Titanic Fic: Commiseration (2/3)
Title: Interim
Fandom(s): Titanic
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,924
Summary: She may be a maid who goes unnoticed, but she has a life too. And sometimes it's the unnoticed that make an impact.
Commiseration
Part II: Interim
The severance was much more than Trudy had had in mind, enough to purchase a small town home in Hartford, Connecticut. It was where Ben had grown up so he knew it well, and it was as good a place as any. Rose initially traveled with them, but In spite of her promise to stay, the implication being that it would be for a while, just six months passed before she approached them again with the prospect of leaving. They objected, but she had turned eighteen two weeks prior, and technically they couldn’t do anything, especially since they weren’t related.
She gave them her new address, a barely-decent apartment in upstate New York because, as she said, she wanted to pursue a career as an actress.
“It’s better than my life,” she’d said. “I’ll be able to play someone else’s and escape mine.”
She never had really accepted the sinking, much less Jack’s death, each day more or less consciously expecting him to knock on the door with a grin and a “Surprise!”, but he never did. So Ben and Trudy watched as she boarded a train back to the Empire State, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time they saw her.
Their hopes didn’t materialize.
They corresponded for the occasional birthday and Christmas, but for the most part, Ben and Trudy followed Rose’s life only through the newspaper or word of mouth.
ROSE DAWSON ENCHANTING IN STAGE DEBUT
BROADWAY TAKEN BY WISCONSIN NATIVE ROSE DAWSON
STARLET ROSE DAWSON INTRIGUING HOLLYWOOD
They were only some of the many headlines. Rose didn’t quite make it to the biggest stage, to the blockbusters and glitzy premieres, but her name was certainly out there. More than once Trudy wondered if Ruth had heard of her success and realized she was alive, but Trudy doubted it. Ruth wouldn’t guess for a moment that Rose would drop the good name of DeWitt-Bukater, let alone appropriate one as “commonplace” as Dawson.
They read a different sort of headline some many years later in the mail.
You are cordially invited to celebrate the marriage of
Rose Marie Dawson
to
Jonathan David Calvert
on Saturday, the seventh of September
nineteen thirty-five
at three o’clock
984 Elm Street
Huntington Beach, California
Trudy looks over at Ben as they both finish reading it, with more than a little surprise. Not that it didn’t make sense-they didn’t expect Rose to remain a de facto widow forever-but nevertheless, it seemed strange to picture her with another man.
“What do you think?” asks Ben.
Trudy hates herself for hesitating, but she does. She looks out the window and sees the neighbor’s boy kicking a soccer ball against the siding of the house. “Do we have…”
“We could make it work. I’ve never taken time off from the factory, so I’m sure they would allow me a few days. It’s been a while since either of us has seen the ocean.”
It’s true-it had been a long time. Twenty-three years, in point of fact. There’s a reason they hadn’t, though. While they get by all right on Ben’s job at a contracting company, inflation and Trudy only being able to find part-time work means they’re not exactly millionaires.
Still, she would like to see Rose again, not to mention California. So with a smile, Trudy strides walks to the old desk that’s functional but dotted with water rings and chipped paint. Grabbing a piece of stationery, she sets down to write.
Rose,
Ben and I would love to attend your wedding, and to meet this fiancé of yours! Can’t wait!
Yours,
Trudy and Ben
They receive a reply a week later, though it’s not from Rose.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. McDervish,
Rose has been quite busy getting things ready for the wedding, but wanted me to let you know we received your R.S.V.P. We look forward to seeing you and, in my case, meeting you!
Sincerely,
John Calvert
About a week before Rose’s wedding, Ben comes home in a whirlwind. “Trudy!” he exclaims happily. “I’ve been promoted to do this job down on the Florida coast-some elderly couple who want a renovated house right on the beach. I don’t know how long I’ll be needed, but Gerald assured me I could have those couple days to travel for Rose’s wedding. Do you know what this means? This is the start of a great new chapter!”
Trudy’s excitement stems from his, and on August 28th, she bids him farewell, making him promise to give her a call when he gets settled and to take hundreds of photos.
But like so many things in her life, happiness doesn’t last.
The hurricane hits the Carolinas and northern Florida the following day, obliterating the shores and homes and families situated there. Trudy hears snippets here and there of a tropical storm brewing, but doesn’t pay much attention; the eastern seaboard and southern coast receive them all the time.
That is, until it becomes much more of a force than any meteorologist had predicted. It doesn’t lose steam as it tears inland like most storms, just heads straight across Florida, hitting the panhandle before coming out into the Gulf of Mexico.
It attacks St. Petersburg and the Keys on the second of September. Trudy’s rolling up socks and shirts to make packing easier for the wedding when she gets the call.
“Trudy McDervish speaking.”
“M-Mrs. McDervish, there has been an accident.”
Trudy sort of recognizes the voice, but can’t place it right away. She certainly doesn’t expect what comes next.
“It’s-It’s Ben.”
The man on the line-Ben’s supervisor, Craig-continues talking, but his voice turns to a low buzz as her ears lose focus. She doesn’t know how she stops from collapsing right then and there, but somehow manages to keep the phone in her hand.
“You heard of the hurricane?” Craig says. Seemingly expecting Trudy’s silence, he continues, “It’s hit the western coast of Florida, ma’am.”
“M-Maybe he was inland-” Trudy tries.
“I’m so sorry,” Craig intimates sincerely. “Rescue crews have tried to salvage and find what they can, but it seems he and a number of other workers were taken out to sea.”
The idealistic part of her wants to make the point that with no body there’s no confirmation, but reality says otherwise. She hangs up the phone numbly, and walks to the kitchen table, falling into one of the chairs.
She must have started screaming, because there comes an urgent knock at the front door sometime later, their good-natured neighbor Anne peering concernedly through the screen. Spotting Trudy, she quickly opens up the door-having nothing really worth stealing, Trudy and Ben never bothered to lock it during the day-and puts a hand on the woman’s back.
“Trudy!” she gasps. “Trudy, what’s happened?”
“Hurricane,” is all Trudy can say, but Anne is a smart woman and even with just that one clue, she puts it together.
“Oh my word,” she breathes. “Oh Trudy…”
“There’s a wedding,” interrupts Trudy, trying to swim through the mud that is her thoughts. “I can’t attend. I have to…I have things…I can’t…”
“Whose wedding?”
Snatching a pad of paper and pen from the table and scribbles on it, then hands it to Anne. “This is the address and phone number of Rose Dawson-”
“The actress?”
“Please contact her.”
“Yes, absolutely I will,” says Anne. “But-here, let me have Travis drive you to the station, perhaps speak with someone about this.”
She leaves Trudy there and runs into her house, spilling out what she knows-which is admittedly not much-to her husband. Travis, a very practical businessman, is three steps ahead, already dialing the number of Ben’s company. It doesn’t take long before he arranges everything, and Anne escorts Trudy into Travis’s car, standing in the driveway with her heart aching for her friend.
The one thing she knows she can do now is follow through with Trudy’s request. It’s a call she doesn’t want to make to a woman she’s never met, but she’d made a promise, and she doesn’t back out on promises.
Rose is getting some last-minute alterations done on her dress when the phone rings. She frowns, not expecting any calls. “Beth,” she says kindly to the woman making alterations, “could you pick that up for me?”
Beth does as requested, listens for a moment, then walks over to Rose. “You’re, um…you’re going to want to take this.”
Much as she had long ago seen the iceberg in Mr. Andrews’s eyes, she sees horror in Beth’s, and feels her chest tighten. “Hello?” she asks into the receiver.
“Is this Ms. Dawson?”
“Yes…?”
“My name is Anne Eastman, I am a neighbor of Trudy and-”
“Has something happened?” Rose interrupts, that tight feeling in her chest worsening.
“I-I’m afraid so. I don’t know if you’d heard of the hurricane,” starts Anne. Rose had, but doesn’t know much of it. “From what I understand, Ben had a new contracting project down on the Florida coast, and…”
Rose shuts her eyes. “My God,” she murmurs. She doesn’t want to believe it. Not Ben. Not like that.
“She says she won’t be able to attend-”
Rose laughs humorlessly. “My wedding is frivolous compared to this. Please tell her to call me if or when she needs to.”
“I will,” says Anne and in the next moment a click signals the end of the call.
Beth looks questioningly at her once she hangs up the phone, but Rose doesn’t respond. Slowly removing her dress and veil, she hands them gently over. “You know the alterations, I think.”
Before Beth can say anything, Rose strides out of the fitting room and into her own down the hall, sitting on the bed with her head bent. She reaches over to her nightstand where a candle rests, and lights it, letting the flame warm her face. Any faith in a higher power she might have had disintegrated the night of April 14th, 1912, but now she prays, staring into the flickering fire.
“Please watch over dear Trudy,” she whispers. “Please let her be okay.”
She blows out the candle, hoping her prayer will reach…someone.
In the coming days, Rose checks the news stories and obituaries repetitively, but sees nothing, at least nothing about Ben. There are many reports about the so-called Labor Day Hurricane, and some appalling figures about the deaths and destruction, but other than a couple of higher-profile victims, there’s no list of the deceased. She asks one of her friends in New York to see if they could find out anything, but no dice.
Somehow in all the tumult she’d gotten married. John expressed his commiseration for her worry, but while she appreciated it, he didn’t quite understand. He wasn’t at all as entitled as her mother, but he had still been brought up in a similar world, still wondered why exactly Rose would be friends with her former maid. It was fairly improper, according to high society, after all. She hoped Trudy would call her, but the line stayed silent, and the number of times Rose tried to contact her, no one ever answered.
She receives a letter in the mail ten days after Anne’s phone call, written in shaky handwriting and slightly crumpled. A far cry from the excitedly written one she’d received from Trudy and Ben replying to her wedding invitation.
Miss Rose, it begins, which sets off warning bells in her head right away.
Foremost, I am sorry I did not attend your wedding. I’m sure it was beautiful.
Second, I write this to you under difficult circumstances. By now I’m sure you have discovered what transpired. As you know, I have no family and any friends I may have had are not the kind of company I seek. As atrocious as this sounds, they all feel more like lawn ornaments than people who care sincerely.
Ben, he…he was all I had. My only rock in this world. I don’t know if it’s somehow Death coming to collect because we were supposed to perish on that forsaken ship or if it’s simply cruel happenstance, but that maelstrom stole him from me, and stole my will.
I know taking one’s own life is a cowardly act, and I do not wish to do it, but Miss Rose…I am not as strong as you are. I cannot imagine going on like this, without my Ben. I have contacted a doctor, who unknowingly prescribed me with certain medications, and as I understand they will work quickly. I have additionally made arrangements for…afterwards, so do not trouble yourself with doing so.
You are my dearest friend, and it has been a pleasure knowing you. If it were not for your kindness, Ben and I might have never been able to be together, and I am-we are-forever grateful.
I thus enclose to you the deed to our home in Hartford, as well as the money we had saved up. It isn’t much, and between you and John, I’m sure you have no need for a middling residence, but if you should ever require it, it will be entrusted to you. I have also included a few personal items I would like, if it is not too much to ask, you to hold onto. They meant a lot to me.
Perhaps, in a world beyond this one, we shall meet again.
Most affectionately,
Trudy McDervish
By the time Rose finishes reading the letter, her teardrops have mixed with those of Trudy’s which had dried and stained the paper. She had feared this would happen, the minute she realized Ben had perished in the storm. It wasn’t that Trudy wasn’t strong enough; it was, Rose postulates, because of the promise Ben hadn’t made.
Jack, in a way, forced Rose to keep on living, to honor his memory by doing so. He had sacrificed himself, knew his fate the minute he entered the water. Ben didn’t. Ben didn’t sign up for that. Rose’s eyes well up again just at the thought that he and Trudy hadn’t been able to say their goodbyes, that they thought they’d spent decades more with one another. Jack’s death was horrifyingly premature, but at least they were together while it happened. Trudy had to find out from a third party.
Remembering the rest of the letter, Rose peers inside the envelope and empties its contents onto her bedspread. There is the sworn deed to the house, but also two well-worn wedding bands as well as a necklace, beautiful though obviously an heirloom. Rose studies it, wondering if she’d seen it before, and then it comes to her: she’d seen it every day. She hadn’t consciously noticed it the many years Trudy worked for her family, but now thinking back, she had always worn it.
It’s more than a necklace, though, she finds out; it’s a locket. Rose pulls open the catch and peers at it. On one side is who she guesses is Trudy and her parents, and on the other is a miniature version of Trudy and Ben’s wedding photo. Even in its tiny form, their love is clear. Rose stares at it for a few more moments, then snaps it shut and places it, the rings, the deed, and the letter all in the drawer of the bureau that John would never voluntarily investigate.
Rose wonders if Trudy had already committed the act, supposes she had. It’s with that supposition that Rose comes to the acknowledgement that the last link to her old life had gone the way of everyone else. Granted, she hadn’t kept tabs on her mother specifically, but she can’t find the emotion to care. National news had, of course, told her than Cal had splattered his brains over his manor wall when he found out every penny of his interests was gone.
Molly Brown, with whom she had kept in now-and-then contact but never really considered herself close, had died a few years prior. Last she’d heard, Molly was not only “unsinkable,” but a phenomenal activist and philanthropist. While it would probably send Ruth into cardiac arrest, it didn’t surprise Rose in the slightest.
She doesn’t end up telling John about the letter or belongings she received from Trudy, just lets him come to his own assumptions. Nor does she tell her two children, her mastery of the art of faking emotions making it so they’re never the wiser. She files away Trudy and Ben’s life with Jack’s, locks them in that corner of her mind she so rarely accesses.
The rest of her life passes in a strange sort of blur, filled with joy, certainly, as she watches her children grow and have families of their own, but also filled with sadness when John passes a short fifteen years later due to a bout of pneumonia that had accelerated faster than anyone anticipated. Her children were old enough at that time to where she didn’t experience the struggles of a single mother as she might if they were little, but it was strange to not have him around nonetheless.
As she aged, it seemed her own body refused to give in just as it had so many years ago when she lay delirious and gazing up at the stars. Then came the day where she saw the drawing she thought was lost forever in the ocean on that tiny television screen. And despite her self-promise to keep that part of her life sealed away, she unlocked it for everyone to see.
Most of it at least.
Part III
Fandom(s): Titanic
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,924
Summary: She may be a maid who goes unnoticed, but she has a life too. And sometimes it's the unnoticed that make an impact.
Commiseration
Part II: Interim
The severance was much more than Trudy had had in mind, enough to purchase a small town home in Hartford, Connecticut. It was where Ben had grown up so he knew it well, and it was as good a place as any. Rose initially traveled with them, but In spite of her promise to stay, the implication being that it would be for a while, just six months passed before she approached them again with the prospect of leaving. They objected, but she had turned eighteen two weeks prior, and technically they couldn’t do anything, especially since they weren’t related.
She gave them her new address, a barely-decent apartment in upstate New York because, as she said, she wanted to pursue a career as an actress.
“It’s better than my life,” she’d said. “I’ll be able to play someone else’s and escape mine.”
She never had really accepted the sinking, much less Jack’s death, each day more or less consciously expecting him to knock on the door with a grin and a “Surprise!”, but he never did. So Ben and Trudy watched as she boarded a train back to the Empire State, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time they saw her.
Their hopes didn’t materialize.
They corresponded for the occasional birthday and Christmas, but for the most part, Ben and Trudy followed Rose’s life only through the newspaper or word of mouth.
ROSE DAWSON ENCHANTING IN STAGE DEBUT
BROADWAY TAKEN BY WISCONSIN NATIVE ROSE DAWSON
STARLET ROSE DAWSON INTRIGUING HOLLYWOOD
They were only some of the many headlines. Rose didn’t quite make it to the biggest stage, to the blockbusters and glitzy premieres, but her name was certainly out there. More than once Trudy wondered if Ruth had heard of her success and realized she was alive, but Trudy doubted it. Ruth wouldn’t guess for a moment that Rose would drop the good name of DeWitt-Bukater, let alone appropriate one as “commonplace” as Dawson.
They read a different sort of headline some many years later in the mail.
You are cordially invited to celebrate the marriage of
Rose Marie Dawson
to
Jonathan David Calvert
on Saturday, the seventh of September
nineteen thirty-five
at three o’clock
984 Elm Street
Huntington Beach, California
Trudy looks over at Ben as they both finish reading it, with more than a little surprise. Not that it didn’t make sense-they didn’t expect Rose to remain a de facto widow forever-but nevertheless, it seemed strange to picture her with another man.
“What do you think?” asks Ben.
Trudy hates herself for hesitating, but she does. She looks out the window and sees the neighbor’s boy kicking a soccer ball against the siding of the house. “Do we have…”
“We could make it work. I’ve never taken time off from the factory, so I’m sure they would allow me a few days. It’s been a while since either of us has seen the ocean.”
It’s true-it had been a long time. Twenty-three years, in point of fact. There’s a reason they hadn’t, though. While they get by all right on Ben’s job at a contracting company, inflation and Trudy only being able to find part-time work means they’re not exactly millionaires.
Still, she would like to see Rose again, not to mention California. So with a smile, Trudy strides walks to the old desk that’s functional but dotted with water rings and chipped paint. Grabbing a piece of stationery, she sets down to write.
Rose,
Ben and I would love to attend your wedding, and to meet this fiancé of yours! Can’t wait!
Yours,
Trudy and Ben
They receive a reply a week later, though it’s not from Rose.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. McDervish,
Rose has been quite busy getting things ready for the wedding, but wanted me to let you know we received your R.S.V.P. We look forward to seeing you and, in my case, meeting you!
Sincerely,
John Calvert
About a week before Rose’s wedding, Ben comes home in a whirlwind. “Trudy!” he exclaims happily. “I’ve been promoted to do this job down on the Florida coast-some elderly couple who want a renovated house right on the beach. I don’t know how long I’ll be needed, but Gerald assured me I could have those couple days to travel for Rose’s wedding. Do you know what this means? This is the start of a great new chapter!”
Trudy’s excitement stems from his, and on August 28th, she bids him farewell, making him promise to give her a call when he gets settled and to take hundreds of photos.
But like so many things in her life, happiness doesn’t last.
The hurricane hits the Carolinas and northern Florida the following day, obliterating the shores and homes and families situated there. Trudy hears snippets here and there of a tropical storm brewing, but doesn’t pay much attention; the eastern seaboard and southern coast receive them all the time.
That is, until it becomes much more of a force than any meteorologist had predicted. It doesn’t lose steam as it tears inland like most storms, just heads straight across Florida, hitting the panhandle before coming out into the Gulf of Mexico.
It attacks St. Petersburg and the Keys on the second of September. Trudy’s rolling up socks and shirts to make packing easier for the wedding when she gets the call.
“Trudy McDervish speaking.”
“M-Mrs. McDervish, there has been an accident.”
Trudy sort of recognizes the voice, but can’t place it right away. She certainly doesn’t expect what comes next.
“It’s-It’s Ben.”
The man on the line-Ben’s supervisor, Craig-continues talking, but his voice turns to a low buzz as her ears lose focus. She doesn’t know how she stops from collapsing right then and there, but somehow manages to keep the phone in her hand.
“You heard of the hurricane?” Craig says. Seemingly expecting Trudy’s silence, he continues, “It’s hit the western coast of Florida, ma’am.”
“M-Maybe he was inland-” Trudy tries.
“I’m so sorry,” Craig intimates sincerely. “Rescue crews have tried to salvage and find what they can, but it seems he and a number of other workers were taken out to sea.”
The idealistic part of her wants to make the point that with no body there’s no confirmation, but reality says otherwise. She hangs up the phone numbly, and walks to the kitchen table, falling into one of the chairs.
She must have started screaming, because there comes an urgent knock at the front door sometime later, their good-natured neighbor Anne peering concernedly through the screen. Spotting Trudy, she quickly opens up the door-having nothing really worth stealing, Trudy and Ben never bothered to lock it during the day-and puts a hand on the woman’s back.
“Trudy!” she gasps. “Trudy, what’s happened?”
“Hurricane,” is all Trudy can say, but Anne is a smart woman and even with just that one clue, she puts it together.
“Oh my word,” she breathes. “Oh Trudy…”
“There’s a wedding,” interrupts Trudy, trying to swim through the mud that is her thoughts. “I can’t attend. I have to…I have things…I can’t…”
“Whose wedding?”
Snatching a pad of paper and pen from the table and scribbles on it, then hands it to Anne. “This is the address and phone number of Rose Dawson-”
“The actress?”
“Please contact her.”
“Yes, absolutely I will,” says Anne. “But-here, let me have Travis drive you to the station, perhaps speak with someone about this.”
She leaves Trudy there and runs into her house, spilling out what she knows-which is admittedly not much-to her husband. Travis, a very practical businessman, is three steps ahead, already dialing the number of Ben’s company. It doesn’t take long before he arranges everything, and Anne escorts Trudy into Travis’s car, standing in the driveway with her heart aching for her friend.
The one thing she knows she can do now is follow through with Trudy’s request. It’s a call she doesn’t want to make to a woman she’s never met, but she’d made a promise, and she doesn’t back out on promises.
Rose is getting some last-minute alterations done on her dress when the phone rings. She frowns, not expecting any calls. “Beth,” she says kindly to the woman making alterations, “could you pick that up for me?”
Beth does as requested, listens for a moment, then walks over to Rose. “You’re, um…you’re going to want to take this.”
Much as she had long ago seen the iceberg in Mr. Andrews’s eyes, she sees horror in Beth’s, and feels her chest tighten. “Hello?” she asks into the receiver.
“Is this Ms. Dawson?”
“Yes…?”
“My name is Anne Eastman, I am a neighbor of Trudy and-”
“Has something happened?” Rose interrupts, that tight feeling in her chest worsening.
“I-I’m afraid so. I don’t know if you’d heard of the hurricane,” starts Anne. Rose had, but doesn’t know much of it. “From what I understand, Ben had a new contracting project down on the Florida coast, and…”
Rose shuts her eyes. “My God,” she murmurs. She doesn’t want to believe it. Not Ben. Not like that.
“She says she won’t be able to attend-”
Rose laughs humorlessly. “My wedding is frivolous compared to this. Please tell her to call me if or when she needs to.”
“I will,” says Anne and in the next moment a click signals the end of the call.
Beth looks questioningly at her once she hangs up the phone, but Rose doesn’t respond. Slowly removing her dress and veil, she hands them gently over. “You know the alterations, I think.”
Before Beth can say anything, Rose strides out of the fitting room and into her own down the hall, sitting on the bed with her head bent. She reaches over to her nightstand where a candle rests, and lights it, letting the flame warm her face. Any faith in a higher power she might have had disintegrated the night of April 14th, 1912, but now she prays, staring into the flickering fire.
“Please watch over dear Trudy,” she whispers. “Please let her be okay.”
She blows out the candle, hoping her prayer will reach…someone.
In the coming days, Rose checks the news stories and obituaries repetitively, but sees nothing, at least nothing about Ben. There are many reports about the so-called Labor Day Hurricane, and some appalling figures about the deaths and destruction, but other than a couple of higher-profile victims, there’s no list of the deceased. She asks one of her friends in New York to see if they could find out anything, but no dice.
Somehow in all the tumult she’d gotten married. John expressed his commiseration for her worry, but while she appreciated it, he didn’t quite understand. He wasn’t at all as entitled as her mother, but he had still been brought up in a similar world, still wondered why exactly Rose would be friends with her former maid. It was fairly improper, according to high society, after all. She hoped Trudy would call her, but the line stayed silent, and the number of times Rose tried to contact her, no one ever answered.
She receives a letter in the mail ten days after Anne’s phone call, written in shaky handwriting and slightly crumpled. A far cry from the excitedly written one she’d received from Trudy and Ben replying to her wedding invitation.
Miss Rose, it begins, which sets off warning bells in her head right away.
Foremost, I am sorry I did not attend your wedding. I’m sure it was beautiful.
Second, I write this to you under difficult circumstances. By now I’m sure you have discovered what transpired. As you know, I have no family and any friends I may have had are not the kind of company I seek. As atrocious as this sounds, they all feel more like lawn ornaments than people who care sincerely.
Ben, he…he was all I had. My only rock in this world. I don’t know if it’s somehow Death coming to collect because we were supposed to perish on that forsaken ship or if it’s simply cruel happenstance, but that maelstrom stole him from me, and stole my will.
I know taking one’s own life is a cowardly act, and I do not wish to do it, but Miss Rose…I am not as strong as you are. I cannot imagine going on like this, without my Ben. I have contacted a doctor, who unknowingly prescribed me with certain medications, and as I understand they will work quickly. I have additionally made arrangements for…afterwards, so do not trouble yourself with doing so.
You are my dearest friend, and it has been a pleasure knowing you. If it were not for your kindness, Ben and I might have never been able to be together, and I am-we are-forever grateful.
I thus enclose to you the deed to our home in Hartford, as well as the money we had saved up. It isn’t much, and between you and John, I’m sure you have no need for a middling residence, but if you should ever require it, it will be entrusted to you. I have also included a few personal items I would like, if it is not too much to ask, you to hold onto. They meant a lot to me.
Perhaps, in a world beyond this one, we shall meet again.
Most affectionately,
Trudy McDervish
By the time Rose finishes reading the letter, her teardrops have mixed with those of Trudy’s which had dried and stained the paper. She had feared this would happen, the minute she realized Ben had perished in the storm. It wasn’t that Trudy wasn’t strong enough; it was, Rose postulates, because of the promise Ben hadn’t made.
Jack, in a way, forced Rose to keep on living, to honor his memory by doing so. He had sacrificed himself, knew his fate the minute he entered the water. Ben didn’t. Ben didn’t sign up for that. Rose’s eyes well up again just at the thought that he and Trudy hadn’t been able to say their goodbyes, that they thought they’d spent decades more with one another. Jack’s death was horrifyingly premature, but at least they were together while it happened. Trudy had to find out from a third party.
Remembering the rest of the letter, Rose peers inside the envelope and empties its contents onto her bedspread. There is the sworn deed to the house, but also two well-worn wedding bands as well as a necklace, beautiful though obviously an heirloom. Rose studies it, wondering if she’d seen it before, and then it comes to her: she’d seen it every day. She hadn’t consciously noticed it the many years Trudy worked for her family, but now thinking back, she had always worn it.
It’s more than a necklace, though, she finds out; it’s a locket. Rose pulls open the catch and peers at it. On one side is who she guesses is Trudy and her parents, and on the other is a miniature version of Trudy and Ben’s wedding photo. Even in its tiny form, their love is clear. Rose stares at it for a few more moments, then snaps it shut and places it, the rings, the deed, and the letter all in the drawer of the bureau that John would never voluntarily investigate.
Rose wonders if Trudy had already committed the act, supposes she had. It’s with that supposition that Rose comes to the acknowledgement that the last link to her old life had gone the way of everyone else. Granted, she hadn’t kept tabs on her mother specifically, but she can’t find the emotion to care. National news had, of course, told her than Cal had splattered his brains over his manor wall when he found out every penny of his interests was gone.
Molly Brown, with whom she had kept in now-and-then contact but never really considered herself close, had died a few years prior. Last she’d heard, Molly was not only “unsinkable,” but a phenomenal activist and philanthropist. While it would probably send Ruth into cardiac arrest, it didn’t surprise Rose in the slightest.
She doesn’t end up telling John about the letter or belongings she received from Trudy, just lets him come to his own assumptions. Nor does she tell her two children, her mastery of the art of faking emotions making it so they’re never the wiser. She files away Trudy and Ben’s life with Jack’s, locks them in that corner of her mind she so rarely accesses.
The rest of her life passes in a strange sort of blur, filled with joy, certainly, as she watches her children grow and have families of their own, but also filled with sadness when John passes a short fifteen years later due to a bout of pneumonia that had accelerated faster than anyone anticipated. Her children were old enough at that time to where she didn’t experience the struggles of a single mother as she might if they were little, but it was strange to not have him around nonetheless.
As she aged, it seemed her own body refused to give in just as it had so many years ago when she lay delirious and gazing up at the stars. Then came the day where she saw the drawing she thought was lost forever in the ocean on that tiny television screen. And despite her self-promise to keep that part of her life sealed away, she unlocked it for everyone to see.
Most of it at least.
Part III