RUNAWAY ROSE
Chapter Fifty-Five
July 10, 1915
On July 10, 1915, Rose disembarked from the ship
in San Francisco. After making a brief stop at a telegraph office to wire the
Calverts in Iowa about Robert’s death, she made her way into the city towards
Deborah’s home.
Deborah greeted her with open arms, not
understanding at first Rose’s sorrowful expression. "Where’s Robert?"
she asked, wondering if he was off taking care of business.
Rose just shook her head and followed Deborah
into the house. "He’s dead, Debbie. He fell through the ice last winter
and got pneumonia. He died just a few days later."
Deborah’s eyes were filled with sympathy.
"Oh, Rosie, I’m so sorry! You finally found someone to love, and he was
just taken away from you."
"I guess I should have expected
it," Rose replied gloomily.
Deborah was about to ask her what she meant
by that when a wailing from upstairs interrupted them.
"Grace is through with her nap,"
Deborah told her.
"Grace? You have a daughter?"
Deborah nodded proudly. "Yes. A
beautiful little girl with curly, honey-brown hair. She was born on September
22, 1914."
"I missed a lot while I was away."
"You certainly did. Not just things like
this, but...did you know that Europe is at war?"
"I heard something like that in
Juneau."
"I just hope that we don’t get into it.
I don’t know what I would do if Will went over there."
Rose didn’t reply. She no longer had anyone
to worry about.
Deborah wheeled herself into the elevator,
Rose following. "I’ve hired a nanny to help take care of Grace, but she
has today off," she explained, making her way down the hall towards the
nursery. Rose followed her, looking forward to meeting Deborah’s baby girl.
Grace lay in her crib, crying. When she saw
her mother, she abruptly stopped crying and gave a grin, showing several small
teeth. Her curly hair stuck out in several directions, mussed from her nap. She
pulled herself up on the bars of the crib, staring at her mother’s guest.
Deborah carefully unlatched the special door
on the side of the crib and lifted her daughter out.
"We had a bassinet for her at first, one
that was low to the ground so I could reach her, but when she started to grow,
we had a crib specially made. I just hope she doesn’t learn to unlatch
it."
Grace sat in her mother’s lap, staring with
wide eyes at Rose.
"Did you have an easy birth?" Rose
asked, gazing at the baby.
"It went amazingly well, considering. I
didn’t have to have a Caesarean section after all. She was born the usual
way."
"Was it painful?"
"The contractions were, because I have
full feeling in my back and stomach. But it wasn’t so bad when she got born. I
felt something when I was pushing her out, but it wasn’t really painful. I was
surprised, because I’d never felt anything there before."
"You mean, in your stomach?"
"No. The...the birth canal."
"You never felt anything there before at
all?" Rose looked at her friend in amazement.
"Rosie! That’s not a nice
question."
"Sorry."
"No, never before that. But...I can
still feel now," Deborah told her slyly. Rose blushed.
"You’re healing then? From your back
injury?"
"I don’t know. I still can’t walk, but I
have regained a little feeling. Maybe someday..." She let the sentence
trail off. Deborah still longed to be able to walk, but it had been so many
years since she had been able to that she had pretty much given up hope.
"Would you like to hold her?" she asked Rose, holding the baby out to
her.
Gingerly, Rose took the baby, settling into a
rocking chair with her. Grace gazed her in fascination, tugging at a red curl.
Rose gazed back at the baby, allowing her to
continue playing with her hair. She gave Grace a tentative smile, and the
little girl looked at her solemnly for a moment, then turned on her bright baby
smile.
Rose thought longingly of babies, thinking
about the children that she and Robert would never have. She had thought to
start a family when they returned to civilization, but it wasn’t going to
happen now. Maybe one day she would marry again, but not right away.
Deborah watched her with Grace, noticing the
longing look in Rose’s eyes. "You’d like a baby, wouldn’t you?" she
asked as Rose made Grace giggle with a game of peek-a-boo.
Rose sighed. "I wanted to start a family
when I returned to civilization, but I never thought that I would wind up a
widow when I was only nineteen."
"Maybe you’ll find someone else, in
time."
"Maybe." Rose gave Grace to Deborah
and walked to the window, looking out at the summer city. "Robert and
I...took precautions to insure that I didn’t get pregnant out in the
wilderness." She turned back to Deborah. "I’m not sure if you know
what I’m referring to..."
"I do. The doctor gave me some of those
things when I got married, because giving birth could be dangerous for a woman
like me. But after a few months I decided that I wanted a child, and threw
caution to the wind. And now...I have little Grace."
"I almost wish that the precautions had
failed," Rose told her. "Even though it’s difficult for a woman alone
to raise a child, I would have loved and cared for one if I had had it."
"Of course you would," Deborah
assured her. "And it’s no sin for a widow to have a child. But you’re
right, women alone have a hard time of it. Do you remember that maid back in
Philadelphia who had an out-of-wedlock child, how people taunted her and her
son?"
"I remember." Rose wondered if that
would have been the fate of the baby she had lost, if it had lived.
"Perhaps one day you’ll find another
husband, another good man. You can’t replace those you lose, but you can learn
to love others."
"I know," Rose whispered, wiping
tears from her eyes as she looked out the window. "I almost had a baby,"
she blurted out suddenly.
"With Robert?"
"No. A long time ago. Before I met him,
when I was still with Caledon Hockley. If it had lived, it would have been two
and a half years old now." She turned around, expecting to see Deborah
looking at her in condemnation.
Deborah just looked at her in sympathy.
"Oh, Rosie, how awful. I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost
Grace. What happened?"
"Cal got upset with me one day and
punched me in the stomach. I lost the baby a few hours later. I hadn’t even
known I was with child." She turned back around. "I never forgave him
for that."
"Did Cal know about the baby?"
Rose shook her head. "No. I’ve never
told anyone until now. Not even Mother knew."
"You went through all that alone?"
"I didn’t have any choice. Mother would
have been so shocked if she had known...you remember how much emphasis she put
on proper behavior."
"I remember. She didn’t even like you
running or climbing trees. A miscarriage would have shocked her horribly, I’m
sure, especially since you weren’t married."
Rose nodded, not going into further details.
Better that Deborah thought that Cal had been the father of her child. Rose
still couldn’t talk about Jack, and, at any rate, she didn’t know who the
father of that baby had been. She supposed she might have found out, if it had
lived, unless it looked like her. Then there would have been no telling who the
father was.
"Rosie...you could have died."
"I almost wished that I would...I was so
unhappy about the upcoming marriage to Cal, and it would have been an easy way
out. But I didn’t die; I’m still here. And I’m glad I’m alive, in spite of
everything."
"You’re a strong person, Rose. A lot of
people would have given up after all you’ve been through. But you’ve kept
going."
"A long time ago, someone made me
promise to never give up. I’ve kept that promise."
"Someone said that to me once,
too."
Rose looked at her. "Who?"
"The artist who drew my picture in Santa
Monica all those years ago. I was still unhappy about my lot in life, and I
kind of said as much. He told me that life was precious, and that I shouldn’t
give up on things just because they were difficult. And he was right. I’ve
lived a lot since then." She looked at the baby in her lap.
Rose looked back out the window, hiding her
tears. How like Jack to say that, to reassure someone that there was a reason
to go on, even when hope seemed to be gone. Wiping her eyes, she turned back to
her friend.
"Rosie..." Deborah gave her a hug.
"You’re not alone, you know. You can stay here as long as you want."
"Thank you, Debbie," Rose told her.
But even as she said the words, she knew that she couldn’t stay.