ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS
Chapter Two

My first impression of Jack's birthplace was that it was a quiet farming town. The center of town looked like a basic settlement. Skinny brick buildings lined the dirt road. Behind the main road, I could see a wooden bridge across a winding river. On the other side was a small hill covered in evergreen trees. Now, in late April, almost all of the snow had melted, leaving only a few small patches on the ground of the woods across the lake. I could still feel the chill in the air, though, so I tightened the black coat around my shoulders and turned back toward the town.

I passed once again by the buildings of downtown. I noticed a post office, a general store, an inn, and a tailor's shop. There was a carved wooden sign, listing the founding date, welcoming me to Chippewa Falls. Even soaking in the sights that Jack would have seen in his youth, it did not take me long to travel the entire length of the main road. To the east, there was farmland for as far as I could see.

I doubled back to take another look at the lake that had nearly claimed Jack's life when he was a boy. It was almost nothing more than a trickle, meandering across a bed of rocks. Compared to the Atlantic, which succeeded in claiming Jack's life, this little stream looked--insignificant. I took one hand out of the pocket of the jacket where I had become accustomed to keeping it and placed a finger in the flowing water. It was cold, just about as cold as the water I had experienced only two weeks ago. But this water was much lighter than the salt water. It flowed fresh across the rocks. The only thing my finger could feel was the bits of sediment the water had taken with it down the lake. I was finding it hard to picture the strong Jack that I knew having trouble swimming in this water. But he had only been a boy--

"Excuse me ma'am, are you all right?"

The voice startled me. A plain-looking woman had just come from the back door of one of the shops on the main street.

"I'm sorry," I started. "I'm just--"

"You're not from around here?" she asked, but it seemed she already knew the answer. "I haven't seen you before."

"Well, no, not really. Is this Lake Wissota?" I asked, indicating the water behind me.

"Lake Wissota? No, ma'am. That's east about five miles or so, past the cemetery. This here's just melted snow from the mountains."

I was a bit relieved that that was not the lake that Jack had fallen into. It seemed much too serene to have harmed someone like him. I knew I wanted to see the lake. It was one of the few things I really knew about Jack's past.

"Are you staying for a little bit? Ol' Allen Richardson runs an inn just up the road. He'd be glad to have the company."

I wanted the orphanage to benefit from Cal's money, much more than myself, but the next train to California, which was where I was ultimately headed, didn't leave for two days. "I think I will look at the inn when I get back from the lake," I said. "Thank you for all your help, ma'am."

"Call me Lucy," she said, and then realized. "Oh! I guess we haven't been properly introduced. I'm Lucy Micel."

"Rose Dawson," I said. I searched her face for recognition as I said my last name. I had not decided my story in case anyone related my name to Jack's. At first I had wanted to say I was his widow. I certainly felt like it. I thought I owed his old friends the truth, but I didn't know if I was capable of telling the whole story so soon after it happened.

"Well, welcome to Chippewa Falls, Miss Dawson," Lucy finally said, hinting that my name meant nothing special to her. I thanked her again and headed east toward the bank of Lake Wissota.

Lucy had told me that the lake was a five mile walk. It would be a long walk, but Rose Dawson was a much more physically fit woman than Rose DeWitt Bukater had been. With that thought in mind, I headed toward the farmland at the end of the little town.

The walk was easier than I had expected it to be. I passed quite a few large pastures, many with crops or dairy cows. The farmhouses were scattered across the sweeping green land. Each was different from the one before it. I liked the quaint wooden houses very much. I hoped that in the future, after I had used my newfound freedom to explore the world, I would find a small town like this where I could belong to a community of neighbors. Soon, I was passing a grassy hill. There was a clear area bounded by hedgerows. Near an arched entrance was a marker that I was passing the cemetery. As soon as I noticed it, I looked up to see the expanse of blue.

This could be nothing other than Lake Wissota. Though I could see the opposite bank, it looked very small. The dark blue water was moving in tiny waves, emphasizing the gentle wind that was blowing. It was grassy leading up to the water, with wildflowers budding by the bank. I picked a handful of pretty ones. This was what Jack remembered from his childhood. I walked over to a large boulder near the shore of the water and sat down to admire the view. The view that Jack had seen. I imagined that he had even sat on this same boulder, objectively viewing the lake for a sketch of his.

I did not know how long I sat admiring the lake. Though I probably should have been afraid of water--especially water so cold--I could not help but appreciate the beauty of the blue lake in the green pastures. I felt safe, hoping that Jack could see me from wherever he may be. I was aware of the cool wind blowing the longer blades of grass around me, but I did not feel it. It was not nearly as cold as the whistling wind in the Atlantic that turned my cheeks red and raw.

Eventually, I got up from the boulder and started wandering back to town. I would look at all of the farmhouses and the surrounding woods so that I could imagine how Jack spent his boyhood. Then I would go to the inn Lucy had told me about. Tomorrow I would find the local orphanage, make my anonymous donation, and continue on to California.

As I started back, however, I remembered the cemetery I had passed on my way to the lake. Jack had told me that he left the town just after his parents died and that he had no other family. I hoped that someone had taken care of the graves. I found myself walking toward the cemetery to check on his parents, the people I would have been proud to call my parents-in-law. I wanted to care for their graves, to meet them.

I gently closed the gate below the archway leading to the cemetery. It was a scenic area, on a hill overlooking the lake. It was not a large area, so after only a few minutes of wandering, I saw the two simple gravestones right next to each other. Thomas and Anna Dawson. They had both perished on the same day, nearly five years ago. The weeds were overgrown a little bit so I knelt down in front of Jack's parents and cleared the area. I set down the wildflowers I had picked near the lake in the grass near them.

"Well, I guess I should introduce myself," I said to the two stones in front of me. "My name is Rose--Rose Dawson. I hope that I can wear your name proudly, keep it alive. I think you should know that I love your son. I will for as long as I live. Hopefully all three of you are reunited. I-I'll never let go of my promise." A single tear fell down my cheek.

I stood back, letting what I had just told my parents-in-law, as I thought of them, reach them. Glancing around the cemetery, I wondered how many people buried here had left behind children. How many would be benefiting from Cal's money that I would be donating to the orphanage? I wished that I had asked Lucy its location, so that I could easily find it in the morning. I was so lost in my thoughts that I hardly noticed that someone else was standing right next to me.

"Have I seen you before?" I was startled out of my thoughts by the deep voice. "There aren't usually many visitors to this plot."

I turned around to see an elderly, portly man. "What?" I asked.

"My wife is right next to the Dawsons. I very rarely see anyone else here," he explained. "Allan Richardson," he said, extending his hand for me to shake.

"The innkeeper?" I asked, recognizing his name.

"Yes. Now, why have the Dawsons not had many visitors?"

His voice sounded almost like he was reprimanding the Dawson family--like he was reprimanding Jack for not visiting. Right now, I was what was left of the Dawson family. I wanted to tell him off for insulting my family, but I didn't think this was the place.

Instead, I simply said, "I'm just visiting. Do you by any chance know where the local orphanage may be?"

His face paled at my question. I quickly thought of everything I had said, but could not imagine anything that would make him lose color so quickly. I tried to give him a questioning look.

"Is--is this about the Dawson boy?" he stammered.

The Dawson boy? "Do you mean J-Jack?" I asked weakly.

"Yes, that's his name. Are you looking for him? 'Cause if so, I don't think you'll find him at the orphanage."

What was he talking about? Why did he think I was looking for Jack at the orphanage? Even at fifteen, he was old enough to care for himself. He had told me that he'd headed straight for California, just as I was planning to do.

"What?" was all I could muster. "What do you know of the Dawsons?" I finally asked.

He gave me an appraising look, took a deep breath, and began. "When this town started, 'bout fifty years ago, it was just a small group of homesteaders that banded together to create a community. One of the original men was Henry Dawson. His only brother had been killed at Manassas and his parents had died some years earlier. Henry had had nothing else back east, so he and a few others took their one hundred sixty acres and developed it into the farmland you see out there," Allan said.

So Jack's grandfather had bravely traveled out west--on nothing but Lincoln's promise of one hundred sixty free acres of land to develop. He had helped to form a town. At the same time, my own grandfather had been hiring replacements to take his place in the Union Army. There was no question over whose grandfather I admired more. I hoped that the innkeeper knew more of Jack's family history.

"Eventually, the original folks had some kids, and then more homesteaders joined until there was quite the town springing up. That's about when I built my inn and when Fred opened his store. We were the first two businesses on the main road. Anyway, Henry Dawson's son, Thomas, soon inherited the farmland from his father. Henry had used it to raise dairy cows, and Thomas continued the practice. Soon, he had married Anna Harris from Milwaukee and they had a son."

I smiled at the thought of a young Jack milking a cow. I really wished that he could show me how. I nodded, silently asking Allen to continue with his story.

"It wasn't long before Chippewa Falls started growing very quickly. The main road continued to grow, as did the development of farm land in the area. The descendants of the original settlers were the closest thing we had to a local government. Luckily, there were very few issues to resolve. The fire that took Thomas and Anna's lives was a few summers ago. There was some speculation that an arsonist wanted the land of an original homesteader, but those rumors were quickly silenced. We found a burnt curtain right above a melted candlestick. It appeared that the Dawsons had just mistakenly left a candle burning. They both perished, leaving behind a young son. Some of the adults took their son in for a short while after his parents' deaths, but it was common knowledge that Henry Dawson had had no other family. They made arrangements to send him to the nearest orphanage in Madison. But before the plans were even completed, he had disappeared without any hint as to where he'd gone."

I thought I knew Jack well enough to know that his fifteen-year-old self would not want to be shipped off to an orphanage. He had a much more adventuresome spirit than that. He had told me that he had gone straight from Chippewa Falls to Santa Monica. I was about to tell the innkeeper where Jack had gone when he spoke up again.

"No one had any clue as to where the boy went until about a year later. A letter, addressed simply to Jack Dawson in Chippewa Falls, arrived at the post office. It held the official seal of the governor's office. Chippewa Falls was such a small town that we had never before received much attention from the government in Madison. The whole town was curious about the letter from the governor, so we opened it. It turned out to be a thank you letter, signed by the governor himself. Jack had drawn him a portrait to hang in his office. The whole town remembered that the boy used to like to draw, so we were proud of him for getting his art displayed so prominently. That did help us decide where Jack had run off to, though. The governor was in Madison. He had heard us all talking about Sister Millie's orphanage in Madison. One of the ladies in town put two and two together. She was sure that Jack had gone to the orphanage. She just thought that he wanted to do it himself, to not put a burden on the rest of the town."

This did not sound like the Jack Dawson that I knew. He would not have voluntarily gone to an orphanage. He had told me that he went as far away from Wisconsin, both geographically and climate-wise, as he possibly could so that he would not have to think about his parents deaths.

"No," I said. "Jack told me that he went to California."

"Maybe he went to California after," Allen continued. "But he was definitely in Madison to make the portrait of the governor."

I was very confused, but I could tell by Allen's expression that there was even more to this story. I beckoned him to continue, though I was still sure that Jack had been in California at the time.

"Then, only a year later, after the town had accepted that Jack was safe at the orphanage, he received another letter. What made it strange, though, was that the letter was from the orphanage. Obviously Jack had had some contact with them. Otherwise, they had no business contacting here. But we knew he hadn't admitted himself as an orphan--because the letter had been addressed to his parents."

What had Jack been doing in Madison? And why had he told me that he was in California during that time? Had everything he told me about riding horses on the beach been made up? I had to know where Jack had truly spent the last five years.

"How quickly can I get to Madison?" I asked.

"Train'll get you there first thing in the morning," Allan said. "But why?"

"I have to see the orphanage," I said. "And the governor's portrait."

Chapter Three
Stories