The Girl Who Came Home: A Novel of the Titanic

by Hazel Gaynor

  The following day was the tenth anniversary of Grace’s great-grandfather James’s death. She’d promised to take Maggie to the cemetery to place some fresh flowers in remembrance before they went for their usual Saturday morning cup of tea.

  Grace knew that Maggie liked the cemetery because of the cherry blossom trees that stood just outside the boundary wall and cast a lovely pink hue over everything on a day like today.

  It was a bright spring morning, and Maggie enjoyed the light breeze on her face as they walked through the cemetery gates. She noticed the single cloud in the blue sky and sensed the stillness about the place. It reminded her of the day she’d left Ireland. A distant memory flashed through her mind as she walked silently beside her great-granddaughter.

  A young girl, dressed smartly in her best calico pinafore, staring out of the small cottage doorway, past the cherry blossom trees and across the vast expanse of fields and stone walls that divided up the land, the mighty mountain of Nephin Mór cast into shadow by a passing cloud, as if doffing its cap to the departing travelers. Her aunt’s voice: “It is time.” Stones crunching underfoot as she walked from home to home—her cousin Pat’s white stone cottage first. Knocking on the door. “It’s time,” she called. The same at the Joyces’ home, where she’d imagined Ellen’s emotions torn between a deep worry for the sick mother she was leaving and excitement about seeing again her handsome fiancé, who would be awaiting her arrival in New York. More knocking on doors, stones crunching ominously under her black boots. Walking back toward her own home, her head bowed, her eyes fixed on her feet, her ears listening intently to the crunch, crunch, crunch of the stones. The thump in her heart as she saw him standing under the cherry blossom tree; come to say good-bye.

  “Are you okay, Maggie? You seem very quiet today.”

  Grace’s voice pulled Maggie from her thoughts.

  “Oh, yes, dear. I’m perfectly fine. Just enjoying the peace and quiet. It’s so beautiful here, isn’t it? So still and calm. It reminds me of the morning I left home.”

  She looped her arm through Grace’s and they strolled together again, her thoughts returning to her seventeen-year-old self.

  There was something different about Ballysheen that spring morning, an eerie stillness after the flurry of activity and organization of the past weeks. Only the familiar crowing of the cockerel joined the sounds of tearful farewells and final exchanges as the travelers got into the traps that were gathered. She stood in silence, casting a final glance over the still snowcapped tops of the mountains in the far distance, the newborn lambs barely visible to the naked eye, the small white cottages and occasional farm buildings dotted about the landscape like dolls’ houses scattered by a child. She had fond memories of running among those fields and mountains, temporarily free from the constraints of her domestic duties, at one with the landscape she so loved.

  She watched Pat’s weeping mammy lean up into the trap to pass him a sovereign as a good-luck token. One of the horses startled at a dog running around its feet, causing the trap to jolt slightly at the moment Pat reached to take the sovereign from her hands. She gasped as she watched the coin fall to the ground. This was a sign of bad luck, but the mammy picked it off the ground, rubbed it on her coat, and passed it to him again. Nobody spoke of it.

  A strange silence surrounded them during the journey over the rugged terrain of the Windy Gap—the cart bumping and jostling her around in her seat, each turn of the wheels taking her farther away from home, from the man she loved, until they reached the train station. Still, they remained silent, standing on the chilly station platform, huddled beside piles of suitcases and trunks, as others around them exchanged tearful farewells. She felt a sense of foreboding and finality. It frightened her.

  Hearts raced, hands shook, and adrenaline caused bodies to shiver as the gleaming green livery of the Midland Great Western Line train came into view, accompanied by the unmistakable screech of metal on metal and the muffled puff, puff of smoke rising from the funnel. How she’d gaped at the massive engine in front of her, the like of which she’d never seen before. How she’d stared up at the black funnel towering above the platform as the steady hiss of steam and the shouts exchanged between the driver and the stationmaster made her cover her ears. And then they were all bustled aboard, the guard blew his whistle, and with a great lurch the next stage of their journey began, weeping strangers left behind on the platform as they waved farewell to their loved ones through the misted-up windows.

  “It’s a dreadful sight, Maggie, it truly is,” Peggy had said. “God love ’em. God love us all, every one.”

  The landscape rushed past at an incredible pace as the train clattered toward Claremorris station, beyond which she would be crossing new and unfamiliar territory. She felt for the packet of letters in her coat pocket, reassured by their presence. As long as she could feel his words in her hands, she sensed that Séamus would still be with her.

  Maggie shivered at the memories and pulled her coat tighter around her as they approached the gravestone.

  They stood for a while, heads bowed in respectful silence as each said a private prayer. Maggie took to fussing over the flowers then, removing all the dead and wilted ones and replacing them with the fresh ones she had brought.

  “Freesias—your favorite,” she whispered as she went about her work.

  Grace watched her and smiled at her great-grandmother’s undying love for the man she had spent most of her life with. She studied the inscription on the headstone. Much-loved husband of Maggie and doting father to Harry, Kathleen, and Peggy. “To live in the hearts of those we love is never to die.”

  “I remember him, you know.” Grace spoke almost in a whisper. “He was a kind man, wasn’t he? I remember the smell of the pipe he smoked. I remember him teasing me and pretending that he couldn’t say the word hippopotamus. He would go on for ages and have me and Art in stitches. I always felt safe around him.”

  Maggie smiled fondly. “Yes, Grace. He was a very kind man. It’s funny, I always felt safe around him too. He had that sort of—what do you call it . . . ?”

  “Presence.”

  “That’s right. A presence. You always knew when he was in the room—not in a fancy, showy way, like your brother. More in a quiet, gentle way.” She paused for a moment and brushed a few fallen cherry blossom petals from the stone. “Yes, he was a very special man indeed.”

  The two fell silent then, remembering the man whose grave they stood at. It wasn’t until Maggie muttered the word “Amen” that Grace knew she was ready to leave.

  “Shall we go for that cup of tea then? The wind’s getting a bit chilly. Come on.”

  As Maggie turned to leave, Grace was sure she heard her say, “Yes, I will.” She looked around to see who her great-grandmother was talking to, but seeing nobody there, assumed she must have been mistaken and linked Maggie’s arm through hers to support her as they made their way back to the car.

  “By the way,” she asked when they were settled in the warmth of the car. “Did you name your children after the people you traveled from Ireland with?”

  “Yes, dear, I did. Kathleen, after my aunt, Peggy—your grandmother—after my friend, and Harry, after the steward. It seemed like a nice way to remember them.”

  “Did you keep in touch with Peggy? After the event?”

  “I did, for a while. We’d exchanged our onward addresses at the hospital. I wouldn’t have known where I was heading to at all if I hadn’t kept that small black case. Aunt Kathleen had written a forwarding address label and attached it to the case, you see, so the nurses knew where I needed to get to. We didn’t write immediately—both of us needed a bit of time to recover properly. But after a few months I wrote to her, and she wrote back and we continued to exchange letters for a couple of years.”

  She paused then.

  “And . . . ?”

  “Well, then we lost touch. I moved. I think Peggy must have moved too, because she was due to be married, and th
e years drifted by without my hearing anything from her.”

  “Oh, that’s very sad.”

  “Yes, it is. She was the only living person I knew who had shared that terrible experience with me. I often wonder whether she’s still living now.”

  “And you named your son Harry after the steward because he saved your life, I guess? Mr. Lockey mentioned that Harry had helped you to send a telegram from Titanic.”

  Maggie smiled ruefully. “Ah yes. Harry was friendly with the Marconi telegraph operators, and said he could get a message sent off the ship for me for free. I could never have afforded the price of a telegram, you see. You’d never believe it, though—that blessed message was only half sent. Wasn’t the radio operator right in the middle of tapping out my little message when Titanic hit the iceberg? So the message got sent through to Ireland all right, but with some of the words missing. Quite an impact that half-delivered message had.”

  “Oh?”

  “It all got sorted out in the end, though.”

  There was a silence then as Grace drove steadily along and Maggie gazed out of the window, the cherry blossom trees giving way to bare stone walls and fences, the car engine droning in the background, a million memories whirling around in Maggie’s mind.

  PART SIX

  Marconigram message sent from the captain of Carpathia to George E. Foster, acting premier of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, on April 18, 1912

  CHAPTER 36

  Cass County, Illinois

  June 6, 1982

  They’d arranged to meet by the shores of the lake. It had always been a favorite hangout of theirs during Jimmy’s visits and seemed like the perfect location—not too public and not too isolated. There were always plenty of kids playing Frisbee, fathers pitching baseballs to their sons, or people falling off their Jet Skis. There would be enough distraction to mask their discomfort if the meeting didn’t work out as Grace was hoping, and enough space for them to enjoy a good, long stroll if it did.

  Their phone call had been brief and awkward, punctuated with uncomfortable pauses and hesitant exchanges, talking over each other inadvertently, causing the conversation to stop and start as each apologized and insisted the other one go on. It was nothing like the easy, relaxed chats they’d had for hours when they first got together. The use of the phone to call Jimmy had been the only real source of disagreement between Grace and her father, who frequently insisted she’d spoken for long enough. When she argued with him, he insisted that she would be paying the bill if she didn’t hang up right away.

  Grace played her brief conversation with Jimmy through in her mind all over again as she pulled into the parking lot. He’d told her he’d been well and had been amazed when he’d read her article in the paper. His voice had been receptive and not at all hostile—which had been her worst fear—and he hadn’t allowed her to apologize for not writing to him, insisting that it would be better to meet in person and talk face-to-face. She hadn’t been able to ask him outright if he had a girlfriend, but she guessed that if he was happy to meet up with her, he probably didn’t. She hoped he didn’t but had prepared herself for the possibility, just in case.

  Checking her appearance in the rearview mirror, she was happy enough with how she looked but could already feel a nervous rash breaking out across her chest. She wrapped a silk scarf loosely around her neck, fluffed her hair, reapplied her lip gloss, and pushed her sunglasses up onto her head.

  “Right,” she said as she locked the car. “Let’s do this.”

  They’d arranged to meet outside the Java Bean—a coffee shop they used to hang out at. Whoever got there first was to order two coffees to go and they would sit on the grass and talk. “Nothing else—no other expectations. Just talk and enjoy great coffee, huh? How ’bout it?” Jimmy’s words buzzed around her head as she walked toward the rendezvous point.

  Rounding the last curve in the sandy path, she saw him. Her heart pounding in her chest, she stood for a moment and stared, barely able to believe it was really him. After all this time, after all the pain and belief that she would never see him again, there he was, with a coffee cup in each hand, waiting for her.

  She took in every detail of him. He looked taller than she remembered and had let his hair grow longer. It suited him. He was casually dressed, in a sweatshirt, pale denim jeans, and his trademark Converse sneakers. She watched as he shifted his weight restlessly from one foot to the other. He looked as nervous as she felt.

  And then he turned.

  Their eyes met.

  Grace felt as though her heart would burst from her chest, it hammered so hard.

  They stared silently for a few moments, and a steady smile grew across his lips as she walked toward him. It felt good. It felt okay.

  “Grace Butler!” he said, standing tall in front of her. “Well, wow, would you look at you!”

  “Look at you,” she replied, smiling. “You look great!”

  They laughed nervously, the spark of attraction they’d sensed during that first college lecture instantly there again, hanging in the air between them.

  “I would hug you,” he said, gesturing to the coffee cups in his hands, “but I’m kinda stuck here.”

  Laughing, Grace took one of the cups from him and they shared a long embrace, not saying anything, just remembering the touch of each other and inhaling the familiar scents of perfume and aftershave.

  “Should we walk?” she suggested, eager to escape the prying eyes of the coffee shop customers and the continual flash of cyclists rushing past them.

  “Yeah. Let’s walk.”

  They strolled for a while, chatting easily, Grace catching up on news from Jimmy’s college life and Jimmy asking about her family.

  “So, that was some amazing story you pulled out of the bag!” Jimmy said as they settled on the grass beside the lake. “I bet O’Shea nearly crapped himself when that manuscript landed on his desk. You did an awesome job, really; I loved it.”

  “Thanks. I was so nervous about it. You know how ruthless O’Shea can be. I couldn’t believe it when Professor Andrews called me to say they were going to publish it!”

  “And what about Maggie? Who would have known that quiet old lady had such a huge story to tell! How come she decided to talk to you about it after all these years?”

  Grace told Jimmy all about Maggie sharing her story with her at her birthday party and about how she’d found the small suitcase in the attic with some of Maggie’s Titanic possessions still inside.

  “She seems to have just reached a point in her life where she felt that she wanted to talk about it again, wanted people to know,” Grace explained, enjoying the light breeze that blew off the lake against her cheeks. “She told me she had missed being able to talk about it with my great-granddad—the only person in the family she ever really discussed it with. I think she just wanted to make sure that the story was left within the family before she . . . you know . . . dies.”

  “Well, if she’s anything like I remember her, she won’t be doing that anytime soon!” Jimmy laughed. “She’s an amazing woman. I reckon she’ll live to be at least a hundred.”

  “Oh, I dunno, Jimmy. There’s something different about her these days. She looks older somehow. More fragile. She looks her age, I guess.”

  Grace told Jimmy about Edward Lockey then, and about Maggie’s coat and letters and how Maggie had been able to piece together some of the missing events from that night and put to rest some of the things she had worried about over the years since.

  “I don’t think she’s ever gotten over it, you know. After all these years, I really think she has never truly been able to come to terms with what happened—or the fact that she survived when she watched so many others die. It must have been so terrible. I just can’t imagine. She once told me that she sometimes feels like she has never really gotten off that ship. That she walks those stairwells and decks every day, looking for her lost friends and family.”

  For a while, they avoided talking abou
t their own relationship, neither one sure of how to broach the subject, anxious to avoid causing discomfort when they seemed to be getting along so well.

  “Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you,” Grace ventured when there was a pause in the conversation. “Thank you so much.”

  “For what?”

  “For giving me a chance. For coming to see me. I really didn’t think that after . . .”

  He placed a finger delicately across her lips. “Don’t,” he said. “Let’s not do that. Let’s not do the whole postmortem thing. I don’t want to go back there, back then. It’s too painful for both of us. We both know what happened. We both have our whys and what-ifs and a need to explain ourselves, but I don’t think it would help. We’re here now, so let’s talk about now. You seem so happy, Grace, and that was all I ever wanted, was for you to find happiness in your life again—whether with me or without me.” Grace wanted to say something, wanted to tell him how much she wanted to be with him, but couldn’t find the courage. She let him continue. “I could never fully understand what it felt like to be you—to lose your father like that and to give everything up to care for your mom. It wasn’t my place to judge you for how you felt about us—about anything. I just hoped you and your mom and brother would find happiness again someday. I really hope you have, Grace. That’s all.”

  Allowing the tears to fall then, tears of relief, tears for her father, tears for herself, Grace sank into Jimmy’s arms and they sat together, talking and laughing until the sun started to set and he wrapped his jacket around her for warmth.