it was the ship of dreams.  to everyone else. to me it was a slave ship, taking me back to america in chains.
outwardly i was everything a well brought up girl should be. inside, i was screaming.
at cherbourg a woman came aboard named margaret brown, but we all called her molly. history would call her the unsinkable molly brown. her husband had struck gold someplace out west, and she was what mother called "new money".
by the next afternoon we had made our final stop and we were steaming west from the coast of ireland, with nothing out ahead of us but ocean.
i saw my whole life as if i'd already lived it.  an endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts and polo matches.  always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. i felt like i was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull me back, no one who cared.  or even noticed.
of course his gift was only to reflect light back onto himself, to illuminate the greatness that was caledon hockley. it was a cold stone.  a heart of ice.
after all these years, feel it closing around my throat like a dog collar.
as if i hadn't felt the sun in years.
the others were gracious and curious about the man who'd saved my life. but my mother looked at him like an insect. a dangerous insect which must be squashed quickly.
he must have been nervous but he never faltered. they assumed he was one of them.  a young captain of industry perhaps.  new money, obviously, but still a memeber of the club. mother of course, could always be counted upon.
my heart was pounding the whole time. it was the most erotic moment of my life.  up till then at least.
sorry to disappoint you mr. bodine.
well, i wasn't the first teenage girl to get seduced in the backseat of a car, and certainly not the last, by several million. he had such fine hands, artists' hands, but strong too.  roughened by work. i remember their touch even now.
fifteen hundred people went into the sea when titanic sank from under us. there were twenty boats floating nearby and only one came back. one. six were saved from the water, myself included. six out of fifteen hundred.
afterward, the seven hundred people in the boats had nothing to do but waith.  wait to die, wait to live, wait for an absolution which would never come.
that was the last time i ever saw him. he married, of course, and inherited his millions. the crash of 28 hit his interests hard, and he put a pistol in his mouth that year. his children fought over the scraps of his estate like hyenas, or so i read.
can you exchange one life for another? a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. if a mindless insect can do it, why couldn't i? was it any more unimaginable than the sinking of the titanic?
no, there wouldn't be, would there? and i've never spoken of him until now, not to anyone.