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entry that I realized the weight of Jim’s secret shame. What burdened him so? What had left him scarred long before the marks on his skin? Perhaps the journal had some answers. And even though I knew Jim wouldn’t have wanted me to know what he’d long kept hidden, I turned to the next page.

    May 28, 1913
    The lads on this ship all call me Lucky. I wish they wouldn’t. I’m not lucky—not by a long shot. It’s cursed, I am. Bloody cursed. They want to hear all about it—all the gory details. So I just keep to myself most of the time .
    Mam bought me this book on my last layover at home. Told me to write in it, though I don’t see the point. She thought it might help with the nightmares, might give me something to do when I wake up in a cold sweat and can’t sleep. You were the smart one, Da. Not me. You always had a way with words. She told me to write about how I am feeling—but all I ever feel is angry. And the more I try to stop, the hotter it burns .
    The last place I want to be is at sea again. But I suppose I belong in the boiler room. I’ve shovelled my way cross the pond four times now. Liverpool to Quebec City and back again twice. The company men brag about the Empress taking only six days to cross from dock to dock, but it’s the firemen—the trimmers and stokers—they should be bragging about. She might have two engines three decks high, but where do they think she gets that 18,500 horsepower to turn the twin screws? What do they think propels all of her 14,000 tons?
    The sweat of the Black Gang, that’s what. While the hobnobs sip their brandies and marvel at her speed, eight levels down, men blackened by soot drive the ship by their muscle and sweat. It’s like some bloody Roman galley. The Black Gang shovel tons of coal into the white-hot furnaces. A hundred or so of us, taking turns, labouring non-stopuntil we reach port. Gruelling work, and hotter than hell’s bowels. But I deserve no better. Mam wanted me to get on as a bellboy, not a stoker. Work my way up to assistant steward and, like you, maybe even smoke room steward someday .
    But I’m not you, Da. As badly as Mam needs me to be, I’ll never be you .
    I sat in bed and read both entries a few more times, though I knew them by heart now. Despite the hot water bottle and extra blankets Lily had given me, I couldn’t stop shivering. There were things about Jim that I never understood. Maybe the other entries yet to come had answers. Or better yet, maybe Steele would tell me where Jim was so I could go and ask him for myself. I could wipe his brow and help him heal. Maybe, I could finally tell him how I really felt.
    I set the pages on my nightstand and snuffed the candle stub, but I wouldn’t sleep. I couldn’t. A part of me was still on the Empress . Trapped. Drowning. Sinking deeper and deeper in regrets. And so I lay awake as I had each night for the past three weeks, listening as the house creaked and moaned, an empty shell settling in the darkness around me.

THE FIRST INTERVIEW
    June 1914
    Strandview Manor, Liverpool

Chapter Eight
    THE NEXT MORNING , I sat in front of the breakfast I wouldn’t eat and grudgingly read Steele’s Rimouski and Titanic articles. I skimmed the Rimouski piece. He’d captured the details and facts. But more than that, the people. I could hear Gracie in his retelling. Even the Titanic articles were top-notch. Clearly he’d interviewed dozens of survivors from third class. Heart-wrenching accounts. The man could write, I’d give him that. But that didn’t mean I wanted to be his next headline. I wasn’t really going through with it—was I? Just thinking about it made my stomach twist even tighter.
    As promised, Steele arrived at ten sharp, eyes bright and keen. He seemed excited to be here. Lily sat him across from me at the dining table. I’d had her remove the drape cloth and polish the table