Unspeakable (33 page)

Chapter Forty-Six

I WALKED THE SHORELINE
, shoes in one hand, skirts held up with the other. It probably wasn't fitting for the lady of Strandview Manor, but it was exactly what Ellie Hardy would do. And that was how I'd decided to live from now on. To be true to myself, now that I knew her. Stopping, I picked up a handful of smooth stones and, tucking the ends of my skirt in my waistband, waded into the water. Leaning to one side, I pitched the pebble across the sparkling surface, counting the skips.
Six … seven … eight
. Circles rippled out from each place where the rock touched, but never stayed. That was the trick to skipping stones, to stories, to life, really—to keep moving forward.

“So that's where she gets it.” Jim's voice came from just behind and I turned to see him standing on the shore. Just the sight of him, the sound of him, the nearness of him made my heart ache. After the way things had been left, I wasn't even sure I'd ever see him again. And yet, here he was.

But he didn't smile or meet my eyes. Instead, Jim took off
his shoes and rolled up his pant legs and, after picking up a few stones, waded in beside me.

I had so much to say. To ask. So much I wanted to know. But my time with Steele had taught me how to listen. How to let someone speak his story. And so, hard as it was, I let the silence hang between us and skipped another pebble.

Jim grunted as he forcefully threw one stone and then another. Each sank on the first splash. “I can't do this,” he grumbled.

“Get low to the water. It's all in the wrist—”

“No, not that.” He dropped the stones and plodded back to sit on the shore.

Unsure what to do, I followed and sat by him in silence for a moment, letting him find his words.

“You can tell me, Jim. Anything,” I said, as though he needed permission to unload that heavy secret on my shoulders. Whatever it was, I could take it. I could carry it with him. I could lighten his burden, as Steele had done for me.

Jim breathed deeply. “I don't know what to say. It's too late, anyway. What's done is done. Why dwell on it?” His voice was low, barely a whisper. “Talking about it wouldn't change what happened.”

He may never have spoken it, but clearly, he did dwell on it, whatever it was, for he'd been brooding over or burdened under whatever it was he carried in secret silence. I'd felt the same way when Steele first approached me. But he'd gotten it out of me, and after the painful telling I'd felt purged, relieved. I felt forgiven.

“Nothing will change what happened,” I conceded. “But you can change what happens next.”

His eyes searched the horizon, floundering in his dark thoughts, and after a while I threw him a line. Like Steele would. “Is it about your father?”

“Yes.” He hugged his knees and burrowed his feet deeper into the sand. “I never told you … he worked on the
Titanic
.” Jim stopped and looked at me for a moment, unsure if he wanted to go on. “And so did I.”

Titanic?
It made sense, then. Jim's unwillingness to speak of it. His obsession with the
Empress
's life-saving standards. “Oh, Jim, that must have been horrible.”

He stared off into the horizon and I knew he was there now. Reliving that night.

“That girl from my journal—it's not what you think, Ellie. She was only a child. Four, maybe five.” He turned his attention back to the stones in his hands. “A passenger on the
Titanic
. One of hundreds that died”—he paused, his next words barely a whisper—“because of me.”

“What do you mean?” I knew that sense of shame for not saving others, of guilt for surviving when they had not, but surely he had to be exaggerating.

He shrugged, jaw clenched.

“Were you a stoker?” I asked, coaxing him onward.

He shook his head. “Bellboy.” A smile haunted his lips. “God, Da was proud to see me in that uniform. Said I'd be chief steward in no time.”

His smile faded. “Even when Captain Smith ordered the men to launch the lifeboats, I still didn't think we were in any danger. Not really. She was
unsinkable
, after all.” He shook his head. “But I overheard Murdoch say the engine room was flooded and most of the bow, pulling her down by the head.
Compartment by compartment. I knew then she'd founder, for once the sea got a taste of her, it wouldn't stop until it had swallowed her whole.”

I nodded, remembering that sense of shock, disbelief, and terror when the
Empress
had been hit.

“I found Da,” he continued, “at his post—lower level by the third-class stairwell. Him on one side of the gate and a mob of steerage passengers on the other. Some of them had life vests. Most did not. But what did it matter with that black metal gate shut across the top of the stairs? They were crushed against it by the others pushing up from below. I'll never forget their pleas for help. Terror sounds the same in any language.”

He paused and I knew he was hearing them still. I could almost see them surging against the rail, arms and hands stuck through the black bars, grasping for his father to save them.

“I ran up to Da and pulled on the steel grill.” Jim mimed the action with his fists. “Maybe together we could do it, but it would not budge. When Da shoved me aside, I saw the key hanging round his neck. I knew the truth even before he told me he'd locked them in.”

Jim dropped his hands. “‘Captain's orders,' Da said. Like that explained it. And I looked at them, all those people, mothers, children. I looked at the terror in their faces. There was a little girl of four or five, down in the bottom corner in a white nightdress, a red ribbon knotted at the end of her hair. God, I'll never forget her—the way she reached out to me.” He paused and rubbed his eyes, but I knew it wouldn't get rid of that sight. “I begged Da to see sense and let them out. But he wouldn't listen, so I lunged for the key. I don't remember
exactly how it happened, we struggled, he must have hit his head. Da fell, splashed into the water flooding the alleyway hall, and just floated there face down, arms sprawled, blood blooming in the water around his head.”

Jim stopped, his breath laboured.

“It was an accident, Jim,” I said softly. I rested my hand on his arm. But he wasn't with me. He was still there, still in the hold of the sinking
Titanic
.

“He was alive,” he continued. “But neither of us would be for long if we didn't get out of there. I hauled Da to the stairwell and up a few steps as the water rose behind. The passengers cried out to me. But what could I do? I couldn't save them all, so I took the key chain from around Da's neck, threw it at their grasping hands, and hauled him out. I didn't wait to see if they caught it. I didn't care if they lived or died. All that mattered in that moment was saving my da. And in the end, I couldn't even do that.”

Jim hung his head, gasping, labouring under the weight of his guilt. He'd shouldered it along with his father's lifeless body. Carried it every step since. Borne it two long years.

No wonder he seemed so burdened.

Chapter Forty-Seven

“THEY GOT OUT,” I SAID,
suddenly recalling where I'd heard this story before. “The third-class passengers—they opened the gate, Jim!”

“You can't know that.” He wouldn't be so easily comforted.

“No, it's true. I read it in an article about the
Titanic
.” It was one of the stories Steele had given me when we first met. “No one could have told the reporters about the gate being locked … if they hadn't
lived
to tell.”

I paused to let that truth settle. “You saved them, Jim. Maybe not your father. But some of them, at least.”

He sat with that knowledge for a few moments. “It should have been me, Ellie,” he finally said, lips trembling. “I should have died.”

I knew his pain. Hadn't I felt the very same about Meg? But I saw things a little differently now.

“I know the guilt of surviving,” I said. “I wanted to die, too. How could I live with myself, how could I live a happy
life knowing Meg never would?” I paused and thought of all I'd learned these past ten weeks since the sinking. “But a life of regret and shame is no life at all. They wouldn't want that for us. Not Meg. Not your da.”

He clenched his jaw, afraid to speak. But he nodded and I knew he understood.

“It was an accident, Jim. The iceberg. The
Storstad
. Each one a stupid mistake that ended in horrendous tragedy. But the captains, the crew, your father, you, me … we each did what we thought best in that moment.”

I thought of my aunt, of my father, of everyone who'd ever hurt me, and realized I needed to accept that truth for those situations as well.

“We need to forgive them,” I said. “We need to forgive ourselves.”

“But it's just so”—his voice hitched—“so unfair.”

“You're right.” I paused. “A tragedy is exactly that—tragic. But dwelling on its senselessness, wallowing in our grief and regrets will only sink us to deep, dark places. If we let it.”

He took a deep breath and exhaled; I could almost see the weight easing from his shoulders. But it wasn't just about letting go. We had to look forward. To skip on to the ways we'd make ripples in the next parts of our lives.

“Jim, we survived—asking why will only drive us mad. We need to ask
what for
? What are we living for now, here, today?”

He picked up a stone and discarded it. Then another and another. Something still weighed upon his mind.

“Knowing about what happened, what you did on the
Titanic
, doesn't change how I feel about you,” I said, treading into new waters.

He chucked the last pebble and stopped. “What does it matter anyway? It's too late for us. You're with him now and—”

“With who?”

He looked at me sideways. “The man from the park. The one at your house?”

“Who? Steele?” I said, surprised.

“The day my ship docked, I came looking for you at Strandview Manor. You were the only thing that kept me going in the hospital in Quebec. They said I kept calling your name, even when I didn't know my own.” He paused. “And this Steele fellow answers the door and tells me you don't work there anymore. And I wondered how I'd ever find you. How I'd live without you.”