THEY HAD COME TOGETHER once again, two years after the tragedy, to gather at the Seamen’s Church Institute in New York City. In some faces the pain had eased a bit, in others it was still as fresh and raw as it had ever been.
Holding tightly to Paddy’s hand, Katie gazed up at the Memorial Lighthouse and thought of Brian. She had meant what she said to Paddy. Brian was not in the ocean, he couldn’t be. She was just as certain that in the warm, safe refuge he had found, he was pleased that his brother was here now, with her, that they were still together and always would be. He would understand how Paddy still struggled with his book, but be proud that he hadn’t given up, that he kept trying. Paddy would finish the book one day, and they would both thank Edmund Tyree for his patience, and Belle for all her help.
She hadn’t given up hope of one day getting her voice back. The doctors Paddy took her to were encouraging. He teased her, saying he liked her hoarse, dry whispering. But she sorely missed the singing. Flo had been so kind, bringing flowers and magazines to Lottie’s house, sometimes small toys for Bridget, who was healthy and active again. Flo had never once said, “Didn’t I tell you the smoke would ruin your voice?” She was a good woman.
Paddy hadn’t forgotten his promise to take her back to Ireland. He mentioned it every once in a while. When he was in a really good mood, he even sang the song for her again. They would need money for the trip, and more important, the courage to board a ship again.
Once there, they might stay, they might not. Did it really matter? They were alive when she, at least, might not have been, and they were together. It wasn’t the place that mattered. It was, Katie had decided, who was with you, wherever you were, that mattered.
Elizabeth felt a measure of peace for the first time since she’d begun attending the memorial services honoring her father and so many others lost on the Titanic. Last year at this time, her dreams had seemed to disappear along with the ship itself. Now, at last, she was beginning to fulfill them. She loved college. It was everything she had hoped it would be. Max was painting well … she’d seen some of his new work, wonderfully detailed New York scenes that she felt certain would draw positive attention. Her mother, while never ceasing to complain that she saw too little of her daughter, was at least civil to Max now. That was progress.
They still had a long way to go. But they had managed to survive a monumental disaster at sea and, almost more difficult, they had survived two years of grief and adjustment. Elizabeth wasn’t sure how, exactly. There had been many times when she had doubted they would manage. But they had.
Max said occasionally, “We’ve been through the worst. It can only get better from here on in.”
Perhaps he was right.
“Those we loved and lost…” a speaker’s voice broke into her thoughts.
No one spoke then as the ball in the Titanic Memorial Lighthouse mounted on the rooftop of the Seamen’s Church Institute in New York City dropped once again, in memory of fifteen hundred people lost at sea.