Free Unspeakable by Caroline Pignat Page A

with such awe. Most of the time we just stood at our rail. We didn’t talk much about anything important. Though he did like to tell me about the Empress —how fast she moved, how safe she was, and all the lifesaving equipment she carried.
    â€œDid you know she has 2100 lifebelts?” he’d say. The sound of his deep voice more of a comfort than any silly statistics. “Twenty-four collapsibles, extra lifeboats for a total of forty boats to carry 1960 people, more than we ever have aboard.” He mentioned that a few times, and I was never quite sure if he said it for my comfort or his own. Or if it was, in fact, some kind of secret obsession with safety or dark fear of drowning. I didn’t mind. To be honest, I just liked being near him, wrapped in the warmth of his words.
    Sometimes he talked about the stoker’s life. Or I vented about that of a stewardess, but never about anything before it. I let him think I was a maid—not a disowned heiress. What did it matter? Neither of them was truly me. Truth be told, Jim and I were decks and worlds apart. But none of that meant anything while we stood together those nights at the rail with darkness before and behind. Our secrets didn’t matter. Neither past nor future existed for us—only those moments together seemed real.
    It was enough to just be there. Together. Breathing.

    Timothy and Meg shared words—but we shared silence. A knowing. A simple presence. I looked forward to just being with him, side by side at the rail as the Empress rushed headlong into the unknown, its wake disappearing in the dark.
    And for the first time in my life I felt, I don’t know, accepted. I felt known. For the first time, I felt like myself.

THREE DAYS BEFORE
    May 26, 1914
    Quebec Harbour

Chapter Twelve
    â€œ ARE YOU SURE you don’t want me to come with you?” Meg asked as we stripped the bed. After the passengers disembarked, cleaning up was a huge undertaking, but at least we didn’t have to be at anyone’s beck and call. Meg and I found it quicker to clean the cabins together, and by now, with five months and ten crossings, our routine was as fast and efficient as an oiled engine running full steam. I shook a pillow out onto the mattress and held open the case as Meg bundled the dirty linens inside.
    â€œI’ll be fine,” I reassured her, stuffing in towels and face cloths. “I’ll be with Jim.”
    She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “In a town you don’t know—with a man you shouldn’t know.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Now you sound like Matron Jones.”
    On the first run of its spring–summer schedule, the Empress had just docked at Quebec City. Most of the year, we put in at Saint John, New Brunswick, but with the spring thaw, Quebec was our new port from May until November.I wouldn’t have thought the winter schedule ran so late in the year, but Will Sampson, the chief engineer, told Jim we’d encountered heavy ice floes in the Cabot Strait right as we entered the mouth of the St. Lawrence. The captain had even sent wireless messages warning other ships. It might be the third week of May, but the waters were still freezing, cold enough to carry ice at least.
    â€œYou’re just jealous,” I teased, tossing the load of washing by the door and picking up the pile of fresh bedding I’d left on the chair. “Because your bookworm hasn’t asked you on a date.”
    We each grabbed two corners of the white sheet and moved to either side of the bed, snapping it open over the mattress. Within two minutes we’d tucked and smoothed the sheets, blanket, and coverlet. I shook the pillows into their cases and tossed her one.
    â€œJim didn’t ask you neither,” she reminded me. And he hadn’t. Not really.
    On our last night together before docking, as the ship sailed along the St. Lawrence to Quebec City, I’d hinted that he might show