The Explorer's Apprentice

92:Words Unheard

Isabelle Claiborne

It’s raining again. But the rain is warm, and helps to melt away the ice. Isabelle leans against Arabelle’s mother, sharing the umbrella with her. Most everyone is asleep by now, in little nests of blankets. Broken families huddle with other broken families—making newer, bigger families—not related by blood but by love.

The statue of liberty is beautiful, she thinks, and almost laughs. She didn’t think she’d find something beautiful ever again.

Isabelle gets up. The rain feels nice, cleansing, but she knows she’ll never be able to wash the filth away that’s under her skin. She knows it’s there, under her skin and eating her heart. She wonders if anybody else on the Carpathia feels the same way. She wonders just how many people lost someone they loved.

The boat gives a little jerk as it stops. People start to come alive again. They unfold umbrellas and start to pour to the exits. Strangers take each other’s hands to help them across the gap. How easily they leave, Belle thinks with jealousy. How quickly they move on, and heal.

“Come along Belle,” Arabelle’s mother says softly. “It’s time to leave. We all need some sleep.”

But Belle can’t leave, not yet. Not without… not without knowing…

Isabelle walks to the rail and looks down, onto the floor where all the steerage passengers slept. Someone else has been awake. A shadow stands motionless among the moving bodies. The girl’s bright red hair hangs limp and wet on her black jacket. She too cranes her neck up to look at lady liberty, at the millions of bright lights encircling her crown. New York lies just ahead, a black velvet canvas spattered with billions of stars.

Belle looks around, looking for a second shadow, expecting at any moment for a boy to come running up to Rose. He would take Rose in his arms and they would kiss in front of the glowing statue of liberty and walk off the boat, together.

But Jack never appears.

A ship guard with an umbrella taps Rose on the shoulder. Isabelle is just close enough to hear them.

“Can I take your name please, love?” he asks.

Isabelle leans over to listen. Rose turns to the man, and her eyes search his face. Belle knows exactly what she is thinking, because she thought of it herself, every day, her whole life.

“Dawson,” Rose replies, and Isabelle physically clenches. “Rose Dawson.”

He’s dead. Isabelle holds onto the rail to keep herself up, and her tears mix with the rainwater. Jack is dead. Jamie is dead. He’s dead and Rose still gets to have him. He’s dead and I never told him.

I loved him.