The Titanic: A New Life

Chapter 10

Another hour passed before I was brought another child.
    "We can't find his parents anywhere," Jillian sighed, bringing to me a dark haired, brown eyed boy with golden skin similar to mine.
    He looked around the boat fearfully until his eyes settled on me. He had to be five years of age or less. I had learned how to determine age by looks. For example, Jillian was thirty two.
    "Who are you?" he whispered softly, motionless in Jillian's arms.
    "You can call me mommy, if you'd like," I suggested warmly. "I already have two new children, and there's always room for one more."
    I outstretched my right arm to him from my corner of the boat that felt more unsteady with every passing second, willing to take in another child like myself.
    "I barely know you," the boy claimed stiffly, obviously hesitant.
My heart sank into my cold, damp shoes. I was crestfallen to know that a child didn't like me. Then an idea came to mind so quickly I didn't even know I was saying what I was.
    "Well, I barely know these children, but they're mine now," I countered in a hypnotic voice. Some called it hypnotic, I called it dull. "God is giving you a chance to move on. Not many chances like this come in life. Are you going to take it, or let it pass by? That is the question I have for you."
I never knew I could be so persuasive as I was that night.
The young one hesitated no longer.
Without a word, the boy child carefully placed himself between my two girl children and reached for my right hand, the left one still holding Hazel in place under the blanket.
We would be four orphan children, depending on no one else in the world but each other.
"These are your sisters," I introduced as gleefully as I could be after my old family had died. I didn't want to wake the two sleeping children, so I made the exchange quiet. "This one's Hazel," I explained, moving my full right arm with the curled up child in it so he knew. "And the other one's Emily."
"I'm Peter," he told me, getting himself acquainted slowly but surely. "And I'm happy to be a part of this family."
The first words he said to me. And I couldn't be happier to hear them.
"Welcome to the family."