Three times I awoke last night - - first in sorrow, then in rapture and last, alone. Tears of loss awoke me slowly, bathing my face in the coolness of my wet pillow. The sobs chased me into a sleep of grief remembered, into the dark recesses of my mind I too often tread.

When I awoke next, it was in the throes of lovemaking, bodies joined, and my back arched bow-like around his hand. I could still feel his kisses upon my breast, cooling along my raw nerve endings as my body shuddered with release. I fought awakening, still seeking his lips and his warm, strong arms to hold me. I surrendered to sleep, if only to feel him alongside me once more.

The third time I awoke I was beyond feelings of love or grief, alone as the sun curled pink along the darkened sky. I held the vision of the black behemoth fresh in my mind, the salty smell of the ocean filling my nostrils. The sound of the piercing whistle rang hollowly in my ears.

Titanic haunts me still.

Today, tomorrow, forever.

She dropped the pen, as sunlight spilled through the kitchen window, falling gently over the oak farmer's table, warming its weathered top. The mid-October day was beautiful, with a soft brisk breeze blowing the white chenille curtains across the silent figure sitting in the bright light. The leather bound journal lay open before her, the ink drying rapidly in the sun.

Rose sat at the table, one leg curled beneath her, hands curved around a mug of freshly brewed cider. She brought the mug to her lips, but didn't sip. She breathed deeply of the spicy apple aroma, enjoying the scent as much as she would enjoy the first taste.

Another fall has come, another year almost over. April would make it seven years since the sinking and the loss of Jack.

Jack.

She put the cup down on the table, her arm bathed in the light. Her hands now belied her position in life. They were no longer soft, milky white hands, covered in gloves for an evening out on the town. Gone were the cotillions and the ball gowns, as she was no longer a member of high society.

This is I, making it count, the way I promised so long ago, Rose thought as she closed her eyes against the past.

"I saw that in a nickelodeon once, and I always wanted to do it."

Her eyes flew open, searching for the voice, which had spoken so loudly behind her moments ago. Haunted, she thought, shaking her head sadly. She pulled the curtain aside, staring across the lawn to the Jenny sitting on the tarmac awaiting her.

It wasn't only the memory of Jack, which weighed heavy on her on her mind. It was also the flight plan sitting on the table; the one Charlie had forbidden her to fly. She leaned forward in her chair, pushing her journal out of the way and brought the flight plan before her. Her elbows rested on the table as she stared at the paper she already memorized in her mind. She rubbed her forehead with the palm of her hand and sighed.

Rose remembered the previous evening, as she sat out on the back porch, staring up at the stars in the black, clear sky. She pulled a pouch of tobacco from her pocket and absently rolled a cigarette. Striking a match to the concrete steps, she lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. Rose exhaled a long tube of gray smoke, blowing out the match and feeling the rush of nicotine as it swirled through out her body. The screen door opened behind her, lightly squeaking. Charlie wearily sat beside her, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Mind if I have cigarette?" He quietly asked.

Rose handed him the pouch of tobacco and continued to stare at the stars as he rolled a cigarette.

Charlie sighed and stared at the burning ember of his cigarette. "I don't think it is a good idea for you to fly to Philadelphia in the morning. I know you've heard the stories of the sickness there."

"Yes, I have." Rose replied as she stubbed out her cigarette and turned towards Charlie. "But I don't think a few news stories should keep us from completing a job we were contracted to do."

Charlie choked on his cigarette smoke. "A few news stories?" He asked, incredulous. "Rose, I don't know if you've been reading the papers or not, but there is a full fledged epidemic going on in that city. Too many people are dying every day. Between this and the war, I'm scared shit-less.

"It's bad enough I lost my son two months ago, but now I have friends here, in town, who are getting sick and dying too. Before this, death was heard of but it was never spoken of. In the past few months it has entered my house. My house!" He placed heavy emphasis on those last two words. Unshed tears choked his voice as he savagely threw the cigarette to the ground.

"I'm an old man with bad knees. Which is the only reason I didn't enlist when Doug and Rob did. They wouldn't take me. So here I sit; watching helplessly as young men I've known since they were babies show up on killed in action lists. Here I sit, on this porch, trembling with terror every single time a motor car cruises by because I'm afraid another telegram is going to be delivered telling me my other son is dead. I have a wife who thinks the only way to work through her grief is to help every single sick person in town, paying no mind to the fact that she can contract this mysterious Spanish Flu and die herself!" His voice bridled with barely suppressed anger.

"I can't control what happens to Doug over there, but I can sure as hell control what goes on in my airfield. I forbid you to fly to Philadelphia tomorrow. The goddamn government contract can go to hell for all I care! It's not worth the loss of any more lives."

Charlie stood silently, emotionally spent from his outburst. Without another word he turned and went back into the house.

Rose was brought back to the present as she stared unseeing at the neatly piled papers. Next to the flight plan sat the morning newspaper, the headline screaming the "war to end all wars" was drawing to a close. But it was the smaller story that caught her eye and made her blood run cold. The stories out of her hometown that rocked her back, making the nightmares come with ever increasing frequency.

News stories of the influenza epidemic in Philadelphia filled the additional pages of the paper, the closing of all the schools, churches, vaudeville shows and saloons in the city. The already staggering loss of life there was overwhelming. Red Cross volunteers were sewing influenza masks and shrouds for the dead. College dorm rooms now doubled as hospital wards. The shortages of competent doctors, as the men at the front in Europe were as deathly ill as the people back home.

How can it be after all this time I worry still for your safety, Mother?

Charlie was adamant that she not fly this particular job for fear of contacting the mysterious illness. But she needed to find out if her mother was still alive or one of the ever growing number of dead in the city. Sarah would understand if she were here. But Sarah had not been home in three days.

"I could catch this influenza here as easily as I could catch it in Philadelphia!" Rose exclaimed to the empty house.

The sound of her own voice made her jump and catch her breath. She gathered up her belongings and started up the stairs to her room. She tucked her journal into her satchel, leaving the flight map on the kitchen table. She laid the open newspaper on her bed. She circled the story of the epidemic with her pen, adding only two words, knowing Sarah would understand.

My mother.

Adrenaline coursed through her body as she quickly pushed clothes into her satchel. She wouldn't take the plane, but she was not stranded at the airfield without transportation. Her course of action decided, she raced down the stairs, pausing only long enough to scrawl a short note to the Adlers. She flew out of the house, running past the waiting plane. She threw open the hangar doors, rushing over to her motor car and pulling the tarp off to fall in a scattered heap in the corner. She turned the engine over, putting the car in gear and drove out of the hangar without a second glance.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When she arrived in Philadelphia three days later, her car was screaming for petrol. She breathed a sigh of relief to find a station not far beyond the city limits. The car chugged in wounded and wheezing, as it finally came to a complete stop just inside petrol lot. She sat in the car for a few moments, unnerved by the silence. Usually there were ten or more men standing around, smoking and gossiping as cars and buggies traveled back and forth on the busy road. Not today. A shiver of unease rolled down her back.

"Hello?" Rose called out towards the garage bays, the silence weighing heavily across the deserted petrol station. There was no reply as she grabbed her satchel and began to walk. Her unease increased as she passed shuttered houses, and empty side streets.

A sigh of relief escaped her lips as the lumbering sounds of a trolley car could be heard from behind her. She turned and waited as it approached her slowly.

Rose jumped into a half-filled trolley car, the few other passengers watching her with barely veiled apprehension. Surprised horror replaced relief as she watched a sneezing man violently ejected from his seat and the moving trolley by the other passengers. The woman sitting next to her, her face marred by acute sadness, pulled a gauze mask from her bag and handed it to Rose.

"Here, my dear, use this. Please be safe." She murmured, as the trolley shuddered to a stop.

Rose jumped off, escaping the tight confines of the trolley at the first opportunity. She ran through the deserted streets, her terror increasing with the number of closed storefronts. Her heartbeat thudded loudly in her chest; her breathing shallow and ragged. She tied the mask around her face as an after thought, frantic to reach her home. Forgotten were her mother's actions that final week, the way she treated Jack, her all encompassing attitude towards the less fortunate. Rose just needed to know she was okay, that she was still alive, before it was too late.

She ran by three forgotten, gaunt little girls, jumping rope while singing a morbid rhyme:

"I had a little bird, and its name was Emma, I opened the door, and in-flew-Enza."

"Oh God." She sobbed as she turned onto her street. The day was overcast and cold, casting a grayish pallor over the already eerie neighborhood.

Leaves cluttered the cobblestones; branched lays in heaps in untended yards as their owners either deserted them for safer places, or were too sick to venture outside. Rose felt as if she were the last person on earth alive.

She passed the large mansions silently, her eyes focused alone on the Dewitt Bukater House at the end of the block. It stood above street level on a large, tree filled lot. Tears welled in her eyes at the neglected state of her childhood home. It was built the year before she was born, as a wedding present for her once happy parents. She stood at the gate, hands wrapped around the cold steel as she stared up at the formidable house.

It was a study in Georgian architecture, with its massive rectangular shape, symmetrically positioned façade and porches. She stared at the front door, protected by the portico. She remembered only too well what lie behind that door, the wainscoted wood of the small vestibule. She opened the inner door in her mind, facing the double sweeping stairway with graceful curves and fluted newels that led the eyes up to the landing and the large stained glass Palladian window. Rose wistfully remembered playing in the entrance hall as the sunlight flowed through the glass, filtering the colors into a prism on the oak floor like a canvas for a rainbow.

Separated from the entrance hall by pocket doors was the parlor, where her mother would entertain guests who rang for tea. Rose closed her eyes, envisioning her mother sweeping down the stairs, scolding her for the mess she made in the foyer. The smell of lavender and verbena would follow Ruth, as she called for Rose's nanny to come collect her small charge. She could still hear the sound of the pocket doors closing as her nanny bent to pick her up and carry her back to the nursery.

Diagonally across from the parlor, through a rounded arched opening stood the formal library. It was a rich room, embellished with mahogany moldings, and an elegant leaded tripartite window. Rose spent most of her evenings here, curled luxuriously in the window seat, her mind firmly afloat in the works of Yeats or Kipling. She shared this room with her father, who kept his massive desk at the other end of the room. How she used to love to interrupt his work, reading passages from her newest books loudly him from across the room. He would smile at her, put his work aside to come sit with her, so they could discuss current events and the books.

The smells of home filled her consciousness as her tears moistened her gauze mask. It was the lavender of Ruth's sachet, the cigars and brandy of her father, which made her sob miserably. Rose was overcome with an incredible feeling of acute homesickness, hoping beyond hope her mother was alive and well behind the closed front door.

If only once more she could roam the hallways of her childhood home, sliding her hand along the smooth banister of the stairs as she slowly made her way to the nursery. Rose smiled bitterly through her tears, remembering the time when she was four she decided to slide down said banister and she broke her arm. Her mother frantically ran from the parlor at Rose's scream, shouting for her father and the servants. She scooped her small daughter up in her arms, unknowingly jarring Rose's arm, making her scream again. Her father took one look at her arm and yelled for the house servant to run quickly for the doctor.

Ruth held Rose to her breast, shushing her tears, repeating over and over as she rocked, that is was going to be okay. The doctor would be here soon and he would make the hurt go away. Rose, with her good arm, reached up to her mother's face and felt Ruth's tears. "Why are you crying Momma, did you hurt your arm too?" She asked between sobs.

"No angel, I'm crying because you're hurt. Momma's crying because she loves you and she doesn't like to see you in pain." Small Rose nodded, smiling once softly before she slipped into unconsciousness.

It was this memory, of Ruth's tears that propelled her through the gate and to the front door. Rose rang the bell before she lost her courage and faltered as a strange servant answered the door.

"Does Ruth Dewitt Bukater live here?" Rose asked as she ripped off the mask. "Is this still the Dewitt Bukater house?"

"Yes," the servant replied. "But Mrs. Dewitt Bukater is too ill for visitors." He stared at her, his gaze haughty, only seeing Rose's disheveled appearance.

"I'm…I'm her daughter. I need to see her."

He grew angry. "Rose Dewitt Bukater died six years ago. You are not Rose Dewitt Bukater."

"Where is Sally? What happened to Toby? Do they still serve here? They can vouch for who I am. They helped raise me for God's sake!" Rose cried as she bodily pushed past the startled servant. She rushed up the stairs and ran down the hall to the master suite. She threw open the door, stopping suddenly as an unfamiliar doctor hovered over the deathly ill Ruth, backing away hastily as Rose entered the room.

The figure on the bed no longer resembled her mother from her memories. Her once vibrant red hair was now streaked with gray. Her face was sickly, her lips blue. Ruth's appearance was not as shocking as the wet sucking sound she made as she tried to breathe.

"Is she dying?" Rose whispered as she approached, kneeling by her mother's side. "Please tell me she is going to be okay."

The older man shook his head silently. "As of right now, I don't think she is going to survive the night. She took a turn for the worse this morning, as the sickness entered her lungs."

"How did this happen?" Rose whispered as she grasped her mother's hand, careful not to clutch the fragile skin and bones to tightly.

"The same as it began for everyone else. High fever, chills headache and dry cough. She realized she was ill and took to her bed three days ago. I had a little hope, as she survived the first thirty-six hours. But now I fear pneumonia has entered her lungs. If she doesn't regain consciousness by nightfall, it will be too late."

Rose nodded a stab of guilt striking her chest.

"I have other patients to care for. I will return as soon as I can. Am I safe in assuming you are her daughter?"

"What?" Rose asked, distracted.

The doctor inclined his head towards her mother's bureau and the fireplace mantle, which were adorned by pictures of Rose in various stages of her life. Rose turned slowly, overwhelmed at the sight of the shrine her mother erected for her in this room.

"What can I do? What can I do for her?" She asked, wiping her face with the back of her hand.

The doctor turned to her sadly as he picked up his black bag. "At this point?" He sighed, running a hand through his hair. His eyes were ringed with black circles and bloodshot from lack of sleep. "Make sure she is comfortable, keep the windows open. Talk to her, make her realize that you are here. Try to get her to sip some water if she comes too." He opened the bedroom door, pausing before he walked out. "Pray, Miss Dewitt Bukater. Right now, I would pray."

Then he was gone and Rose was left alone with her mother.