![]() They lived on top of one another, stuck, isolated, and in constant fear of death. The descriptions of the German naval forces’ cramped, damp underwater existence sounded claustrophobic and grim. The best bits of Larson’s book weren’t about the Lusitania or its passengers, but about the U-20, the submarine that torpedoed the ship. But at least he was not in peril on the sea! By the time the old lady dropped it into the ocean in the end, I was asleep.Īfter Titanic, looking around for more danger-at-sea narratives, I finally read the copy of Erik Larson’s Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania that’d been languishing in the corner of our bookshelf dedicated to books enticing enough to buy but not to actually read. Yes, Charlie was sicker than he’d ever been before, and yes, he was exhibiting most of the known symptoms of Covid-19. And our own crisis seemed manageable in comparison to Jack and Rose’s ordeal. ![]() Caring about something so silly felt good. By the time Jack disappeared under the frigid Atlantic as a gorgeous icicle corpse, I’d relaxed enough to be annoyed about Rose hogging the door. Asanas and epsom salts had lost their calming powers.īut Titanic worked. We videoconferenced with a kind doctor from Mount Sinai who told me to monitor Charlie’s breathing, to look for a pulse oximeter online, and to hang in there. It was mid-March in New York, and the city was realizing that the coronavirus was not just present but that it was everywhere. I wasn’t alone in feeling rattled and afraid. I felt an unshakable, clackety panic, like we were getting cranked up an old wooden rollercoaster with no way to stop the ride from plummeting into a black hole. ![]() Several of my reliable comfort rituals, including a YouTube yoga class and a bath, had already proved inadequate. Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater met, fell in love, and scrambled for their lives aboard the doomed ship. On the second night my husband’s temperature hovered around 103, I watched Titanic.
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