Promise Me This (15 page)

Finally, black sky gave way to darkest blue. Michael forced himself to focus on the changing colors, to shut out the moans, the hum of grumbles and complaints around him, and to think once more of Owen, to believe that Owen had been saved, that he’d found his way into one of the lifeboats. Owen had promised he was a strong swimmer. Michael gritted his teeth and held him to it.

“I will find him,” he whispered over and over. “When morning comes and all the lifeboats gather, I will find him.” A ship would come, Michael told himself, and he and Owen would make their way to New York and New Jersey, to Owen’s uncle Sean. They would plant their seeds and shoots and do all the things Owen had planned. They would send for Annie within the year.

Michael played the details through his mind, recounted the dreams he and Owen had stitched into a mental quilt over the last few days—the gardens, the serpentine paths, the gazebos they would build.

He shivered against the bitter cold and pulled the hem of Owen’s greatcoat free from the water that sloshed over the tops of his brogans. He cradled their dreams, sewn carefully inside Owen’s coat and jacket. He had been charged to keep their treasures safe and dry and to be a man, a brother Owen could be proud of; he would do that for Owen—for Owen and Annie.

Yes, they would talk it all over, Michael vowed, in the morning.

Gray dawn came at last. Red streaks brushed the stars away and painted pink the ice mountains towering over their valley of sea. But dawn also brought a stiff breeze, a low morning fog, and choppy waters.

At length, a distant booming and a faraway crackle of light scraped the far horizon, rousing even those who’d fallen asleep.

“Another star,” a sleepy woman near the bow proclaimed.

“A storm. A storm’s brewing!” An oarsman cursed.

“No. It’s a falling star,” countered the woman near the bow.

“We’ll not survive a storm in this boat. Water’s coming over the gunwales now.” Michael recognized the voice of the doomsayer at the tiller.

The booming grew louder.

“It’s a ship! There’s a ship!” a woman in the nearest lifeboat called. Michael, still shivering, still sweating, his throat on fire, did not believe her, did not bother to look. But the chorus was taken up by others, and a ripple of hope swept through the small boats. Michael rubbed his eyes and spied a black speck growing steadily on the horizon. Rockets—not lightning—shot from the speck, the ship, into the sky, declaring she was on her way.

“She’ll be coming to take up the stiffs,” the man from the tiller prophesied.

Waves of remembered guilt for surviving, of anguish for the loss of loved ones who did not, washed over the small boat, wringing their hope as surely as if she had been swamped.

A woman pleaded sanity. “Surely they’ll take the living as well.”

A lifeboat over a mile away set off green flares. Michael wondered if the faraway ship could see such a small light in the midst of the ocean. But the ship slowed and altered her course. A cheer went up from the ragged fleet of lifeboats as the one stark funnel, black and red against a rising sun of molten fire, grew and grew, making short the distance between them. She stopped her engines near the first lifeboat.

“Row! Row toward the ship!” an oarsman called. Every oar dipped in the swelling ocean with a will. Even the doomsayer hushed his tirade.

Carpathia
—even the name lettered on the ship’s side was beautiful. By the time they reached the black cliff of the ship’s hull, the sea had grown perilously choppy; every rower was spent. But the good
Carpathia
had flushed oil into the sea, creating calmer waters and a lee for the incoming boats.

Michael, unsteady though he was, helped the lady beside him, the lady who had saved his life, into a boatswain’s chair, and then two little mites into ash bags that were hauled up the side. He even handed the shallow woman who had spoken of lovely smashed china into a sling. But when the wind lifted her feathered hat and carried it, by his ear, into the oiled sea, he did nothing to catch it.

Once the women and children were raised, Michael and every man who was able climbed the rope ladders and netting let down from above. Twice Michael slipped, his feet still numb from the freezing water.

Once he reached the railing, Michael was pulled to the deck of the ship by strong arms. A woolen steamer rug was thrown round his shoulders and a cup of coffee, laced with something stronger, was thrust into his trembling hands.

“Owen?” he begged the steward who handed him a sandwich.

“I don’t know, sir. I don’t know if anyone by that name is here or not. Lists are being formed.”

Michael refused to go below, to lie down. He ate the offered sandwich at the rail, determined to stand, to search every boat as it came in. He and Owen would go below together.

When the last lifeboat emptied, Michael still stood sentinel at the railing with a hundred women or more, women who had waited in silence for husbands or fathers or sons or brothers or friends, for whole families still missing.

“He might have been picked up by another ship! Can’t you send a Marconigram?” Woman after woman pleaded with stewards, with crewmen, with Captain Rostron himself.

Only there were no other ships, and all the lifeboats had been accounted for.

In a search for other survivors, Captain Rostron wove
Carpathia
through the flotilla of ice, circling the area where
Titanic
had gone down. Michael and hundreds of others from
Titanic
gripped the railings, hoping against hope and reason. Passengers from
Carpathia
joined them and hoped and prayed by their sides. But no more survivors were found. Michael thought it devilish that the deadly bergs and growlers could sparkle like golden pyramids in the risen sun. Some resembled ships fully rigged—a ghastly reminder of
Titanic
and her precious human cargo.

Captain Rostron ordered their flag lowered to half-mast and a service in the first-class saloon, conducted by Father Anderson, a passenger and Episcopal priest. He offered thanksgiving and gratitude for those who’d been saved and a memorial service for all who had perished.

At length hope gave way to grief and grief to despair. Women, tense but brave before, sobbed in open anguish for their lost. Tears streamed down the drawn and haggard faces of men. And still Michael could not believe that Owen was gone. He would not believe.

Carpathia
circled the site once more. Michael searched the waters frantically. When a uniformed man, ledger in hand, asked Michael for a name, Michael blurted, “Owen, please, sir. Owen.”

“Last name?” the man asked.

“Allen. Owen Allen.” Michael breathed, relieved, certain the man meant to help him. But the crewman walked away and began talking to another survivor. Michael could not understand why the man did not search the waters for Owen with him, why he didn’t run to Captain Rostron and tell him that Owen was waiting—out there.

And then it dawned on Michael that perhaps he had missed Owen at the service or that Owen had not been well enough to attend. Perhaps the man taking names would find Owen somewhere else on the ship and let Michael know later. Michael rubbed his temples. If only his head did not ache so. If only his throat didn’t burn, he could think more clearly. Panic crept into his chest even as his lungs tightened.

When the sun sank, he still stood at the railing, searching the sea, just in case Owen had caught a bed board or tabletop or any one of a thousand pieces of
Titanic
’s debris that might float—just in case he had drifted far from
Titanic
’s grave.

“Here, here, young man,” an older gentleman pressed when Michael, driven in at last by the cold, burst into the first-class saloon, shivering and panting. The clean-shaven man with unruly white hair made Michael think for all the world of Father Boyd back in Belfast. “What is the trouble?”

“Owen? Owen?” Michael could form no other words.
Father Boyd will understand. He will know what to do.

“What’s that you say? What is your name, lad? Are you with someone?”

“Owen?” Michael repeated. He was looking for Owen, wasn’t he? Michael struggled against the voices inside his head, the voices that told him he had lost Owen, or perhaps that he had failed Owen. Michael could not remember. And if he had failed Owen, he would surely fail Owen’s sister.
What is her name? Annie. It is Annie. Owen, Annie, Megan Marie—I’ve failed them all.
The list was too long; the names beat against Michael’s brain.

“Why, you’re burning up, my boy! Have you seen the ship’s doctor?”

Michael had not thought of that. The doctor might know Owen, might have seen him, might have talked with him.

“Steward!” the gentleman called. “Help us, will you? This lad needs medical attention. He’s burning with fever. I believe he is one of
Titanic
’s lot. Said his name is Owen.”

The news broke in London. It crept into Southampton on Monday’s morning fog, in the form of a midmorning notice posted in the window of the
Times
building.

Rumors ran that
Titanic
had struck an iceberg, was sinking, and that women and children were being put into lifeboats. A rescue ship, perhaps
Virginian
, was on its way, all would be saved, and the magnificent steamer, foundered on its maiden voyage, would be towed into Halifax.

But old shipmates and the wives and families of those who made their living on ships—nearly all of Southampton—trusted neither the rumors nor the sea.

By midafternoon a number of girls had returned home from Miss Hopkins’s school to await further news with their families. Those who remained at their desks wept quietly, twisted strands of hair round their fingers in distraction, bit their lips, or chewed their nails—waiting, simply waiting.

Annie did not see the words on the page of the lesson book before her and made no pretense of studying. She fingered Owen’s letter in her pinafore pocket, reminding herself again and again that Owen had written; Owen was all right; Owen would send for her soon.

On Tuesday morning, just before breakfast, the girls heard whispered words, whimpers, and low moans beyond the door of Miss Hopkins’s office. Minutes later a woman in kitchen dress and apron, the mother of one of the girls enrolled, crept from the room. With handkerchief pressed against her swollen eyes and shoulders slumped, she hurried down the hallway and out the door.

Annie pulled back the window shade and watched her go, bare of wrap and apparently unmindful of the cold. The knot that had been growing in her stomach since yesterday twisted and tightened. What could be so dreadful as to make a grown woman cry in public, let alone forget her wrap the day after an untimely spring snow?

When she looked through the window again, Annie saw more women and older men emerge, one by one, from their homes, then huddle and cluster in the street. And then came men of all ages in caps and coats, walking rapidly, heads bent, downhill. A few women followed, mostly dressed in black.

Annie could not swallow the fire lodged in her throat. “Where are they going?” she whispered.

“To the docks, to the White Star Line offices in Canute Street,” whispered Katie, Annie’s schoolmate, as she too peeked through the shade.

Annie simply stared at her.

“To . . . you know . . . see the lists.”

“The lists?” Annie did not understand.

“Surely. Of them that’s saved and them that’s lost. That’s where the lists will be posted.”

Annie’s breath came in tight little gulps. All this time she could have checked, could have known. She pushed the girl aside, grabbed her coat, and raced for the stairs but ran headlong into Miss Hopkins.

“Annie! Where are you going in such a state?”

But Annie did not stop to answer. She could not speak, dared not open the dam lest it burst. She rushed with the tide of men and women toward the sea, right to the gates of the White Star Line offices in Canute Street, just as the girl had said. She pressed through the crowd but could not see over the heads of the adults.