Cal wasn't entirely sure what kind of reaction he had expected from Rose, and he shouldn't have been surprised at her total apathy, but somehow he was.
"Your mother's very ill. I just received a telegram."
She looked at him blankly. "Hmm," she said. "Can I see it?"
Ruth had fallen under a particularly harsh spell of pneumonia. Her health had been up and down since that night spent huddling in the frozen lifeboat; Cal knew she'd never been what you would call robust, and she came down easily with colds and flus and other minor illnesses. She had already battled pneumonia earlier that spring, right after the sinking back in April, but had seemed to recover well enough with the proper care. Cal had assumed that was more psychosomatic than anything else—her body's reaction to shock and grief.
Cal booked last-minute tickets on the train to Philadelphia. They would leave in a few hours. Rose asked passively if she might remain behind.
"I don't feel like traveling," she said.
"Rose, that's absurd. This may be the last time you get to see your mother."
She raised a hand to her forehead. "But I'm ever so faint," she said. It was painfully obvious to Cal that she was sneering at him.
He left her alone, knowing she would come regardless of what she said.
And she did.
They left before daybreak. It was a wet, hazy, colorless August morning, and Cal felt as though he had been sucked into some surreal alternate universe. He and Rose exchanged hardly a word during the ride to Philadelphia and he filled the silence trying to chat about business and politics to his valet, Jonathan Baxter, who was dumb as a dog and could offer only monosyllabic grunts and affirmations.
Ruth's nurse told them that Ruth was resting when they arrived at the DeWitt Bukater mansion and that no one ought to disturb her.
Rose shut herself up in her old bedroom without a word.
Almost like she couldn't have cared less.
*****
"You look well, Ruth."
It was an outrageous lie and he didn't know why he bothered to say it. She looked like a corpse. Her skin was a sickly yellow-white, she had lost an alarming amount of weight, and there were dark shadows under her eyes. She kept raising one fist, knotted around a handkerchief, to her mouth when she coughed. It was a terrible cough. She sounded as though she were vomiting up wood splinters.
She gave the weakest attempt at a smile. "You needn't flatter me, Mr. Hockley."
Cal felt no remorse, only uncertainty. Ruth had often been a source of mixed feelings to him. At times he found her repulsive, utterly lacking in anything, like a china doll, but there were also moments when he welcomed her presence. She was the embodiment of everything that he saw as comprehensive and stable in his life. To be with her was to be safe.
She covered her mouth with the handkerchief and coughed. "Is Rose in good health?" she asked, her eyes watering. "I sent a maid to fetch her, but it seemed she was in bed with a headache."
Cal knew that Rose had been in the library reading, not lying in bed with a headache.
"Rose is in excellent health. I'm sure her affliction was quite temporary."
"I would very much like to see her, if it wouldn't be too much to ask."
"Of course it wouldn't," said Cal, patting her hand. He stood. "I'll send her in."
The library was the first place he checked, and that was where he found her, although she was staring out the window now rather than reading.
"Your mother wants to see you."
She turned her head to look at him. "I don't feel up to it just now," she said.
"Rose, you have to go and see her. She's on her deathbed and she wants a chance to say good-bye."
"I doubt it," said Rose, narrowing her eyes. "She just wants a chance to let me know once and for all what a disappointment I turned out to be."
"Rose!" Cal crossed the room and put a hand on her shoulder, but she pulled out of his grip. "You're being incredibly childish! Do you want your mother to spend her last moments thinking that you don't love her?"
"Maybe," said Rose. "Then she might finally understand how it was to spend my entire childhood thinking that she didn't love me."
Cal stared at her in disbelief, searching for some sign that she was only doing this for show, but her resolve was impenetrable. Did she honestly hate her mother?
"That's ridiculous," he said. "Of course she cares about you."
"Really?" She was glaring at Cal as though offended by his suggestion that her mother might love her. "I always thought that when we care about people, we want them to be happy."
"No one has ever wanted anything but the best for you—"
That was all it took.
Rose exploded.
"She tried to sell me!" she screamed, so loudly that Cal took a step back. "Like a goddamn whore! For her own convenience!"
"Rose—"
"She needed money, you had it, and I was all she had to give you in return. Why don't you understand? How can you be so blind? She never cared about my happiness!" She grabbed a vase of flowers and heaved it against the wall, where it shattered. "She wasn't protecting me, she was exploiting me! And she had the nerve to call me selfish!"
Cal watched the raw display of pain and rage on her face.
And suddenly, somewhere, deep down inside him, something clicked.
"You don't have any idea! You don't know what it's like to go through your entire life without a single person who understands how you feel or cares about you unconditionally!"
"Rose."
"You don't understand what it's like to know you're never going to have the love or even respect of a person you so desperately want to be closer to!"
"Rose." He stepped forward, grabbed her, fully expecting her to struggle, but she didn't—she just continued to scream.
"You don't understand what it's like to be trapped!"
"I do understand!" he shouted, giving her a shake.
She was silent for a moment, breathless, frozen, her eyes full of rage and fear and grief. She looked like a caged animal.
And then she sagged against him and began to sob.
His arms went around her limply. He could feel her trembling and she seemed so frail, so lifeless, as if her life force were draining out of her with every tear she shed.
He wasn't sure how long they stood there, like that.
But she didn't pull away, and he didn't let go of her.
*****
He led her down the hallway with one hand on her back. She didn't resist, even though he knew she didn't like it when he touched her, even though he knew that she knew where they were going.
There was no doubt in his mind that tomorrow everything would return to normal and that Rose would withdraw once more into her abyss.
He was prepared to live with that now, which was something he couldn't have said for himself a week ago.
The nurse stood in the doorway of Ruth's bedroom looking in. Her face was grave, set, like the face of a stone gargoyle.
Cal left Rose and went forward. "Is she—"
The nurse slowly shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said.
He nodded and turned back to Rose.
"I guess we were a little late," she said.
The emptiness in her voice was something he would never forget.