Jack stood sipping his coffee, looking out over the Pacific Ocean. He was in Jeannie's tiny kitchen in the apartment behind her gallery, watching the sun set in a pink and purple blaze of glory. Behind him, he could hear the water running in the sink and the clinking of dishes as she cleaned up after dinner.

"Sure I can't help?" he offered.

"No, Dad, it's alright," she said quietly.

Jack was no fool. He knew exactly why his daughter had been quiet and indifferent since she had seen him get off the train with Rose today. She was worried that their relationship would change. In a word, she was jealous. He could understand in a way. They'd had only each other for her whole life. But wasn't she about to have someone new come into their life, her fiancée, Doug? But Jack knew enough about women that he was certain she would say it was different.

"Jeannie, when you are done, let's sit out here on the porch and have a little talk," he suggested.

"Dad, please, I'm not ready to talk about all this," she told him, not wanting to hear anything about that woman.

"I've never raised my voice to you. I've never made you do anything you didn't want. But just for tonight, just listen to me for an hour or so. That's all I ask. Please?" asked Jack.

Jean looked at her handsome father and gave in. He was right. Somehow, he had managed to raise her all alone, with no arguments, no loud confrontations. She at least owed him the courtesy of one hour.

Bravely, she walked over to where he stood.

"Alright, Daddy. I guess I can hear you out. But don't think it's going to change my mind."

"I don't understand how your mind can be made up, when you don't even know what's going on," Jack said, now slightly exasperated.

Jeannie bit her lip and decided whether or not to tell him this one thing.

She sighed and said, "I saw those pictures, those drawings of her from long ago in your safe."

Jack closed his eyes, feeling betrayed inside.

"Those were for my eyes only, Jean. That's why they were in the safe," he said with a sad look on his face.

Jeannie hung her head as she had done as a little girl, when she knew she was in trouble.

"I'm sorry," she said softly.

"It's all part of what I want to tell you. I promise you that when you hear all this, you'll understand, alright?"

They sat down on the porch. Jack was quietly trying to compose himself. This was the second time in as many days that he'd had to deal with the topic of Titanic.

"Daddy, can I ask you a question before you begin?"

"Sure. Ask whatever you want," he agreed.

"Did you love my mother?" she asked, sounding very much like an uncertain little girl.

"Jean, I loved her, and if she had not died, we would have gone on and had more children, and had a very good life," he said, knowing that even if that would have happened, a corner of his heart would have always belonged to Rose. "And she gave me you, the most precious thing of all. But this isn't about your mother. It's about fate and tragedy and circumstances beyond anyone's control. It's about a part of my life that you don't know about."

Jean took a breath, scared of what her father was about to reveal. She thought she knew everything about him. Growing up in Wisconsin, losing his parents, moving to New York and starting at the bottom of the art business. What else was there?

Jack looked down into the murky bottom of his half-finished coffee.

"Jeannie, did you ever hear of a ship called the Titanic?"

"Sure, the one where so many people died and there weren't enough lifeboats? What's that got to do with you?"

"Yes, that one. It has everything to do with me, and with Rose. We met on the Titanic, fell in love and were the last people off the ship as it slipped into the water."

Jeannie's mouth opened in shock.

"Why didn't you marry her then, all those years ago?" she asked.

"Because we lost each other in the water and for all these 36 years, we both thought the other one of us was dead," he answered firmly. " Oh, we tried to go on with our lives and eventually we did. But I can't lie to you. I have thought of her everyday for all this time, and she told me the same thing."

"So you were unfaithful to Mom in your thoughts?" said Jean with an accusing tone in her voice.

"You're 25 years old. You're in love yourself. Rose was something special in my life, as was your mother. I lost both of them. But because of the circumstances surrounding what I thought was Rose's death, well it's hard to get something like that out of your mind. And Jeannie, when I was with your mother, there was no one else in my mind except your mother. Get that straight."

Jeannie started to cry, upset at the unusually harsh tone of her father's voice.

"Let me finish the story. Please?" he asked, a bit impatiently. "Please, don't cry. Just listen," Jack said, giving her hand a squeeze.

She nodded and wiped her eyes with the handkerchief that he handed her.

Jeannie listened unimpressed at first. All right, he won a poker game, he made some friends, he saw a beautiful woman on the deck. But as Jack continued talking she watched his face. His eyes took on a mellow glow that she had never seen. The lines in his face and the creases around his eyes softened. He became the boy of twenty again, stepping back in time. He became a person she did not know.

"When I saw Rose hanging over the back of the ship and realized that she was the woman I had seen earlier, I knew that fate had stepped in. I knew we were destined for one another."

Jack described the magical first class dinner and the rowdy steerage party, where Rose had become the queen of the evening. Slowly Jeannie felt herself being caught up in this realife fairy tale.

She was seeing for the first time her gentle and modest father as a wildly romantic, impulsive person, who with his charm and "ten bucks in my pocket," stole away the fiancée of a millionaire. She was starting now to understand the feelings that ran between the two of them.

"Just before the iceberg struck, Rose told me that she was getting off the ship with me."

"You mean she was willing to give up that life of gowns and balls and servants and go off with you, who had nothing?" asked Jeannie, whose opinion of Rose had just risen several notches.

"But that's when all the trouble started," said Jack.

Jack had told Jeannie the whole story, almost the whole story. He had not eliminated the parts about the drawing and the Renault, but neither did he dwell on them. She was a grown up. Surely she would read between the lines.

She was horrified when Jack told of being arrested for stealing the necklace and being placed in the hopeless position chained to the pipe, as the ship was sinking.

"What was going through you mind?" she asked, thinking about all his close calls.

"Well, not a lot, except that I was pretty sure things were going to end for me in that room. To me it's still a miracle that Rose came and saved my life."

"She saved your life? How?" Jeannie gasped, getting even more entranced with this amazing story.

"She got an axe and cut the handcuffs apart."

Jeannie was having a hard time picturing the elegant looking Rose wielding an axe. But she knew that her father was telling the truth. Their love for one another must be much more powerful than she could understand.

"She has such a fiery personality. I had her all settled in a lifeboat and as they were lowering it, she climbed back on the ship. She was determined that we stay together."

"She was willing to die with you, Dad?" wondered Jeannie, amazed at yet another astounding development to this tale.

He nodded.

"Yes, we both knew then it was pretty hopeless. I tried to be optimistic, but I knew how cold that water was. Things were fine, until I lost her in the water. At that moment, I felt that my life had ended. That's how I felt for a long time after," he told her, starting to feel tired after explaining this ordeal yet again.

"Oh, God, Daddy, that is the saddest story I have ever heard, and the most romantic. I just never pictured you like that. You must have been sweeping woman off their feet left and right," said Jeannie, now understanding things better.

Jack laughed softly, "Well, I wasn't much. A poor artist, no job. Yes, I met lots of woman, but nothing happened. Nothing until I met Rose. Don't get mad when I say this, but I have never met anyone like her."

Jeannie stood up abruptly. Her mind was filled with so many conflicting thoughts. She needed some quiet to sort things out.

"Dad, I'm tired. I got kind of worn out listening to this. It's a lot to take in all at once. Would you mind if I went to bed?" she asked.

"No, I'll just sit here and get some more coffee. I have a few things I need to look at. Jeannie, I'm glad I told you all this. Rose or not, it's something you needed to know," Jack said hopefully, wondering if perhaps Jeannie would be able to come to terms with all he had told her.

She smiled understandingly and then bent down to hug him.

"Night," was all she said.

Jeannie went to her room and laid down without getting ready for bed. In her mind she went over and over the details of the story that she had just been told. How could someone survive that ordeal and also lose the person you loved? Now she understood some of her father's silent moods, his far away looks. She questioned herself and wondered if she possessed Rose's courage. The ability to save someone's life and to want to give up your own and die together. Her mind was torn. She wondered if even her own mother would have been capable of doing those things for her dad.

It was about two A.M. when she got up. She looked out in the hallway and saw that the living room light was still on.

"Dad must have forgotten to turn it off."

She walked into the room. He was not there. She looked back onto the porch and that is where she found him. He was still sitting looking out onto the ocean. The strains of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik from a record were playing softly in the background. He seemed to be deep in thought.

"Daddy? Are you alright?" she whispered.

He covered his face with his hands and stretched out his body.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just tired. Didn't sleep much on that train."

Jeannie chuckled to herself, "I'll bet not."

"Dad, can we go for ice cream?" she asked.

Jack looked at his watch.

"Now?"

Well, yes. We used to do that. Remember?"

Jack looked up at his daughter. She had pulled her hair into a ponytail and was dressed in the same pair of shorts and sleeveless blouse she had worn at dinner. Her blond bangs hung in her face. She looked about 12. He saw his face reflected in hers.

"Alright, pal. You used to want to do that when you needed cheering up. Is that what you need tonight?" he asked.

"No, I thought maybe you did. I'm sorry I made you feel bad about Rose. I' ve done a lot of thinking in the past few hours. I acted like a spoiled little child and I'm sorry. I see now how much she means to you, how right you are for each other. And I see too that mom was one thing and Rose is another. They really have nothing to do with each other."

"Thanks Jeannie. You've made things easier for me. I am going to ask her to marry me. Is that alright with you?" he asked her, hoping that Jeannie would be truly happy for him.

"Very alright. And I mean that. I don't want you to be lonely anymore," said Jeannie putting her arms around her dad, giving him one of their old bear hugs. "I want you both at my wedding. Do you think she'd be like a mom and help me choose my dress?"

"I am sure she will. In fact, I am sure she will be thrilled. So what are we waiting for? Are we going for ice cream?" asked Jack, looking at his daughter fondly.

"Yes, Dad, only let's not make it for cheering up. We're doing it to celebrate!!"

Jack stood up and put his arm around Jeannie's shoulder. He gave her a smile and thought of how lucky he was, how proud he was of her. He thought briefly of that journey on Titanic and how it had changed him and how another journey on a train, had also made a difference in his life.

"So what shall we have?" he asked his daughter, as they walked out to her car.

"Mmmmm, what do you say we share a banana split?" she asked him, recalling that it had always been his favorite treat.

"Sounds great, just don't let me fall asleep in it," Jack said laughing and yawning at the same time.

They rode along quietly for awhile, the cool night breeze ruffling Jeannie's hair as she drove.

"Where are you taking me?" asked Jack.

"Just to Jake's Drive Inn. At Sunset and Doheny. They're open all night. And they have banana splits," she said smiling at him.

Jack studied the profile of his intelligent and sometimes mischievous daughter. She was something special. He thought back to Martha who was only a vague memory. Despite their short marriage, she had given him the greatest gift of all, his Jeannie. His daughter had been his world now for almost half of his life. He was happy that she too had found someone to love. Hopefully, she would never have to suffer the things he had been through. Then his mind moved on to Rose, a woman so special that the fires of their love had never died, even when they thought the other was dead. She had been in his heart for thirty six years. Now he was about to share the rest of his life with her. The fact that they had found each other was still so overwhelming.

"You okay?" asked Jeannie, looking over at him, knowing now why her dad sometimes seemed in another world.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," said Jack, coming back down to earth.

"It's funny isn't it, Daddy?" she said softly, "Sometimes things just work out."

"Yes, Jeannie, they do. Sometimes they just work out, especially when you least expect it. Come on, let's order two banana splits."