Stars On The Atlantic

XII

The two sat side by side on the floor, in the dim glow of the weak electric lightbulbs of the cabin. Jerry had managed to find a large wool blanket which he used to enwrap Amybeth and himself to further protect themselves against the cold outside. Having done this, he uncorked the champaign and drank straight from the bottle before breathing out in satisfaction and passing it to Amybeth.

"Merry Christmas!" he shouted cheerfully.

Amybeth took over the bottle and, much to Jerry's surprise, hold it up against her mouth and drank up half of it.

"Merry Christmas!" she said before bursting in laughter.

"Why, I knew Irish men were good drinkers, but I didn't know Irish girls could drink too."

Amybeth stopped laughing. 

"I cannot be Irish anymore," she said gravely. "If I want to fit in the American society, I'll have to find a normal name."

"Who the hell told you that?"

"My cabin neighbour."

"The one who snores?"

They both laughed, and then drank from the bottle again.

"What's that you're holding in your hand?" asked Jerry when he saw the metallic glow of the Celtic cross. Amybeth handed it over to him.

"It's beautiful! Why don't you wear it?"

"It was a gift from my father. I used to view it as the most precious thing I possessed. I never wore it again after my parents passed."

There was a long moment of silence, broken at last by the young girl.

"Jerry, what is faith to you? I thought I knew what it was when I was little. But now I realize that I don't. I've come to a point where I cannot tell what is true and what is false. It's a very uncomfortable feeling. I can still remember every Christmas after my parents' death, which I'd spend alone in my room, listening to fireworks and people celebrating, wishing for things to change for the next Christmas. And yet, it never did. It was a complete piece of luck that my parish's priest traced my aunt in Minnesota recently and reached out to her. But Jerry, I wonder...I wonder if there is still a place that I can call home."

By the faint light in the cabin, Jerry could see that she was crying. He gently pulled her closer and held her against him. Amybeth's head rested on his chest, and he noticed for the first time that she smelled like roses.

"There is. I am sure there is," he whispered to her.

Another silence fell, at the end of which Jerry went on saying:

"I don't know much about what faith is, but I know what faith does."

"What does it do?"

"It brings you hope. It makes you want to believe that tomorrow will be a better day. When it seems that the past only repeats itself and that you are trapped in a loop, faith can make you see that you are in fact walking up the stairs of a spiral staircase. And such a certainty allows you to live your own story proudly in spite of all the circumstances.

"That's beautiful," said Amybeth. 

"And where can you find...faith?"

"Uh, dunno. In the people I love, I guess. And in the dreams that have yet to come true."

"And what if the people you love are far away from you...what if you could never see them again?"

Another silence.

"Well," answered Jerry. "There are nights at sea when I like to watch the stars in the sky. At times, the sea is so still that it becomes a mirror of the sky, and I find myself onboard a ship sailing across a sea of stars! I can never forget such a view and the intense emotions it brings to me. I like to imagine myself becoming one of the stars, dancing and spiraling across the cosmos with the whole firmament, each star evolving according to the paths of others. Even if a star drifts away from me, or that its lights go out at the end of its celestial existence, I will still sense its presence. Because from the moment our paths crossed, it would have already shaped my trajectory forever. Therefore, all the stars I encounter will forever continue to shine through my own existence, no matter where they are...no matter if they still are."

Amybeth hugged him with all her strength.

"Thank you. How deeply do I wish I could see things the way you do. If only I, too, could be a sailor."

Jerry felt a lump in his throat, and his eyes became watery. The truth was, life had made him give up on his dreams long ago, as it inexorably tore them into pieces. There were so many things he had lost in the fire of time, things which he had thought he'd never see again. But just as he was about to forget himself, this girl he was holding in his arms came to remind him of who he was and who he wanted to be. His encounter with Amybeth in these last few days made him understand that though not whole, he wasn't empty either. He didn't know much about faith and had always thought of it as something unreachable. He had thought grace was in the clouds, amongst the heavenly.But now, it was staring him right in the eyes.

"Amybeth," he said after inhaling deeply. "I don't want to hide anything any longer from you. There is a truth I ought to have told you since the first day we met."

The human heart, though, has the ability of staying authentic when the head attempts to hide its true sentiments, for what came through the boy's lips was the confession of a truth which he had tried to conceal even deeper than his identity.

"I love you," he whispered.

But Amybeth couldn't hear him. She was asleep.