Prologue Part 2
Brock steered the conversation to the origins of the Locket.
It was said to have been an heirloom of an old family.
The son took it with him on the Titanic and the locket has been missing ever since.
"– so that Locket had to have gone down with the ship."
"You see the date?" Brock wanted to know.
Lily-Luna bent slightly over the small water tank and took a closer look at the signature on the lower right side.
"April 14, 1912."
"Which means if your grandfather is who he says he is..." Bodine spoke up. "– he had the Locket in his hands the day the Titanic sank."
"And that makes you my new best friend," Brock said to Regulus with a big smile.
"That's… nice. Don't worry, I'll tell you everything I know about the locket."
The group moved on and Regulus found himself in front of a table with some of his old stuff on it.
"These are some of the things we recovered from your stateroom."
Regulus reached for his old pocket watch first. His father gave him this watch before he died.
As was customary at the time, it had the family crest engraved on it. And a melancholic feeling rose in him. The clock, like him, was very old. But it was definitely his watch.
"This was mine," he said in surprise.
As with the drawing, he thought he would never see those things again.
"And it looks the same as it did the last time, I saw it."
He put the watch down again and reached for a metal case that used to hold cigarettes.
"And that belonged to my brother."
"Your brother? He was on the Titanic too, right?"
"Yes, he was."
Regulus carefully placed the cigarette box back on the table.
He wished he could take it with him. He missed his brother very much and there was not a day that Regulus wasn't thinking about Sirius or James.
However, Regulus knew he would see both of them again eventually.
He did not know when it was time. And hopefully it would take a while longer because he still had to do something.
He also knew, deep in his heart, that Sirius and James felt the same way. After all, both had risked so much to save his life.
"Are you ready to go back to Titanic?" Brock snapped Regulus out of his thoughts.
Regulus nodded.
~~~~
A brief time later, the group sat in a room full of computers and monitors. Regulus wasn’t a huge fan of technology, largely because he had never understood it.
And at his age, he did not even bother trying anymore.
After all, he could die at any moment, so why care.
Well, anyone could die at any moment, but that's not the point.
"Okay, here we go," Bodine started.
He was standing next to a small monitor that was running an animation that visualized what he was saying.
"She hits the berg on the starboard side, right? She kind of bumps along... punching holes like morse code –dit–dit–dit– along the side below the waterline."
"Then the forward compartments start to flood. Now, as the water level rises it spills over the watertight bulkheads which, unfortunately, don't go any higher than E deck- So now as the bow goes down the stern rises up, slow at first –then faster and faster– until finally, she's got her whole ass sticking up in the air. And that's a big ass. We're talking 20, 30,000 tons. Okay? And the hulls not designed to deal with that pressure. So, what happens?"
Regulus didn't need to ask himself that. He remembered extremely well what had happened.
Even if he slowly forgot more and more (mostly small things), this journey was forever burned clearly and indelibly into his memory.
Good as well as bad.
"She splits, right down to the keel. And the star falls back level. Then, as the bow sinks, it pulls the stern vertical and then finally detaches. Now the stern section just kind of bobs there like a cork for a couple of minutes floods, and finally goes under about 2:20 AM, 2 hours and 40 minutes after the collision. The bow section planes away... landing about a half a mile away going 20, 30 knots when it hits the ocean floor. Pretty cool, huh?"
"Thank you for that fine forensic analysis, Mr. Bodine. Of course, the experience of it was… somewhat different."
"Will you share it with us?" asked Brock.
Regulus slowly stood up.
The others had stepped closer to help him, but he managed it on his own.
Step by step he approached the monitors showing the images of the shipwreck.
The machines drove through the corridors he had walked down as a young man.
It's just that they've been under water for so many years now. The paint is fading and peeling.
What a pity, Regulus thought. He had liked the colors and wood paneling from the first moment. He remembered wanting to take a closer look, but his mother kept pushing him and the music grew louder as they got closer to the drawing room.
Regulus hadn't noticed that a tear was now running down his cheek. His granddaughter was with him immediately and had her arm around his shoulders.
"I'm taking him to rest."
"No," Regulus said. "It's all right."
"Come on, grand-père."
"No," Regulus said more clearly now.
The older man looked at his granddaughter to tell her that he didn't need a break. Lily-Luna nodded slightly and helped her grandfather back into the wheelchair.
"Give me the tape recorder," Brock whispered to Bobby before motioning for everyone to be quiet.
Bobby quickly handed him the tape recorder.
Brock pressed the start button and put the tape recorder on the table.
"Tell us, Regulus."
"It's been 84 years–"
"It's okay. Just try to remember anything… anything at all," Brock tried, assuming the old man was having a hard time remembering.
"Do you want to hear this or not, Mr. Lovett?" Regulus replied and Brock and a few others had to smile.
Lily-Luna was skeptical and concerned. She didn't want her grandfather to get upset. But at the same time, she wanted to hear the story that no one else in her family knew.
Not her, not her brothers. Not even her father knew the story.
"It's been 84 years... and I can still smell the fresh paint," Regulus began to relate.
"The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in. Titanic was called the ship of dreams. And it was. It really was."