ROSE DAWSON: REBORN FOR THE BETTER
Chapter Seven

July 15, 1912

Luke was right. He and Rose did meet again—day after day, in fact. They both enjoyed spending lunchtime walking in the park, and, although Rose would never admit it, even to herself, she soon began seeking him out.

To Rose, it almost seemed as if she were betraying Jack. He had been dead less than three months, and she was carrying his child—and yet she sought out another man. Although it was only friendship on the part of both, it still seemed odd to her to want to talk to another man, to walk with him each day. Rose rarely mentioned her past, but she sensed that Luke, with his keen reporter’s instinct, knew that she was hiding something.

Hope was pleased that Rose and Luke had found each other. At first, Rose had hoped that Luke and Hope would take an interest in each other, thus relieving her of her guilt, but Hope made a point of disappearing whenever Luke was around, as though she were deliberately pushing Rose toward him.

In the beginning, Rose was angry, and a little puzzled, by Hope’s behavior. She had thought that Hope had understood how much Rose had loved Jack, and yet, she seemed to be pushing Rose toward another man. It seemed, too, that Luke and Hope would have been a much better match—they were closer in age, and Hope was a widow who knew how to take care of a home. Rose had passed herself off as a widow, but she was still very young and inexperienced.

Nevertheless, as the weeks passed, Rose grew to cherish Luke’s friendship. It couldn’t be anything more—not yet—but Rose knew that she needed a friend. Hope, for all that she helped Rose, kept a certain distance, one that Rose could never understand. Luke, in contrast, was open and warm, always listening to whatever she had to say.

Rose had feared that Luke would write about her, but as the weeks passed and no mention of her appeared in the newspaper, she relaxed. He was a man of his word.

*****

Toward the middle of July, Rose began to wonder if it might be safe for her to tell Luke her story. He had never pressed her for details, outside of that first request for an interview, but she felt that she could trust him. Her secret, the story that she had kept locked inside herself since the sinking, burned at her, demanding to be let out.

She had told some things to Hope, but never the whole story. Why she wanted to share her story with Luke, a man who could easily print everything he knew about her in the newspaper, she didn’t know, but her instincts told her that she could trust him. He wouldn’t betray her trust, even for such a big story—and the story of the missing Rose DeWitt Bukater was a big story, indeed.

Finally, Rose accepted an invitation from Luke to go with him on a short boat ride near the city, one afternoon after work. She was fearful of getting on a boat again, but it was only a short ride on a boat filled with tourists, never going out of sight of land. If the boat did sink, she would be close enough to swim to shore, and the summer-warmed waters were nothing like the bitter chill of the North Atlantic in April.

Rose told herself over and over again to be calm, but she still trembled when she approached the boat. Luke stood beside her, surveying everything around him, and the tourists on the boat laughed and shouted with excitement, but Rose once again felt the chill of that dark night when the Titanic sank. She froze, not wanting to go another step.

"Rose? Rose?"

She glanced up as Luke put his hand on her arm, encouraging her to come aboard. This was a tour he had taken many times, and when Rose had admitted that she had never seen New York from this angle, he had pestered her to come on the boat tour until she agreed. Now, however, she regretted agreeing to the outing. The boat rocked slightly on the water, and the happy shouts of the tourists seemed to change to terrified screams.

Fighting down her terror, Rose yanked her arm away from Luke and turned, racing back down the boarding ramp. People gaped at her as she pushed past them, her hat flying off, but she paid them no heed. Only when she was safely back on firm ground did she slow, dropping in a trembling heap on a bench.

Luke slowly followed her, carrying her lost hat. When he reached her, Rose barely glanced at him. Her eyes were fixed on the tour boat moving away from the dock.

"All those people..." she whispered, covering her mouth with her shaking hands. "None of them realize...it’s so dangerous...they could all die..."

"You were on the Titanic, weren’t you?" Luke asked, sitting down beside her.

"I...y-yes, I was," Rose stammered, surprised. Luke had never asked her directly about the Titanic before.

He handed her the discarded hat. Absently, Rose put it on backwards, paying no attention to what she was doing.

"You survived...but your husband didn’t?" Luke pressed, looking intently at her.

"Yes...no...I..." And suddenly, like water bursting through a dam, the whole story came pouring out.

"It was a beautiful day when we boarded the Titanic...such a magnificent ship...but to me it felt like a slave ship, taking me back to America in chains. I was engaged to a man I couldn’t stand—Caledon Hockley. You’ve probably heard of him." At Luke’s nod of assent, she went on. "Three nights out, I just couldn’t take it anymore. It was my whole world, and all the people in it—so shallow, so mindless. I felt like I was standing there screaming—and no one even looked up. I ran, and ran...but even the Titanic wasn’t big enough. I reached the stern, and the next thing I knew, I was over the rail, trying to convince myself to let go. At that moment, Jack showed up and asked me not to jump. I argued with him, but finally changed my mind. I almost fell, but he managed to pull me back onto the ship. Some crew members had heard my screams, though, and Jack was arrested—we had landed in a rather compromising position. Cal came from the smoking room, furious that anyone would dare put their hands on his property—that was how he thought of me, a piece of property.

"I made up a story about it being a stupid accident—that I was trying to see the propellers. Cal was so gullible—he fell for it immediately. But then, he never did think I had a mind of my own. He tried to reward Jack with twenty dollars, but when I asked if that was the going rate for saving the woman he loved, he invited Jack to dinner the next night. I’m sure he did it just to show Jack how out-of-place he would be in our world, but Jack accepted, and the next night, came to dinner. One of the other first class passengers, Molly Brown, had lent him a tuxedo, so he looked like any other man there. And at dinner, in spite of snide remarks from Mother and Cal, he prevailed. Everyone thought he was very clever—for a third class passenger.

"After dinner, he slipped me a note. When no one was paying attention, I went to the clock on the Grand Staircase to meet him. He asked if I wanted to go to a real party—and then took me down to steerage, where there was loud music, and dancing, and people really having a good time. I’d never had so much fun in my life. But Cal’s manservant, Spicer Lovejoy, had been sent to look for me, and he reported my behavior to Cal, who blew up at me at breakfast the next morning. Later, as we were getting ready for the church service, Mother told me to stay away from Jack, because the marriage to Cal was too important to ruin. We were out of money, you see, and Mother couldn’t stand the thought of leaving high society behind. I didn’t really care anymore, but I agreed anyway.

"That afternoon, Jack somehow got up to first class, and he pulled me into the gym and tried to talk to me. I wanted to listen, I really did, but I was still thinking about what Mother had said that morning. Later, though, as I was having tea with Mother and her friends, I realized what my life would be like if I stayed with Cal, and I made the decision that changed my life. I went and found Jack at the bow, and he opened my eyes to a whole new world." She closed her eyes, remembering. "I asked him to draw me—he was a fine artist, you see. He had been to Paris, and had learned to draw so well. I asked him to draw me like one of his French girls—wearing only a necklace that Cal had given me. And he did."

Luke looked a little shocked at the revelation, but didn’t interrupt.

"After the drawing was finished, Lovejoy came looking for me. Jack and I left my suite, and ran all through the ship, trying to get away from him. We finally wound up in a crew area, where the coal was put into the furnaces to fuel the ship. We ran through there, and ended up in a cargo hold." She paused, wondering if she should reveal what had happened next, then decided to tell him, since it explained her current condition.

"There was a car there—a shiny new Renault. We ended up in the back seat—and we made love." Rose paused, remembering the experience. She glanced at Luke, who was looking at her thoughtfully.

"After that, we got out of the car before anyone could find us, and went up on deck. I told Jack that when the ship docked, I was getting off with him. A moment later, we struck the iceberg—and the whole world changed. Jack and I went back to first class, to tell Mother and Cal what had happened. Cal was waiting for us—and he had Lovejoy slip the necklace into Jack’s pocket, then accused him of stealing it. Jack was arrested, and—God forgive me—I actually believed at first that he really had stolen the necklace. A steward made us come up on deck, where I learned that the ship really was sinking. As Mother and I waited to board a lifeboat, Cal made a snide remark about how he should have kept the drawing—it would be worth a lot more by morning. And in that moment, I knew that Jack hadn’t stolen the necklace—that he would drown in the ship if he wasn’t freed, for a crime he didn’t commit.

"I called Cal an unimaginable bastard, and went to find Jack. He was near the bottom of the ship—water was already filling the room he was in. I looked, but there was no extra key to his handcuffs, and Lovejoy had taken the original key. I went to find help, and finally came back with an ax. It was pure luck that I managed to chop through Jack’s handcuffs—I had never used an ax before. But he was free, and we found our way up to where the steerage passengers were being held back. There was no getting through, so we found another gate, and Jack and his friends broke it down. When we got up on deck, Jack insisted that I get in a lifeboat. I refused, but then Cal appeared and put his coat on me. He told me that he had an arrangement with an officer on the other side of the ship, so that he and Jack could both get off safely. I got into the boat, but something about Cal’s expression told me that he was lying, so I jumped out halfway down and went to find Jack.

"Cal was furious. He took Lovejoy’s gun, and even as Jack and I embraced, he started shooting at us. We ran, and luckily Cal was a poor marksman—he never came close to hitting either of us. But we kept running, and wound up trapped belowdecks again. We found a little boy who was standing alone and helpless, and tried to rescue him, but his father didn’t understand, and grabbed the boy and ran the wrong way. They were both drowned when the water burst through the doorways down the hall.

"Jack and I ran, almost being swept away, but we made it to a staircase. We ran to the top, but the gate was locked. The water was rising around us when a steward came by. We begged him to unlock the gate, and he finally tried, but he dropped the keys and ran off before it was unlocked. Jack ducked under the water, found the keys, and managed to unlock the gate. We escaped, barely.

"When we were back outside, we struggled up the tilting deck to the stern—the same place where we’d met three days earlier. The ship rose higher and higher in the water, until finally, it had too much pressure and split in half. For a moment, it seemed like we were saved—the half of the ship that we were on was level in the water again. But then, the ship started rising again. Jack and I climbed over the railing, watching in horror as people fell into the water below. Jack told me to take a deep breath and hold it as the ship went under the water, and to not let go of his hand. I tried not to let go, but the suction pulled us apart.

"I got to the surface alone, with no sign of Jack. I kept looking for him until a man decided that I would make a good flotation device and shoved me under water. I struggled and screamed, and suddenly Jack was there. He drove the man away from me, and we swam out of the crowd, looking for a way out of the water. We found a piece of the ship, a section of wall or door that was still floating, so we tried to climb on top of it—but there was only enough room for one person. Jack insisted that I get on top of it, while he stayed in the water.

"After a while, things started getting quiet. Jack kept telling me that the boats would come back for us, but I didn’t really believe him. I told him I loved him—and he made me promise to survive, and go on. I didn’t want to—I didn’t believe we would survive. But I promised him what he asked, and we waited.

"Sometime later, I saw a light moving over the water, and realized that a boat was coming back. I tried to wake Jack—he looked like he was sleeping—but he wouldn’t wake up. And finally, I realized that he was dead, killed by the icy water. I almost gave up—but then I remembered my promise. I broke the ice that had frozen our hands together, and let him go. He sank into the ocean and disappeared. I looked for a way to alert the boat to my presence—my voice was too weak to call to it—and saw a whistle in a dead officer’s mouth. I swam over to him, got the whistle, and blew with all my strength. The boat came back and rescued me.

"In the morning, the Carpathia arrived to pick up survivors. I hid away in third class, not wanting to go back to my old life. Cal came looking for me—but he didn’t find me. I was safe. When the Carpathia docked in New York, I gave my name as Rose Dawson. Rose DeWitt Bukater was dead, but a new woman, Rose Dawson, was born in her place. I met Hope on the docks, and we went to her apartment to live. A few weeks later, I learned that I was with child—Jack’s baby. Jack came to me in a dream and gave me this locket." She pulled the locket from beneath her collar; she was never without it. "He told me to show the picture of him to our daughter, Josephine. And then I woke up, knowing that Jack loved me and our daughter-to-be."

Luke was staring at her, wide-eyed with amazement. In all his years as a reporter, he had seldom come across such a heart-rending story. But the sinking of the Titanic had caused many people grief and loss, not the least of whom were Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater. It was the biggest story he had ever come across—the story of a high society passenger on the Titanic, thought to be dead, but actually alive and well in New York City, having left her old life behind.

"Luke?" Rose spoke his name, wondering why he was staring at her so intently. He didn’t intend to print her story, did he? He wouldn’t blow her cover—or would he?

Luke shook his head, suddenly aware that he had been staring at her. "You—you didn’t really lose your husband on the Titanic," was the first thing that came out of his mouth.

Rose shook her head stubbornly. "He was my husband, in every way that counted. We would have been married, had he lived. We would have made a life together, raised a family."

"You seem to have started the family without marriage."

Rose glared at him, suddenly angry. "And what is the matter with that? I know that it isn’t usually done—but circumstances beyond our control changed things. I love my baby—and Jack. And yes, he was my husband—our souls were connected in a way that few people’s ever are, and they always will be. Don’t you judge me, Luke Calvert. You don’t know me, or what my life was like. I don’t regret anything."

"Including leaving your mother behind to mourn for you, or your fiancé to wonder why you left him for someone else?"

"Like I said, you don’t know me, or why I did what I did. I was sorry to leave my mother behind—but I would never have been able to make my own life if I had gone back. Sometimes, you have to end old relationships and start over."

"You’re right, Miss DeWitt Bukater. I don’t know you. I thought you were one person, and now it seems that you are someone else entirely. I don’t know what to think."

"If the stories of ordinary people were told, you’d find many where people are not what they seem, where their lives have taken directions no one thought possible. I’m an ordinary person now, Luke—and it’s made me happier than I ever was before." She stopped, realizing how much power this man had. He could tell the world what she had done—and her newfound freedom would be gone. She would be Rose DeWitt Bukater again, a now-defiled high society debutante. Her life would be what it was before, but worse, because she had broken the unwritten laws of society.

"You won’t print this, will you?" she asked, fearing the answer.

Luke looked at her, his eyes showing how betrayed he felt by her duplicity. "I don’t know, Rose. I honestly can’t say." He turned and walked away.

Rose collapsed back against the bench, shaking. The story had come out before she could even think about it—and now her days of freedom might be at an end. She didn’t know if Luke would write about her or not—but she feared that telling him what had happened was the biggest mistake she’d ever made.

Wiping the sudden tears from her eyes, Rose stood up, clenching her jaw. She was going to be strong. She might have made the biggest mistake of her life—but she was a survivor. Whatever happened, she was going to make it.

Chapter Eight
Stories