New York City
Winter 1913
Rose
Rose stares down at the little scrap of paper she has flattened out on top of her makeshift table. Despite having been home from work for several hours now, she's still sitting as close as she can get to her little gas burner, for heat, and has not yet removed her coat– the same woolen overcoat coat of Cal's that she had been wearing when the ship went down, laundered in the sink of that first Inn she had stayed at after docking. It's the warmest thing she has, and though she hates it for whom it belonged to, she cannot afford anything else just yet.
She can't afford much at all. She barely scrapes up enough for this room and eats plain oatmeal or broth most of the time, not trusting herself well enough to even try and cook any kind of meat on her one little burner, and having no coin to spare most days in the department store cafeteria or the corner market stall. Sometimes the landlord takes pity and offers her a meal with other tenants downstairs– the ones who pay extra to be fed as well as housed– but it has been weeks since the last time that had happened. She's pretty sure she had offended him by not reciprocating his obvious interest.
Tonight, she's so cold and so hungry– so downright miserable, that it has her considering the address on the paper that she smoothes over again, contemplating. She can't stop shivering, and all of her muscles ache with a fever, and she's starting to wonder just how desperate she might get.
She had tracked it down weeks ago, at the city clerk's office; the last known mailing address of Ruth Dewitt-Bukator, registered as living at the residence of Margaret Brown on Park Avenue– just blocks from where Rose works every day.
The record is from the middle of summer, so there's no telling if her mother might still be there. Her presence at all was enough to tell Rose that after everything, Cal must have cut all ties and kicked her out. She supposes she shouldn't be surprised. He was never charitable unless there was something for him to gain. She wonders at the fact that her decision to run away from that life had apparently brought Ruth low enough to have accepted help from a woman who on board the ship she had done everything in her power to avoid. Rose quite liked Molly Brown, though. She had been glad of her survival.
She could find out, she thinks. She could go to this address and ask after her mother, just to see if the information is real. If her mother is there, it's not likely that she'll be dragged back to Cal, or back to Philadelphia. It's not likely that she'll be greeted kindly, either, though. She had done exactly what her mother had warned her of, and had brought them both down in the world; their reputations are inseparably linked and the damage that Rose will have done is irreparable. At least while they're estranged and she's presumed dead her mother can hold onto some of her dignity, and blame all of her losses on the sinking. It has always been so very important to Ruth, after all: her dignity.
The thing is, though, that Rose really thought she could break free of that life and be okay. She had thought that it might be hard for a little while, until she found her footing, and then she'd be fine– happy, even. She's not okay, though. Not even a little bit. She's in over her head, and she never quite feels sure how she'll get through another day. Most days she doesn't dare think about all that has happened to her already.
Even Jack had tried to warn her that it would be hard, but she hadn't understood just quite how much– especially on her own. She hadn't really thought of all the little things she had taken for granted: full meals, a closet of clothes, freshly laundered sheets, warm baths… a doctor called when she's feeling poorly.
As she stares at the address she tries to find the strength not to follow that impulse and go to check– to run back to the life she had escaped from just because everything feels hard. She had promised Jack, hadn't she? That she wouldn't give up? And wouldn't finding her mother be giving up?
No. She'll get through this. She'll have to. It's the only option, really. She'll get through the night, and then tomorrow she'll focus on getting through the day, and that's simply how she'll have to continue on: one day at a time. What else is there to do, really?
She folds the little slip of paper again and tucks it away inside of her journal– the one indulgence she has allowed herself in the months since the sinking: a place to get the swirling thoughts and memories out of her head. Maybe someday she'll go and check, when she's in a better place– more settled in this life, and less desperate, but she won't be going tonight. She won't walk back into Ruth Dewitt-Bukater's life until she can do so with her own dignity intact.
New York City
Autumn, 1914
Rose
The only word that can truly describe how Rose is feeling right now is overwhelmed. Watching Jack leave the room, he seems rather overwhelmed himself. His shoulders seem heavy with resignation and exhaustion, even after his elation of an hour ago when she had agreed to come with him, and it makes her feel guilty.
She can tell that he's still worried about her. She's not sure how to reassure him. In truth, she's not very sure of anything right now, including whether this– her being here– is the right decision, or a good one. 'My home is yours if you want it,' Jack had said, and when it comes down to it, she does. It's all she wants. Now that she's here, though, she has to figure out what that means. He's being so gracious and welcoming. She's not sure he knows of any other way to be, and she doesn't feel like she deserves it.
Alone now in this room, she takes the time to really look at it.
It's spacious. It's perhaps four times as big as the one she had just left, and it's warm. There are metal radiators on the two side walls, warming the space up easily in spite of the large windows at the back and the doorway that opens onto a balcony. Between the dim electric lights fitted into an overhead fixture and the street light from outside, the room has a golden quality to it, and the pale sage of the walls is calming.
The odd assortment of rugs scattered across the floor give it a whimsy that she's not sure she has ever seen in a home before, or anywhere but in a painting or a play. She wonders if it has always been like this, or if it's a change that Jack has made. She's curious to see the rest of the house.
Her feet ache in her boots, and she's physically exhausted after being run ragged at the shop with pointless trips to basement storage, let alone the trek home and then the trek here. She knows that she should sleep. It's so quiet here, though, that she's not sure she could if she were to try. There is no yelling or chatter on these streets, and no sound of automobiles or trains passing by with any regularity now that it's night time. The house itself is far quieter than she's used to, now. There are no gurgling pipes here, or conversations or arguments to be heard through thin walls. While she's sure that Molly Brown would have employed a staff here, she doesn't imagine that Jack does. At a guess, if she were to pull the call tassel hanging by the door of this room, a bell would ring in the kitchen with no one there to hear it.
Resigning herself to try and do what Jack had left her to do, and attempt to get some rest, she finally puts down her bag, setting it in an empty armchair to her right, next to another closed door. Opening it, she finds a big, empty closet– large enough to be its own dressing room, with a vanity table and drawers lining the opposite wall.
She closes that door again, and crosses to the other. The sight of a big tub, a wash basin, and an indoor toilet almost makes her want to cry. There's a stack of towels laid out on a little table near to the back, ready for use, so she wouldn't even have to go searching, and that makes up her mind. If she doesn't feel like she can sleep yet, then maybe a proper bath will do the trick. She can't remember the last time she had a warm bath. It may well have been the morning before the sinking. The only place she thinks she has encountered warm water at all over the past two years, which wasn't heated over her little stove burner, is from the taps in the lavatory at work, and it's not like she could have ever gotten away with doing her washing up there.
Her hands shake a little in anticipation as she turns the tap over the big tub– a claw-foot thing like the one she had as a girl. Feeling hot water bubble up from the heater rooms below to mix with cold and make the perfect temperature without much fuss, it makes her want to cry.
She makes quick work of letting her hair down from its pins and ridding herself of her clothing– the skirt and blouse uniform she had thrown back on over her undergarments and the only corset she owns– a charity donation she had received at a relief event for women the week after the sinking. A new one would take up a whole week's wages, and she hasn't wanted to make that purchase just yet even if this one never fit properly.
On the side of the tub sits a bar of Palmolive bath soap, barely touched, and a bottle of the shampoo, as well. Sparing no more time, Rose steps over the edge, and sits all the way down, leaning far back to submerge herself in the warm water entirely, holding her breath. So different from the last time she had been submerged in water like this she feels as if the cold may now seep from her bones entirely, and the sensation– the realization of it once she comes up for air makes her weep.
Here she is again, so suddenly in this house, where she might find the exact creature comforts she had been missing so bitterly. Its the same house that she had contemplated visiting almost a year ago in desperation. If she had, would she have found Jack that much sooner? Would she be better able to accept all of this if she had found him and not the other way around? Everything she's feeling at the moment is all down to the kindness of the very man she had been missing just as bitterly as these small comforts, so why can't she just let him in? Let him be close? She could so easily have Jack in just the way she has wished for all this time, so why hasn't she just let herself have him? Have happiness?
Has she changed so much in choosing to leave the Lusitania alone and strip her life down to what it is now that she feels she doesn't deserve her own happiness any longer when once it was the only thing she fought for? Or is it just that she knows that much more keenly now how much there is to lose?
Sucking in a ragged breath through her tears she wills herself to quieten down. Jack had said he'd likely be downstairs, but she still doesn't want to chance him hearing her and worrying. He's been so lovely to her– kind and doting and generous and so very understanding. She knows that he's worried; obviously so, but she doesn't want to give him any more cause. It's bad enough the things that she's not sure whether to accept or agree to, and what to stand her ground on, as she already knows he's likely to offer her far more than he already has. While she doesn't want charity, he seems to have a way of making her feel as if that's not what this is. Jack seems to have compelling arguments for anything and everything to counter her own, and yet he says he expects nothing of her– wants nothing in return, and she doesn't want to just accept that. It doesn't feel right.