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Jack laughs. “I hardly slept at all. Something kept me up late.” He bumps his shoulder against mine. There’s that hesitation in his eyes.
I take his hand in mine.
“You don’t care if she sees?” he asks.
“I don’t care if anyone sees. Do you?”
“I don’t.”
“Great.”
“Grand.”
“Got it!” Clara turns to face us. Her eyes immediately dart to my hand in Jack’s. A look I don’t understand passes over her face, but she turns away and starts walking before I can even begin to decipher it.
When we arrive at the museum, Jack tries to pay for our tickets, but Clara whips out her phone so the cashier can scan the digital tickets she’s already bought. Pre-purchasing tickets is very Clara. The cashier hands each of us a postcard. On it is the image of an actual boarding pass that belonged to one of the passengers who boarded theTitanicfrom Cobh.
Clara looks at her boarding pass and grins. “First-class passenger. My destiny.”
“Your destiny is to be a first-class passenger on a sinking ship?” I say.
She fans herself with the boarding pass. “If I survive, yes. If I don’t, no.”
I read my own boarding pass. “I’m in third class. My name is Margaret Rice, and I am traveling with... my five sons.” I shake my head. “This better not be my destiny.” I elbow Jack. “What about you?”
Jack looks up from his boarding pass. “First class. William Edward Minahan.”
Clara gasps, and it startles both of us. She claps a hand over hermouth. “You’re my husband, Jack! Sorry, sis. Didn’t mean to steal your man.”
Clara slips her arm through Jack’s. “I’ll give him back later,” she says, as we walk over to a fake luggage display to wait for the tour guide.
Clara’s just messing around, but it has me on edge anyway. Of course Clara is a first-class passenger while I’m stuck in third class with my brood of children. Of course Jack is her fake husband. None of it matters, because none of it is real, but suddenly I feel as if I’m reliving high school and college all over again. Everything is fine, and then Clara shows up, and it’s allRaine, your sister is so funny! Raine, is Clara single? Will Clara be there? Raine, make sure you invite Clara!
It isn’t Clara’s fault, I know. But I’m petty. So petty that Clara being accepted at the same medical school as me was the last straw, the thing that made me realize I didn’t really care for medicine after all.
A few other visitors wait nearby. When the tour guide comes, our little group shuffles into the exhibit, which is way more interesting than I expected. We see replicas of the sleeping quarters and dining areas on board theTitanic. I’m so absorbed in the stories the tour guide tells us about the various passengers on the ship that I forget to be annoyed whenever Claraoohs andaahs over the first-class passenger amenities. When the tour guide asks if the Minahans are present, Clara loops her arm through Jack’s again and raises her hand, and we all have the pleasure of learning that they are the only first-class passengers today. Apparently there were only three first-class passengers who boarded theTitanicfrom here. How lucky that my sister gets to be one of them.
Clara is delighted by this information, and it’s too bad we’re not on a real boat, because then I could jump off it and into the water. No iceberg necessary.
Jack is quiet as we move through the museum. When we stepoutside to look at Heartbreak Pier, where the passengers who boarded here embarked, I catch his eye and ask if he’s okay, but he says he’s just tired.
By the time we take our seats in the “lifeboat” at the end of the guided tour, I am very invested in Margaret Rice and my—her—five young sons. The room goes dark, and a video about the night theTitanicsank begins to play. Eyewitness accounts from survivors narrate as we watch theTitanicsinking from the perspective of one of the lifeboats. The ship slowly rises. There’s the music of the band on board. The panicked screams of passengers. The creaking of the ship. The flickering lights. It’s overwhelming. I know the video I’m watching is just a simulation, but these events really happened. And they happened to real people. People who had plans and hopes and dreams, just like me. When one of the eyewitness accounts talks about seeing a mother and her five children huddled in a corridor and I learn Margaret Rice and her five sons perished, I start ugly crying right in the middle of this fake lifeboat.
The tour guide clears her throat. I feel everyone’s eyes on me as the film continues. I’m so embarrassed that I get to my feet just as the ship snaps in half, pushing through the door at the side of the room before anyone can stop me. I find myself in an exhibit hall filled with displays. Fortunately, I’m the only one here. And fortunately, the room is so filled with exhibits that it’s easy to hide myself from view while I wait for Jack and Clara to leave that hellish fake lifeboat/theater.
I wander to the far end of the room but don’t really take in what I’m seeing. I’m still crying when I make it to the final display, a large board on the wall that lists the names of all the passengers who boarded theTitanichere in Cobh and their fates.Standing here looking at these names is not going to help me calm down, especially now that I recognize so many of them, and I really need to calmdown before Jack and Clara find me. I turn away, hoping to find a less depressing display, and end up running right into Jack.
Fabulous. Wonderful. Less than twelve hours ago we were making out in a stairwell, and now he’s seen me have a meltdown in a fake lifeboat. I’m really busting out all the moves now.
I cover my face in my hands. “I’m so embarrassed.”
Jack puts his arms around me. I bury my face in his shoulder, concentrating on the circles he rubs over my back as I try to slow my breathing.
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. It’s just... like, it’s so easy to forget these were real people, and...” I laugh. “I feel too much, and sometimes this happens, and it’s embarrassing, and...” My throat tightens, and I can’t go on, or I’ll start ugly crying again.
“Nothing wrong with that,” Jack says. “Most people are desensitized to trauma. Maybe the world would be a better place if they felt a bit more.”
