Work Text:
November 1, 1929, 4:06 pm
The commotion downstairs, while not wholly unusual, was reaching a disruptive pitch, and Rose wondered what the servants were doing. After a moment, she decided it wasn’t worth investigating, and turned back to the evening newspaper. The headlines about the continuing market crash were, unbelievably, even more sensationalist than they’d been in the morning edition.
“—not be disturbed UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!” she heard Cal thunder unexpectedly, his voice carrying clearly to her through the open library door. As she heard another door slam, though, she knew he must be locking himself in his study, which was a floor and nearly an entire wing away.
Bewildered, she looked at the clock. The fact that Cal was home at all was unfathomable — it was barely 4 in the afternoon. In their whole married life he’d only come home before 6 pm once, when she was in labor with Margaret.
That night, Cal had raged in the hall, and demanded entrance to her room despite the fact that she’d been in active labor. When he’d been denied, she’d heard him pacing outside for hours. The sound of his footsteps had faltered every time she’d screamed, before resuming again when she stopped. But, more vividly, she remembered him coming in, after it was finally over, at what must have been 4 in the morning.
He’d looked far more disheveled than she’d ever seen him, even when the Titanic was sinking and he’d been shooting at her. His eyes had been glazed over with what she’d have assumed were tears had he been anyone else. Eventually, she had realized that they might be tears of disappointment. Cal had never said so outright, but she had been certain that he’d hoped for a boy.
He’d hesitated by the bed, and scrutinized her face. While nothing could have been further from her intention, he must have seen some kind of invitation there. The next thing she knew he was sitting beside her, a few careful inches between them, grasping her hand so tightly it hurt as they both stared down at their daughter.
She had considered apologizing for the baby being a girl, the latest in a long series of unpalatable things she’d feared she was going to need to say in order to continue their painful, farcical charade. To her surprise, though, Cal had spoken before she could.
“Rose, she’s beautiful,” he’d murmured, his voice thick, but his tone almost reverent.
She had blinked, and tried to mask her shock before angling her body slightly so that she could see his face. He had been blinking furiously, and she’d become uncomfortably certain that he really must be trying not to cry. Something inside her had lightened, and she had found herself free of bitterness toward him for the first time since the night they’d become engaged. Without overthinking it, she had squeezed his hand back, then smiled at him as warmly as she could.
“She is beautiful,” she’d murmured. “She looks like you.”
Cal’s mouth had opened, then shut, and if possible his furious blinking increased in pace. “Is it possible you just paid me a compliment?” he had asked, voice teasing but slightly incredulous.
Rose had felt her own smile fade at the unfairness of the comment. She’d spent every waking moment since the ship sank being the perfect fiancée, and then the perfect wife. She’d smiled at the right people just the right amount, heroically fighting the urge to stab some of them. She’d simpered ‘yes, thank you,’ and, ‘of course, thank you,’ and even, ‘I feel so lucky that I get to fall more in love with my husband every day,’ so very politely that she’d feared she might injure herself.
She’d steadfastly ignored the cruel whispers about her indiscretions on the Titanic. She’d pretended not to hear the speculation, when she first became pregnant, that the child might not be Cal’s. Her tireless acting had slowly begun to pay off, and society was coming to accept her and Cal as what they pretended to be — completely in love, with anything that might have marred the past being just that — the past, nothing that their current wealth and obvious affection couldn’t smooth over.
As she’d continued to think, though, she’d found that she couldn’t recall a single instance of her saying something genuinely kind to Cal, when they were alone, away from the crush of society. Oh, she’d never been rude or cutting or even slightly snappish, either — that was all behind her, now, too — but she’d fought to keep her declarations noncommittal, her demeanor calm. She was always willing, but never eager. Always polite, but never effusive.
For his part, Cal had matched her move for move. She had worried, for months, that the angry, bitter man she’d seen on the Titanic would return, but he was uniformly composed, generous, even gentle.
She’d felt Cal’s grip on her hand loosening, and without wholly understanding why she gripped his hand more tightly again. “Perhaps I’ve been a bit reticent when we’re alone,” she’d mused softly, aware it was the understatement of her life.
Of course, the moment had ended, as all moments did, and they’d gone back to quietly avoiding one another.
Rose snapped back to the present as the clock chimed, and she realized with surprise that it was time to dress for dinner.
Rose blinked as she walked into the dining room at exactly 6:30 pm, having been certain that she’d be the last one there. Cal was reliably, almost infuriatingly always seated by 6:25, and he’d rise as she entered, the slightest twitch of his lips the only indication that the respectful gesture was a sort of mockery.
She hesitated, then nodded to her five children, who were seated around the table. Her gaze lingered on Cal’s empty seat. At a loss, she turned to the nearest member of the staff. “Has my husband left the house?” she inquired, feeling truly bewildered as to why he wasn’t there, especially when she knew he’d been home that afternoon.
The maid looked utterly nonplussed. “No, ma’am. That is, not to my knowledge, ma’am. I can check with Charles, but—”
“That won’t be necessary,” Rose said, forcing a half-smile even though somewhere inside she was starting to feel uneasy, as though something might be seriously wrong. “I’ll fetch him from the study.”
“Er… shouldn’t someone be sent to do that, ma’am?” the girl questioned, carefully, but Rose ignored her, moving back toward the entrance to the dining room. Once she reached the door, however, a footman stepped in front of her, neatly blocking her way.
“Pardon me, ma’am,” he said, stiffly. “But Mister Hockley gave me explicit instructions that he was not to be disturbed.”
Rose fought hard against the urge to roll her eyes and inquire as to whether that had been before or after Cal had slammed the door in the interfering man’s face.
She settled for arching an eyebrow instead. “Surely you're not presuming to tell me what my husband meant?” she queried coldly, sounding more like her mother than she’d ever have believed possible. She found she didn’t care, though, as her agitation grew. Cal was not the kind of person to avoid dinner, even if he was the kind of person to return to work immediately afterwards.
“Of course not, ma'am,” the man answered after a moment, bowing his head respectfully and taking a half-step to the side. “Forgive me, ma’am.”
Rose felt a sharp flash of rage that she didn’t fully understand, but she made no answer, and instead swept past him and toward Cal’s study.
The hallways passed in a blur, and, when she reached the door she sought, she considered knocking. It seemed only polite, given that she hadn’t set foot near the room in years. Instead, she blushed violently as she remembered the last time she’d been inside it, then pushed the door open.
At first glance things seemed normal, tidy. Cal was standing behind his desk. A careful pile of paper lay on the corner of the mahogany; the decanter was nearby. A few lamps were illuminated, giving light where the sun was finishing its long slope toward the ground. After a moment, though, Rose's gaze returned to Cal, and her mind noted dully that the scene wasn’t, actually, normal — that her husband had a pistol in his mouth.
Her body moved before her mind could catch up, and she shut the door firmly, then turned the lock, as though privacy might actually matter at a time like this. As though maybe all of her mother’s endless droning about not letting the servants see anything untoward actually mattered.
To her immense consternation, when she turned back toward him, Cal had neither altered his posture, nor the position of the pistol. She felt her body tremble, and her mind, which had been observing dispassionately, suddenly seemed to be screaming that she ought to sink to the ground.
But if she hadn’t fallen to the ground by now, in her life, she hardly thought that this was the moment she was going to start, and so she just swallowed, and stared.
Cal’s eyes met hers for an endless moment, and then, slowly, he took the pistol out of his mouth. Rose felt something in her unclench, but didn’t have time to feel real relief before he pointed the gun to his temple instead. “Locking the door… clever,” he mused, sounding utterly detached. “I knew I’d forgotten something, but then, it never occurred to me that anyone might actually come to look for me before I was done.”
There was no trace of self pity or sadness in his words, but Rose felt a strange sting at them anyway.
This odd, stinging feeling caused her to take a step forward. Her hands had started shaking but her voice was calm, when she heard it echo in the room — even firm. “Cal, put down the gun,” she said, and she hated how trite the words sounded, even though she had no idea what else she could say.
“I don’t think I will, sweet pea,” he quipped, and his voice was tired, now, and very bitter. Rose cringed at the term of endearment, one that Cal had given up years ago. At the time she’d thought that, perhaps, he’d finally realized how much she’d hated it. Now, though, she had the uncomfortable feeling that he’d actually given up on their relationship, like she had, only much much later than she had.
“Put it down,” she repeated, amazed at how commanding her voice sounded, when she still felt like her legs were going to give out under her. “Or are you honestly going to shoot yourself in front of me?” she inquired, incredulously, as he failed to move.
She regretted the question the moment she asked it. The Cal she’d thought she’d known for all these years would never have done anything so vulgar as to shoot himself in front of a woman, but the Cal she was currently locked in a room with seemed to be giving the matter serious thought.
“Do you expect me to think you’d care if I did?” he asked, voice still detached, but also darkly amused. She opened her mouth to say yes, of course she would care, but he waved the hand that wasn’t holding the gun dismissively. “Oh, you’d probably feel a few brief moments of horror at what you’d just seen, accompanied by some lingering agony over what to tell the children, but you, personally ? No doubt you’d think you were better off without me.”
Rose hesitated, knowing he was close to the truth in some ways, and that he was very far away from it in others. Despite her having been the perfect wife and mother for all these years, her polite smile never, ever fading in public, her private demeanor beyond reproach, she knew Cal was aware that it was all a carefully constructed ruse, that denying that would be futile.
“Cal, please,” she said after a moment, the slight tremor in her hands finally spreading to her voice. “Can’t we just — sit down and talk about this?”
An expression like surprise flitted across his face before he questioned, incredulously, “You want to talk? Now?”
Her brow furrowed as she herself felt brief but very real confusion about what he meant. “Yes,” she said, slowly. “Of course now. When else?”
The hand that was holding the gun to his temple trembled, just slightly, before steadying again as the detachment that had dominated his face since she walked in reasserted itself. Despite the disinterested look on his face, though, his voice was genuinely curious as he asked, still sounding disbelieving, “Why?”
Rose’s brow furrowed again, and she marveled that, even after all these years of marriage, they still couldn’t understand one another, even at such a crucial moment as this… perhaps especially at such a crucial moment as this. “Why what?” she replied, finally.
The hand that was holding the gun gestured expansively, and she cringed, and instinctively stepped back. Cal didn’t seem to notice, though, just looked at her for a long moment as though she were very stupid.
“Why do you want to talk? You’ve spent our whole marriage avoiding speaking to me about anything substantive at all costs, and now, when I’ve finally decided to end it, giving you what I’m quite sure you’ve quietly wanted all along, you suddenly decide you’d like to talk to me? Why? About what? What could you possibly have to say to me now that you couldn’t have said to me some time over the past eighteen years? Do you know that for well over a decade, even up until after Thomas was born, I prayed to hear those words or something like them? That all I wanted was for you to talk to me, about something, about anything that mattered to you? I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that I wanted to talk to you? That I wanted to know you? I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that I actually wanted you to be happy—”
He stopped, breathing harshly, and Rose found herself speechless. She wanted to deny his words, to claim that he’d never indicated that he had any interest in her thoughts, in her feelings. But there was that strange sinking feeling in her stomach again, and she found that somehow, she couldn’t deny it. Much as she’d sometimes doubted Cal’s sincerity, much as she’d always doubted his ability to understand even if she had wanted to talk to him, she couldn’t honestly say he hadn’t made overtures. Some weeks, months, even years, frequent overtures, though it had been some time now since he’d bothered.
Following that thought came the unexpected and wildly uncomfortable suspicion that, for all these years she’d spent blaming him for failing her — for all the ways he actually had failed her — she had failed him too. Not only had she never told him what was in her mind, but, perhaps more importantly, she’d never, even once, asked what was in his.
“I’m sorry,” she heard herself say, as if from very far away, and surprise flickered across his face, replacing his bleak detachment for just a moment. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, more firmly, and then, surprising herself as much as him, she continued, “You’re right. I haven’t been a good wife.”
There was silence, and then Cal smiled, bitterly. “Don’t be silly, sweet pea. You’ve been the perfect wife. Everyone tells me so.”
She hesitated, then smiled wryly back at him. “Yes, and they tell me you’ve been the perfect husband.” She took another step forward. “Cal. It’s true that we’ve made one another unhappy,” she murmured, then bit her lip. “But surely, whatever is going on, it can’t be—” she paused, then shook her head, finding she didn’t quite know how to continue. “ Please. Can’t we sit down and talk about this?”
He hesitated, and avoided her gaze. As it became clear that he either wouldn’t or didn’t care to answer, she looked around the room. Her gaze fell again on the decanter, and the half-full glass next to it, precariously close to the edge of the desk.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, she smiled. “This is a little different than the last time I was here,” she murmured, then snapped her mouth shut, the small smile that had found its way onto her face fading as she realized what she’d said. For the first time in what felt like years she felt herself blush.
Her blush deepened as she remembered flashes from that night, and the van Rensselaer’s elaborate party. She had danced with Cal for hours and hours instead of spending those hours in mindless conversation, and she had been surprised, and then delighted, when he hadn’t seemed inclined to separate from her to go network with the men. And, she realized, now, Cal must have been surprised, too, when she’d squeezed his arm when he’d made a vague reference to ‘getting back to the party’, and asked him, just a bit conspiratorially, not to.
Instead, he had given her a smile and swept her back onto the dance floor.
Later, on the ride home, Cal had made her laugh and laugh, his hand resting gently on her thigh. For once, she’d felt no desire to move her body away from his, and she had let her head fall onto his shoulder in the car.
When they’d arrived back at the house, she had still been laughing, with him, in the hallway. The servants who were awake had moved quickly out of their way, surprise flashing across their faces as she and Cal had walked together down the hall, his hand low on her back, as if they did this often instead of always going their separate ways.
When they’d reached his office door, she had said something about having enjoyed the night, expecting to part from him there. An expression had flickered across his face that she didn’t understand, and then, instead of turning away from her, he’d held the door open, and asked her if she’d like to come in for a nightcap. She had laughed at the very idea, but then, somehow, she had been inside, and the door had closed behind her.
Cal had poured her something sweet and strong, and Rose had felt a pleasurable warmth in her stomach, as it went down. She had still been laughing at nearly everything he was saying, and she’d realized, surprised, that he was quite funny.
Eventually she’d stood from where she’d settled on the divan. Cal had been leaning on the edge of his desk, and she’d tried to reach across him for the decanter. Before she’d grabbed it, though, her arm had brushed his, warm and tantalizing, and she’d pulled back. Her laughter had stopped, and the easy smile on his own face had faded. He’d gently touched her cheek, had pushed her hair back tenderly. She had pressed closer to him, first lowering her eyes, and then raising them to meet his, before giving a small nod. Cal had leaned in so, so gently to kiss her, and she had enthusiastically kissed him back. She had enjoyed it as he’d deepened the kiss, as he’d first lifted and then turned her so that she was perched on the edge of the desk. Her legs had gone around his waist easily, naturally, as though this was something they’d done a thousand times instead of something they hadn’t done in over three years, since she’d first realized she was pregnant with Elodie. Her glass had fractured, where she dropped it on the floor, and then, a short time later, Cal’s own glass had shattered beside it when she’d reached for his shirt.
She’d awakened hours later, and had slowly realized that she was on the carpet in front of the fire, and that it was still night. Cal’s tuxedo jacket had been draped, with great care, over her upper body. She had managed to raise her head, and had seen Cal standing in front of the fire, his pants sliding dangerously low on his hips. He’d had a new glass in his hand, and was sipping from it and looking heartbreakingly sad. She’d reached out a hand, but she'd been so tired, and she knew he hadn’t seen her as she’d drifted back to sleep.
When Rose had awakened again it had been morning, and she’d been in her own bed. She hadn’t seen Cal for days afterward except for at dinner, and when they’d next gone to a party he had told her it would be best if they ‘made up for’ their behavior last time. For just a moment an expression had flashed across his face that had made her wonder if he had expected her to protest, if he might want her to—
But then the moment was gone, and she was smiling in the docile way she’d carefully mastered. She’d nodded at him, because she had known it would be best.
Rose snapped uncomfortably back to the present, wondering, for the first time, why Cal had so thoroughly avoided her after that night. She had a strange, sickening feeling that the answer might not be what she’d once thought it was.
“No,” Cal said, his voice cutting through her thoughts, gun still pointed at his head. She jumped, wondering if she might have said something out loud, but Cal just continued, dully, “It isn’t very much like the last time.”
“I thought we had fun, that night,” she blurted, no longer caring if she was making sense. To her surprise Cal’s hand trembled again, and he swallowed hard before nodding once, briefly.
“We did.”
She hesitated, then stepped forward and slid onto the chaise across from him, not caring that he hadn’t told her she could, not caring that he, himself, was still standing. “Why did you avoid me after? I had hoped that—”
She paused, surprised by the words, having never before admitted to herself that she had hoped for anything, much less that she had ever hoped that things might be able to change, between them.
Cal hesitated. “I… wanted to hope too,” he said, carefully. “But it had been so many years and I knew that, if I approached you, that you would just—”
She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it, feeling slightly sick. She knew just how he’d thought she would respond, and she knew that, despite her own hope, he would probably have been right.
“I’m sorry,” she said, quietly, and found that she meant it. She hesitated, then gestured to the seat next to her. “Please,” she said, beginning to fear that she was endlessly repeating herself. “If… if you sit and talk to me, then when we’re done, if you still want to do this, I won’t try to stop you. I’ll leave the room, and I’ll go back to dinner. But talk to me first. Help me understand what’s going on.”
He hesitated, and regarded her as though uncertain as to whether it might be some kind of trick. After a moment, however, he lowered the gun, and with excruciating slowness, set it on the desk.
“Drink?” he inquired, as though belatedly remembering his manners, almost as though this were a dinner party. He picked up an empty glass and held it out toward her. Rose started to shake her head no, and then nodded instead.
“Please.”
“Cheers,” he murmured, giving her a sardonic smile as he poured her a brandy and then sank onto the chaise next to her, sitting as far away as the space would allow.
Rose took the drink from his hand, and tried to ignore how warm his fingers were as they brushed against hers. After several endless seeming moments she decided to break the silence herself. “I don’t know why you’re doing this, but I know how you feel,” she murmured, gripping her glass so tightly that she feared it would break.
To her shock, Cal laughed. “I very much doubt that, sweet pea,” he intoned, still chuckling, and she expelled a frustrated breath.
“Did it ever occur to you that the reason I never felt comfortable talking to you was that I thought you wouldn’t listen ?” she snapped. Something like regret flashed across his face, and he stopped laughing and took a gulp of his own brandy. Rose took a deep breath, then forced herself to continue. “I do know how you feel, at least in a broad sense. I tried to kill myself once, years ago.”
Cal reeled back from her slightly. “You — tried to—” he muttered, slowly, almost as though he were literally unable to process the information. He finally shook his head. “When? Why?”
Rose hesitated. After stepping off the Carpathia , they had never, not once, discussed the Titanic or anything that had happened on it. In fact, they had deliberately, skillfully, built their marriage on pretending the whole thing had never happened, that they had gone straight from England to Philadelphia without any unnecessary unpleasantness, without any infidelity or abuse or pesky sinking ship.
“It was on the ship,” she said, finally. Then, fearing that after all this time he might not know which ship, she repeated, careful with her emphasis, “ The ship.”
Cal looked at her as if she’d punched him, his mouth dropping open, then shutting, then dropping open again before he drained what remained in his glass. He looked over to where the decanter sat, and seemed to contemplate getting another.
“Why didn’t you?” he finally asked, without moving toward the alcohol. She bit her lip hard, and wondered whether mentioning this hadn’t actually been a colossal mistake that was going to send him lunging for the gun again, though whether to shoot himself or her she wasn’t sure.
“I did,” she replied, finally. “Try. That’s how I met Jack Dawson. That night, when I said I was looking for the propellers. I… well, obviously I wasn’t looking for the propellers, but I wasn’t meeting with him or doing anything inappropriate with him — not then. I was trying to throw myself off the ship. He stopped me. “
Cal looked at her incredulously. “You were trying to throw yourself off the ship.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
After a long moment he shook his head, still looking disbelieving, and slightly disturbed. “And you never told me.”
She shook her head and looked downward. “I never told anyone.”
Cal let out another laugh, but this one was tiny and incredibly bitter. “And did a future with me really seem so awful, that you thought it best to resort to suicide? ”
She hesitated, then shrugged. “Does life with me and the children really seem so awful, that you think it’s best to resort to suicide?”
Cal waved a hand almost dismissively. “You and the children have nothing to do with this.”
“I think we both know that can’t be true,” Rose said, slowly. “I truly can’t imagine why you’ve decided to do this, but if our relationship were happy, I have to believe that you’d at least have tried to talk to me about what was bothering you before putting a gun in your mouth.”
Cal didn’t answer but his face grew contemplative, and she pushed forward. “As for your own question,” she continued, slowly, “I won’t say it had nothing to do with you, but it wasn’t really about you. I just felt so out of control, so suffocated, like I was drowning.” They both cringed, and she hurried on. “Now I realize that I was young, and so stupid. I thought… I felt…”
She shook her head. “I was wrong, anyway. I’ve never regretted…” she stopped, then rephrased. “I’ve never felt, during our marriage, that I’d rather be dead than be with you, especially after the children. Looking back now, when I think of that night, I feel horrified at the thought that I could have easily succeeded in what I was trying to do. A minute sooner or later and—”
She stopped, and then, hesitantly, slid closer to him. When he didn’t lean away, she reached over and placed a hand on his knee. His own hand jerked, then settled on his thigh, and she wasn’t sure whether he had almost reached for her, or whether he had tried to flinch away. His gaze lingered on her hand before he looked up, and sought her eyes.
“I also feel out of control,” he said slowly, and she waited for him to continue. “Rose, the money is gone.”
She blinked. “Oh?” she said finally, waiting for him to come to the point, before slowly realizing that this was the point. At a loss for what else to say she moved another inch closer to him, then squeezed his knee, just once. “Tell me.”
“It — nearly all of it is gone,” he said, as if this were a complete explanation. “The life insurance, however, is paid through the end of the year. So you see, it would really be best for everyone if you just let me end it. You and the children will be better off without me, and the insurance money is considerable — enough for you to live as we’ve been living at least until Thomas is grown and done with college, at which point it’s to be hoped that—”
“I’m sorry,” she interrupted, blinking hard. “Are you telling me that you plan to kill yourself because of the stock crash?”
He looked at her as if she were the insane one before closing his eyes and saying, very slowly, “Is there some particular reason that I shouldn’t? The company is going to go under.”
“Cal,” she murmured, moving her hand from his knee to grasp his hand, “I’m so sorry. I know that you love your work. I know that you’re proud of your company— of its legacy. I can’t even imagine how this must feel for you.”
Cal swallowed hard, looking stunned, and she felt a flash of shame as she realized it was probably because, in all their years of marriage, she had never managed to acknowledge to him, to his face, that she knew that he did love his work, love the business, even though she had said something like it thousands of times at parties, at dinners…
But before she could think any more about it, Cal’s face shuttered and he looked at her like she might be very stupid. “Rose, you don’t understand what I’m telling you. Nearly all of our money was in the company, in the stocks. The point I’m making is that there is no money.”
Despite the gravity of the situation, Rose was unable to bite back a flash of temper. “Yes, I understand that. You were very clear in the bit about killing yourself for the life insurance. If that’s all you want to talk about, that’s fine, but don’t pretend that’s the only thing that’s bothering you. I know perfectly well that you love your company.” She hesitated, just for a moment, before adding, firmly, “And that you love our children.”
He met her eyes and didn’t bother to hide the shock on his face before he started to laugh again, low and sharp. “Who are you and what have you done with my wife? Or maybe I should have threatened to kill myself years ago, if I’d known that was all it would take to hear you admit that I love the children.”
She wondered if he really had gone insane. “But of course you love the children,” she began, blankly before remembering following him down the hall just a few weeks ago, angry about something she no longer even remembered, and snapping ‘ Do you even care about the children at all?’
She felt her face grow hot, and thought about apologizing again. “I know you love the children,” she repeated, instead. She squeezed his hand and was surprised to find that she had drifted closer to him on the couch, that their legs were touching. “I’ve always known that, ever since you told me Margaret was beautiful the night she was born.”
“I remember,” he said hoarsely, and his eyes became clearer, his expression somewhat warmer.
Rose looked down, and the moment passed. When she glanced up again, she saw Cal dart a glance back toward the desk, toward the gun .
“Cal, don’t do this,” she murmured, shaking her head. “What you said earlier is true. I have thought, sometimes, that I’d be better off without you. But I’ve never for a moment thought that any of the children would be better off without you, and I certainly don’t think that now. Thomas is only four. He needs you here to be his father, to set an example. Margaret will be done with finishing school this May and she needs you there to help her navigate society — to help her navigate the men who will come calling. Nathaniel worships you and always has, and he’ll be looking to you in a few years to show him Harvard, and Elizabeth and John rely on you—”
“They rely on my money,” Cal intoned dully and Rose shook her head vehemently, surprising herself with the force of her denial.
“No. No. I can’t deny that the money has made all of our lives easier, it has. And I can’t deny that it will be an adjustment for them, because it will. But they don’t need the money nearly as much as they need their father.”
He scrutinized her carefully. “And where do you fit into all of this?”
She blinked, uncertain. “Where I always have, I suppose. I’m your wife. That won’t change.”
He scoffed. “Rose, you just caught me with a gun in my mouth and told me you tried to commit suicide before we were married. If you can’t be honest even now—”
She hesitated. “I know you won’t believe me considering how our marriage started, but I never cared about the money, and I certainly don’t care about it now. I won’t say it hasn’t made my life easier, and very pleasant in some ways, because it has. I’ve liked the trips to Europe. I’ve liked living in a big, warm house, with people around to make sure I'm comfortable. I’ve liked not having to worry about whether I could give the children something I wanted to give them, no matter how extravagant it was. But it hasn’t made me happy, and I never thought it would.” She paused and searched his eyes again. “And I don’t think the money has made you very happy, either.”
He looked at her as if she’d gone mad. “But of course it’s made me happy—” he started, then abruptly stopped, and looked toward the window. He dropped her hand and she felt cold. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Rose. Living without money, with five children, with someone you despise — it won’t make you happier. If the situation is currently tolerable, it will just become unbearable.”’
She shrugged, trying to ignore his incredulous look. “Cal. How much do we have.”
He looked grim. “Perhaps four hundred thousand in the bank, and another fifty to sixty thousand stashed throughout the house. It will put a large dent in it if I need to liquidate the company, and an even larger one to try to keep the company going until the market can rebound.”
She waved a hand and, under less serious circumstances, she would have laughed at how his jaw dropped at the gesture. She supposed he expected her to fall apart at the idea that the millions and millions they’d had mere days ago had vanished, and it struck her, yet again, that, though they may have been married for nearly two decades, they didn’t understand one another at all. “Yes, fine, say we only have fifty thousand to work with. What do you think everything in the house is worth? What do you think the house itself is worth? We do have 5 children, but we really don’t need this much room. You talk about living at our current level, but to be honest it drives me crazy, feeling like I’m all alone in a house with 25 people. What do Suzanna and Gretchen even do? And the chandeliers…”
She shook her head, hoping her look conveyed just what she thought of the chandeliers. “It would be such a relief to be rid of them.”
She paused briefly as he opened his mouth, then shut it, looking at her as though he didn’t know her. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked at last, uncertain.
Cal hesitated, then shook his head. “I’m remembering a girl I knew, once.” He shook his head again, as if to clear it. “A girl I liked.” Rose looked up, and as she met his eyes, she was sure she was blushing again.
“That girl liked you too,” she said, slowly, before deciding that at this point it wouldn’t make sense to pretend she didn’t know what he meant. “I liked you, you know, while we were getting to know one another. I thought you were so intelligent, and sophisticated, and funny—”’
She stopped and shook her head. “I suppose it didn’t hurt that you were the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen.”
“What changed?” he asked, abruptly, and she was seized with a sudden, painful feeling that this conversation was too late, that everything might have been different if she’d only had the courage to try to say these words sooner — or if he’d had the courage or knowledge to ask the right, very specific question.
“What did change?” she found herself firing back, as thoughts that she hadn’t allowed herself to consciously explore since before the Titanic spilled out. “The man who was courting me was kind, and witty, and attentive. I felt as though he… I felt as though you saw me, as though you liked me. You listened when I talked, you acted like you cared what I said. You made me laugh, and I thought you were interested in my thoughts, in my feelings. You stayed with me at parties, and you talked to me until dawn about books, about art, about psychology, about the future, even about politics . The night you asked me to marry you was the happiest night of my life but then, afterwards, it was as though you were just gone. I’ve never understood what happened or why. For years I told myself you were just pretending when we were courting, that once you thought you had me you just couldn’t be bothered anymore, but at the time I was just so disappointed and I had no way to ask you — and you certainly never asked me. I started to rethink our engagement, but then my mother told me we had no money and after that it suddenly seemed like you and she were best friends, united against me—”
Rose cut herself off as she looked at Cal’s face, and took in the fact that he looked very much as though she had slapped him, hard.
“Cal?” she asked, gripping for his hand again as he shook his head, disbelievingly.
“I’m sorry,” he said slowly. “I… ever since your mother told me after our wedding, about the money, I assumed you’d known about your financial situation when we met. I’ve always thought that…” He shook his head again, then frowned. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“No,” Rose said dully, after a moment. “I suppose it doesn’t matter, now.” The pause dragged on for what felt like hours before she continued, warily, “In any case, that’s how it felt to me, and then, once we were on the Titanic, I felt like I didn’t even recognize you anymore.” She hesitated, and wondered whether there was any point in being this truthful. “I still wonder sometimes, who that person was, where he came from. For years afterwards I lived in terror of you, of what you were capable of, but…” she hesitated. “I suppose I don’t think that was you, now. Or at least, the person who I thought you were, then… he’s not who I’ve been living with, here.”
Cal looked ashamed. “I regret my my actions on Titanic,” he said after a heavy moment. “I have nothing, really, to say in my defense, but the truth is I didn’t recognize you on that ship, either. I knew when we were finishing our tour of Europe that something was wrong, but I didn’t know what, and I didn’t know how to ask you about it in a way that would cause you to answer, any more than you knew how to ask me. I did want you to talk to me, and I tried to ask you, more than once, but you were always so cold, so flippant, so dismissive.”
He paused, then seemed to regroup. “The girl I proposed to was warm, and laughed often, and shared ideas in ways that weren’t cutting. The girl on the Titanic…”
He shook his head. “As for the rest — it’s true that once we became engaged I withdrew a bit, but it didn’t have anything to do with you, or my feelings. I still cared about you, about what you had to say. I was just under an enormous amount of pressure, once the engagement was official. It had always been expected that, once I was married, I would take over the company, and I felt so unsure, so completely unprepared. Believe it or not I almost didn’t propose because of it. That was the most stressful time of my life, and I thought—”
He paused again, and to her shock he seemed to be blushing. “I foolishly assumed that you were in love with me, like I was in love with you, and that we’d have our whole lives together once I sorted everything out with the business. I thought our relationship could withstand a few months of my focusing elsewhere. It honestly never occurred to me that a few months could be so vitally important.”
“Cal, I was 17,” she cut in, dryly. “Every single day was the end of the world to me. I had no perspective on any of that.” Her face darkened slightly, a little of her sympathy fading. “Though I suppose it might have helped, a bit, if you’d actually tried to say any of that to me at the time.”
He shrugged helplessly. “I thought you understood.”
She swallowed hard, feeling helpless, too. “I wish I had.” She wanted to bring the conversation back to safer ground, but she wasn’t even sure what safer ground could possibly look like, now.
“How much is the life insurance worth?” she inquired, finally, and he shrugged, as though it didn’t matter at all.
“I’m not really sure. Six million? Seven?”
She felt truly aghast. “Cal,” she said, slowly, almost as though doubting his sanity, “The Heart of the Ocean alone must be worth four times that. Perhaps we could look into selling it, before anyone decides to take their life.”
An indeterminate expression crossed his face, and then, very slowly, he nodded. Rose let our a breath she’d had no idea she was holding, and stood, holding out a hand to him.
“Come down to dinner. Afterwards we’ll talk about what it would be best to do about the company, and what we can sell to get through the next few years comfortably, at perhaps a slightly more reasonable standard of living, until the market rebounds.”
He looked at her skeptically, but took her hand. “And you really believe the market will come back from this? That the company can come back from this?”
She shot him a look uncannily like the one he was giving her. “Yes. I absolutely do believe that. Don’t you?”
Nathaniel Hockley wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but he was sure that his parents were going to screw it up, just like every other time they’d seemed to reach anything resembling an understanding during his 14 years of life. Eventually his mother would make a subtle overture that his father would completely misread or miss. At that point his father would say something deliberately unfeeling, which would cause his mother to snap something polite but unmistakably frosty back. Or, alternatively, his father would make some more obvious overture to his mother. This might initially be well received, but for reasons unknown would eventually lead to her saying something cruel, always in a detached, almost polite tone. This would send his parents soaring apart for another six to eight months until one of them finally made an overture again, only to meet with identical results.
So he was deeply confused when autumn bled into winter, and then spring, with his parents continuing to act bizarrely, unmistakably pleasant toward one another.
He truly felt as though his head might implode, though, when he walked into the breakfast room to encounter his mother, perched on his father’s lap, devouring his father’s mouth with a passion she’d never shown for food.
This was truly too much. His instinct was to flee the room, or, perhaps, retch, but he’d been taught from a young age to comport himself with dignity, and so he pointedly averted his eyes and cleared his throat, instead. He felt certain that, on becoming aware of his presence, his parents would be as horrified as he was.
To his chagrin, though, his parents didn’t even have the common decency to separate from one another, though their tongues did, mercifully, return to their own mouths.
“Ah, Nathaniel,” his father said, far more jovially than Nathaniel felt the situation warranted. “Good morning!”
“Er — good morning, father,” he managed, going toward his seat.
As though nothing strange was happening his mother finally stood from his father’s lap, but then she slid into the chair next to him, instead of going to the obviously appropriate place across from him. And his father, who had spent 14 years muttering endlessly about decorum, didn’t even bother to correct her. In fact, he seemed to be holding her hand.
He was. He was holding her hand.
Nathaniel felt quite certain he should have left when he had the chance.
“We’ve just been discussing spending the summer at the Vineyard, dear,” his mother said, casually, still behaving as though nothing were the matter.
“Ah,” Nathaniel managed to offer through sheer force of will. “That will be nice. I quite enjoyed it there, as a child.” He turned to his father, trying, at all costs, to ignore his parent’s hands. “And how will you spend the summer, father? In Pittsburgh? Or New York?"
His father looked at him as though he were the one not making sense. “As your mother said, we plan to go to the Vineyard.”
Nathaniel shook his head, hoping to clear it, or perhaps wake from this bizarre dream, but nothing happened. “You, er, also plan to summer at the Vineyard?” he asked, disbelievingly.
“Wherever else would I want to be?” his father inquired, acting as though he were talking to him, but his gaze was solely fixed on his mother, who was blushing.
“Nowhere, I’m sure,” Nathaniel forced himself to say, primly, before standing abruptly. “You’ll excuse me.”
He made the mistake of looking back, as he exited the room. His father was pulling his mother back onto his lap, and they were both smiling.