Dedicated to my great-grandmother, who missed the Titanic

Dearest Robert,

I’m sure you’re thinking of my third-class cabin

leaking loudly, creaking, squeaking slowly sinking.

But it’s a fine day at Mayneen and Bridie and Colleen are baking inside.

Tickets to Chicago are always dear, but with the fear of Titanic

we’ll not have to postpone our wedding a year or make it less lovely

with no Guinness for beer to make ends meet.

In the cabin next door one could hear little children crying, crying endlessly crying, “Momma, what’s happening—are we dying?” And I lay in bed, ruing the day that the gleaming seams of that “Ship o’ Dreams” left me without the means to return from Queens—the port from which she sailed.

The next morn’ Papa brought in the paper and then my anger tapered, more quickly than a candle with the flame blown out.

I never heard her name, but her face came in an instant:

The woman who slept in my cabin.

When I entered the game, I never thought I’d win and now the grin on my face

is replaced with the knowledge that we will get married and send

grandchildren to college and that woman is buried

in the Atlantic.

Robert—they denied my passage because they hadn’t received the message

that my ticket was part of that sweepstakes. And I guess that’s all it takes sometimes:

a mistake and a person who can pay for the ticket.

I’ll be home in a few weeks to wipe those tears from your cheeks.

Your beloved’s alive and our marriage will thrive because now we know

that fate wants us together.

Love,

Nora