It was in Clydebank that Amybeth saw the Lusitania for the first time. The massive ship was surmounted by huge gantries and cranes and a thousand workers crawled up and down her hull like ants.
Mrs. McAuley was right, the air was filthy and smelled like smoke, and the streets were littered with all kinds of things. They met John in his little apartment on the shipyard which he shared with twelve of his fellow workers. A doctor was at his side by the bed where he lay feverish and pale.
"Is he going to die?" cried Amybeth.
"He will be in need of a good nurse," said the doctor. "At the time being it is still very hard to tell when he will be able to get back on his feet again, though given the injuries he sustained, I'd say at least three months of recovery."
"I will be his nurse, then," said Anna McAuley. "I will stay by his side as long as he needs me."
"And so will I," little Amybeth added promptly.
And so they did. Month after month, from dawn to dusk Anna and her daughter stayed by John's bedside, feeding and bathing him. While his health didn't seem to improve over the months due to the seriousness of his injuries, Mrs. McAuley's health decayed rapidly. Little Amybeth had no other choice but to take care of both her parents all by herself, but she felt ever so powerless as slowly but surely, she witnessed their lives fade before her eyes. Everyday, she'd pray holding her Celtic cross, hoping desperately that someone would answer her. Every time she looked out the window towards that big ship out there, her despisal for it grew increasingly stronger.
Time went on in this way until the fatidic night when Anna McAuley, on her way to the water chambers, fell unconscious to the floor, knocking over an oil lamp on the kitchen table in her fall. Young Amybeth was pulled out from the fire at once by shipyard workers, but Mr. and Mrs. McAuley never walked out alive again. As Amybeth was carried away, screaming and stretching out her arms to the burning building, she was forever marked by the sight of the Lusitania afar, her black hull indifferently reflecting the dreadful glow of the flames. On that night, Amybeth McAuley lost everything she could call home in this world.
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Stars On The Atlantic
Historia CortaA girl with a broken past searching for a place she can call home and a boy with a shattered dream who still holds its sharp debris firmly in his hands cross paths unexpectedly on one of the world's most prestigious ocean liners sailing towards an u...
