men who walked past would leer at me. They would pull down their spectacles and shoot daggers with their eyes aimed at my heart. I didn't really care if they believed me or not, but I did care what they thought of me. And from the looks I got, I was nothing but a spoiled whore. And I couldn't handle that.

Nathan's mother shoved her way through the crowd looking for her son who had betrayed her not moments ago. In each hand she held one of the twins'. They were looking around for their brother too, they looked frightened.

Thankfully, I spotted them first before one of the girls could spy me and call out my name. I slipped into the small bathroom off the lobby and sank against the door, letting the cool, silent air wash over me. My head began to clear of all the voices from before and I got up to inspect myself in the mirror as every girl does after she's gone to battle and to be honest I looked like a train wreck.

It's not as if that bathroom mirror was the most reliable. The whole entire room itself was a sorry place to begin with. There was a toilet of course, concealed by paneling in case someone forgot to lock the door and another person marched in on them. The porcelain sink was mounted to the plaster wall. It had a crack running down its center and rust crusted on the faucet knobs.

I don't know why I decided to concentrate on the grotesqueness of the bathroom at that moment instead of the unkemptness of my hair or how my cheeks were unflatteringly flushed. But that is exactly what I was thinking of when the door opened behind me. I had forgotten to lock the door.

I opened my mouth and shouted to the person that I was in the bathroom before they could get a good look at me so they could simply turn around and wait outside. But they didn't. He didn't. He stepped right inside, closing the door behind him and just stared at me with those dark eyes. His thick fingers turned the lock. But I didn't notice at first.

"Came to congratulate me, huh?" I laughed, feeling arrogant all of a sudden. Caledon Hockley stared back at me, fidgeting with something behind his back. The corner of his mouth crooked into a smirk. "Must have been hard, seeing your only son chose a girl over his own father. Oh, wait. You aren't his father. Maybe I ought to let him know. You know, make him feel a little less guilty?" It seemed so easy at the time. He had came right to me, said nothing. It felt like my turn to hurt him. But what happened next took me off guard.

Just as another insult was about to leave my lips he leapt from his place against the door with speed I could never have guessed he had. Suddenly I was trapped between him and the sink. One of his arms wrapped itself around my neck, choking me. The other pressed a silver gun barrel to my temple. The rim of the sick jetted deep into my gut, so hard I thought I might be sick.

"You have a choice." He whispered harshly, digging the pistol into my head. He unwound his other arm from my throat and pried my fingers away from the rim of the sink. Then he placed the gun in my hand, forcing my fingers to curl around it with his own before bringing it back up to my head. "I want you to take this gun and commit suicide with it."

"What if I don't want to end my life? I just won a court case after all, my life's just beginning. You on the other hand should think about putting a bullet in your head. You reputation is ruined!" My voice got high and violent as I stared at his reflection in the mirror, the hate in his eyes.

I felt his other hand shake up my legs. I tried to squirm away but he had me pinned, the porcelain sawed me in half to the point where I thought I would break in half. His hands were cold; I felt them as they traced my hip bone all the way down.

"On the contrary, most people I talked to didn't believe a word out of you or that maid's mouth. It's you who should really be considering this. People think you're a little slut, like your mother." My face burned with anger but I could do nothing.

"You said before you didn't have the nerve to kill me, Cal." I said shakily. "Yes, I remember. So what if I should choose not to?"

"You are correct. So if you decide not to pull the trigger then I will take the gun and open fire on the lobby and believe me, I don't care who I hit." He was nervous; his hands were trembling as they tugged at the hem of my underwear.

"But your wife, your children... my mother." I pleaded. "Why?"

"Because ever since you walked into my living room that day my life's been going downhill. I need you to be out of the picture!" He pressed the gun harder into my head.

"Did you ever think it was maybe your actions rather than my existence that got you here in the first place?" I cried. "Think about it, Cal! You didn't have to do what you did to me in that cellar, you didn't! You brought this on yourself." His fingers slackened on mine. "Besides, once the gun goes off, and they find me here, they're going to think you did it anyways."

"I-I have a plan." He said in with a nervous laugh. "I'm going to hold the gun up to your head while you waste yourself an-and then... I'll back away as quick as I can and they'll find me gaping at your dead body with a gun in your hand. I plan on telling them I walked in to find you putting the gun to your head and that I tried to stop you but...I was afraid you'd turn the gun on me."

"But think about your son, Caledon! Your daughters! I'm their friend! Can you imagine how distraught they'll be! Do you really want to cause such pain?" I asked him.

"Well, at least it's not as much pain as they'll be having if you don't do it and I open the door and put bullets in each of their skulls. Yes, I think I can do it if I close my eyes and shoot." He took a breath closing his eyes and opening them again, narrowing them at my reflection in the mirror. "So what's it going to be? You...or them?"

I thought about everyone out in the lobby. My mother and father, Nathan and his family and the people I didn't even know, who would get hurt if he walked out there and shot aimlessly around the room. Who would die? Was it better to end my life to save countless others, to save Nate's? I thought so.

"Okay." I whispered, curling my fingers around the trigger. A wide smile spread across his handsome face. Was this the last I'd ever see?

"Don't worry." He said, almost lovingly. "I'll be right here when you go. It'll be quick. Might even be painless. I wouldn't know." He turned me around to face him and pressed his lips against mine. I couldn't stop him. His other hand wound out from underneath my skirt and held me around the waist. "Go ahead." He said, pressing his cheek against my fore head. "Good bye, Rose."

It took me only a moment to realize those were the exact words he said in my dream, the day I saved Thomas from the water. Those were the words he said right before he pushed me over the deck of Titanic and drowned me.

Caledon Hockley and I were connected from the day my mother and him boarded Titanic that day in Southampton. We didn't know it, but our fates were intertwined. We would even die on the same day.

I took a deep breath, thinking one last thing. It was an image of my parents, and my brothers and Nate...when they realized I was dead. And with that thought and Caledon Hockley's lips against my cheek, I cocked the gun barrel and prepared myself to depart this life.