“This is a surprise.” He grinned down at Jamie. “Come to see what your future job will be, kiddo?”
“We brought you lunch!” Jamie informed him, rushing to clamber onto a stool so he could see better. “But I want to see! I won’t touch,” he added before any of the adults gave him the tiresome instruction.
“We were at the market and brought you some meat pies,” Casey offered, handing him a bag. “Feel free to share them out if you’ve made other plans.”
“No, this is great. Thanks! Have time to join me?”
They did, and everyone wandered into Sam’s office. Casey picked up Terry, leaving the pram in the hallway. Co-workers came by and admired the children, nearly all of them adding a comment or question about the upcoming Titanic departure. Casey answered in as few words as possible, trying to be polite. She cheered up when she remembered an encounter at the market and told Sam about it.
“I ran into Charles Joughin while we were shopping. He’s the chief baker on Titanic. He mentioned how much he enjoys sailing with Tom. He said he wanted to do something special for him, so he asked me what Tom’s favorite bread is. I gave him the recipe for the cornbread Tom loves so much, and he promised to fix it for him on the ship! It’s a surprise, so don’t mention it to him.”
Everyone promised to keep the secret and Casey seemed especially pleased. Sam was glad she found some enjoyment in the chance encounter, so he never told her that the surprise loaf of bread was one of the many anecdotes about Tom that was told to school children in Belfast, when they learned about the ship.
But how did it happen before, when Casey was not part of Tom’s life in the original timeline?
The wind woke Tom about four o’clock. First of April, 1912. Swallowing against the fear in the pit of his stomach, he turned and put his arms around Casey. She was awake already, listening to the wind they had known would be blowing. Her heart was racing. Tom kissed her head, massaging her shoulder and neck. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, kissing him thoroughly. Her hands made passages along his back, providing urging he didn’t need. He took his time, memorizing anew each inch of her. If he could, he would spend the next twenty-four hours making love to her.
He couldn’t, of course. Even with the extra day, there was enough work still to do, that he could work for the next twenty-four hours. He also had to show up as if he thought they’d be leaving today. He dressed, then with Casey by his side, he stopped by the nursery to kiss his children. Just in case.
Lord Pirrie was out recovering from surgery, so Tom and the directors met on the bridge with Captain Smith and the pilot. The wind tore through the channel, and even in the dock, the ship was in constant motion. With the narrowness of the channel, they didn’t dare try and take her out. Their decision was unanimous. The sea trials and subsequent departure would be put off until tomorrow. Tom gave up trying to shake the strangeness of it all. The next fifteen days of his life had been documented almost in detail in Sam and Casey’s time stream. Déjà vu was going to be his constant companion for a while, and he needed to get used to it. He felt like they were all following a script.
Joe Bell, who was chief engineer, had reported a coal fire in boiler room five. Sam had warned Tom about it, and he had tried to keep it from starting. But this was another thing that they weren’t able to change. The fire continued to smolder at the bottom of a pile of coal. It was not a problem at this point. The coal had to be removed, which they were doing, but any real progress would have to wait until Southampton and a full crew. Until then, it would have to smolder. Joe thought the bulkhead would be okay and it wouldn’t be necessary to report the fire to the Board of Trade inspectors. And it probably would be okay, under normal conditions. Tom had no doubt that in the other timeline, the weakened bulkhead had given out when flooded, and contributed to the ship’s rapid sinking.
Before heading for home, Tom made one more round of the boat deck, reveling in the number of lifeboats. Enough for everyone. Almost no room to walk though, and there had been a few complaints from first class passengers about the crowding on the Olympic, but Tom had managed to prevail. Ismay was unhappy, but by putting the extra boats on Olympic, they had placed the Board of Trade in an awkward position. People were beginning to ask why the rules were so out of date.
Despite the work, he went home a bit early. The children were napping and Tom coaxed Casey out of the garden and into the bedroom. He really did intend to make love to her as many times as possible before morning.
Afterwards, she held his hand and kissed each finger, then his palm. She started to speak, but hesitated. He lifted her head to look in her eyes. “It will be all right, Casey.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “You don’t know that, Tom. It’s your own choices that I’m afraid of.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sam and I have talked a lot about what happens on the ship that night. But no one knows… Sam says there’s always been speculation about why you didn’t get in a boat or at least, wear your life belt. Some people said it was because you loved the ship. You felt like the ship was your child, and I know you feel like that about them.” Her whisper was agonized. “But I need to know that you’ll really try to live this time.”
Anger surprised him. He sat up, face burning. “That’s bunk, Casey,” he said. “It’s bunk, do you understand? I’ve talked to Sam, too. I know that I had a family in that other time. Do you think for one minute, that one of my ships is more important to me than my children? Than my wife?” His voice shook and he reached for her shoulders, pulling her to sit beside him. “I can tell you why I didn’t get in a boat, because I would do the same thing now, if the situation were the same. All those women and children who did not have a seat, Casey. All those men… how many men put their wives and children in boats and stepped back to die, or stayed to die when they had families at home, waiting for them? What right, how could I, of all those people, have possibly taken a seat on a boat?” He buried his hands in her hair, holding her head tenderly, feeling the preciousness of her. “If there were not enough boats, now, I could not make myself get into one, Casey. You have to know that. But there are enough boats. And I swear to you, Casey, I will be in one if there is any way possible. I swear I will have on a belt. I will do everything in my power to live, Sweetheart. I promise you that with all my heart.”
They gave Penny the night off and spent the evening with their children, eating with them and playing games, reading to them. Tom called his parents and had each child talk to them, especially their Granda, who was not feeling well. Sam hung around for a while, playing three-way catch with Tom and Jamie. After a while though, he pulled Tom aside to say good-bye.
“I wish I had some pearls of wisdom for you, lad,” he said, before heading upstairs. “But I guess I’ve told you everything I know, along with a hell of a lot of conjecture.” They both laughed a little, then Sam shook Tom’s hand and ended it with a hug. “We’ll see you in a couple of months, Tom.” Sam shook his head helplessly. “Good luck, son.”
Tucking the children into bed was one of his favorite tasks, and Tom tried to memorize each moment as he and Casey dressed them in nightclothes. He sat on Jamie’s bed, holding his son in his lap as he read a story, and Casey nursed Terry. He noticed how Terry played with a bit of her mother’s hair while she nursed, and how she fell asleep holding the strand in her little grip. He read the entire story, even though Jamie was sound asleep before he was done. It was almost as if he was looking at the scene from outside his body: the nursery seemed encompassed in a glow, like an out-of-focus picture. In his mind, he took the picture, then tucked it into a figurative pocket, to keep with him while he was gone.