I studied Rachel's every move, her mannerisms.

I did my best to imitate her, although I didn't want it to be too noticeable.

She spotted it, though, and it brought her to laughter.

"Are you trying to copy me?" she asked.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to make it obvious," I said. "But I have to learn from somebody."

"I suppose you're right," she said with a smile.

"Suppose she's right about what," Grandmama asked, walking up behind us.

It startled the both of us.

"He-sheee has to learn somewhere how to be...," she dropped off the sentence. "But I think Leah is doing a good job on her own."

"That she is," Grandmama said. "And girls, I don't want you wandering off to far."

"Grandmama, I don't think there's room to wander off too far," I said about the cramp conditions of the Carpathia. "After all, it's not Titanic."

"No it isn't," she said. "But at least we're afloat, so we shouldn't be complaining about it."

She was right. And I didn't mind the correction. And it took only a second for me to realize why she said it.

Just as we were talking, a couple of passengers from Titanic walked by.

"Don't be so hard on her, Aggie," one of the women said. "After all, the poor thing was stuck in her state room sick after you three boarded at Cherbourg.

"That's right Mrs. Brown," Rachel said. "My poor sister just wants to stretch her legs."

The woman, Mrs. Brown, had dinner a couple of times with Grandmama and Rachel after boarding at Cherbourg herself. Her named was Margaret and she was "new money," Rachel said. "And she goes by the plain name of Molly."

Grandmama told her the reason I wasn't present at each of those times was that I was sick. That was to be the story if we ran into anybody who saw them before the iceberg struck.

"But I don't think we'll have to worry about it too much," Grandmama said. "We didn't socialize much on Titanic. And some of the people we were around are now in shock and worried about the fate of loved ones who didn't make it."

That much was truth. Rachel and I witnessed it.

The deck was lined with women waiting on the last boats to be unloaded, hoping their husbands, sons or brothers were among the final survivors. There were very few happy endings.

Many of them continued to wait on deck even after all of the lifeboats had been recovered. There were faint hopes that another ship also picked up survivors.

"I heard a ship called the Californian was also in the area," one woman said. "Maybe they picked up survivors."

A young officer on the Carpathia's crew was smitten by Rachel. He was 20. He told us what turned out to be the truth.

"We haven't heard anything from other ships saying they picked up survivors."

Rachel squeezed my hand as she pointed out three women leaning on the rails who were on their honeymoons on the Titanic. They weren't much older than we were.

"And now they're widows," Rachel said.

They weren't the only ones. The Titanic was known as "The Ship of Dreams." Carpathia would become known as "The Ship of Widows."

"Girls, come here," we heard Grandmama say.

"This is Mrs. Clark," she said. "She is a Caparthia passenger."

"I've got a daughter about your age," she said. "I brought some of her things for you girls to change into."

We grabbed the dresses and undergarments out of her hands quickly.

"Thank you ma'am," we said at the same time, as if we were the twins we were pretending to be.

I wasn't looking at the clothes as girls' clothes. I looked at them as clean clothes, something we hadn't worn since the mad rush to get on to a lifeboat.

"Girls, there is a bucket of water, soap and a sponge in that small room over there," Grandmama said.

She didn't have say anymore. We ran to the door. Once we were both inside, we shut it, stripped out of our clothes and began washing off. It was a bit crude, but we both longed to be clean.

We didn't care about modesty, either. For a few short seconds aboard Titanic, Rachel had already seen me naked. As far as we both were concerned, I was Leah, we were sisters and we wanted to be clean.

It felt nice to put on clean clothes. Mrs. Clark had given us a brush along with the clothes.

"Let me brush your hair," Rachel said. "It's short, so we've got to make it look as much like a girl's style as possible even if we are going to be wearing scarves and hats.

"You're very pretty, don't you think?" she asked, showing me her handiwork with a small mirror.

"Uh huh," I said as we walked out of the small room.

"Now you young ladies look presentable," Grandmama said. "Now it's my turn to freshen up a bit."

We laid on our cots waiting for her to get done. I found out while we were waiting that we actually had a few things in common.

My father died of cancer a few months before our trip. Her parents were killed in a train accident when she was six. Grandmama had raised her.

We were both no strangers to tragedy.

But then she revealed something to me that caught me completely by surprise.

Her parents were not the only ones killed in the train accident. Her twin sister, Leah, was also killed. It sent chills up my spine.

"There have been times when I talk to her, pretending she's here and alive," Rachel said. "It's been a way to keep her real to me. I was really surprised when Grandmama chose to call you Leah."

I wept..."I'm sorry...I mean it's got to be hard on you that she calls me that," I said.

"Actually, I'm glad," she said as she straightened my hat. "Having you here almost seems to bring her back to life."

I smiled.

She then told me what transpired to lead her grandmother to come to my hour of need aboard the Titanic.

"We were sleeping in our beds when one of the stewards came in and woke us up," Rachel said. "Mr. Andrews walked by as we walked out of our state room. He had a serious look on his face. Grandmama asked him what was wrong. He told us the truth."

Grandmama and Rachel walked back into their state rooms. She told Rachel they needed to pack one bag each, with one change of clothes.

"I don't think they'll allow us to carry much more," she told Rachel.

The clothes they gave me were the change of clothes for Rachel. That was what led Grandmama to make the decision to leave the bags altogether.

They were about to board the same lifeboat as my mother and sisters when I was forbidden to get on.

"Her heart broke for you," Rachel said. "So did mine. We sort of adopted you then. We lost Mom, Dad and Leah. We weren't about to lose you."

Just as she finished that sentence, Grandmama walked out of the small room in her change of clothes.

She saw me staring at her with a tear rolling down my cheek.

"What's wrong dear child?" she asked.

"I love you Grandmama," I said.

"I love you, too," she said, kissing me on the cheek.

"When this is over, I hope you don't mind that I'll still consider you my Grandmama," I whispered.

"You better," she replied. "Because you will always be my grandchild. Don't you ever forget that."

"Ladies, come quickly," a woman said after entering the room where several of us were staying.

We walked out to see almost everyone lining the rails.

No one spoke a word, but several people were weeping.

We had reached the spot where hours before the Titanic went down. All that remained were a few deck chairs floating that some of the poor souls who didn't make it had hoped would be their salvation.

Also floating in the water, at least the best that I could tell, was one solitary body.

I later heard one of the Carpathia crewmen saying the currents had carried the rest of them away.

"I think it is best that we now start on our return to New York," I heard Capt. Rostron tell one of his officers.

Then I looked down the rail among the weeping women and saw her.

I tightly gripped Rachel and Grandmama's hands.

"Is that her?" Rachel whispered.

"Uh huh," I whispered, trying to hold back the tears.

Standing with my mother were my young sisters. All three were weeping.

"She will know, in time, my dear child," Grandmama whispered. "She will know, in time."