Beneath Wandering Stars Read online

  Seth studies me closely, like he’s envisioning me in the back of Brent’s car and doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t seem upset or disappointed, just confused.

  “We never had sex, if that’s what you’re wondering.” I pour Seth another cup of tea. “There were a few close calls, but I never went through with it.”

  “Why not?” Still no judgment in his voice, just relief.

  “I don’t know,” I reply. “Deep down, I figured there was something more. That I’d be making a vow I couldn’t keep. That Brent wasn’t worthy.”

  “Gabi. Look at me.” Seth’s eyes are resolute. “He wasn’t.”

  • • •

  “This is it, peregrinos! The solution to all your problems.”

  Somehow I doubt that, but Rodrigo’s gusto will not be diminished by the skeptical glance Seth and I share. In one swoop, Rodrigo pulls off the dusty horse blanket like he’s unveiling an artifact at a world-class museum. The item beneath the blanket is ancient, I’ll give him that.

  “No way.” Seth shakes his head like his hair is on fire. “Gracias, but no way.”

  We’re in Rodrigo’s garage behind his shop, which houses so much Celtic overstock it looks like we’re bidding on a storage unit that once belonged to a leprechaun. But it also contains an alternative mode of transportation for my injured compañero.

  An old wheelchair that belonged to Rodrigo’s mother, may God rest her soul.

  “Come on, Seth. What other option do we have besides taking a bus the rest of the way, which means no Compostela certificate for Lucas? This is the only way we can finish the last hundred kilometers on foot. Well, sort of.”

  “You think you can actually push me in that thing?” Seth’s Adam’s apple flinches as he tries to swallow his pride.

  “I can push you.” I ignore the fact that this wheelchair is in worse shape than he is.

  “There’s no time. We need to reach Santiago in a few days and I’ll only slow you down.”

  “I can push you,” I repeat, my voice firm.

  The rare reception in Seth’s eyes tells me I’ve almost convinced him, which is proof he really will do anything for Lucas. At least I think it’s for Lucas, though the goofy way Pilar looks at us makes me wonder. Regardless, dodging bullets and building fundraising blogs are cakewalks compared to Seth putting his weakness on display for the entire world to see.

  I grab his hand. “I’m not finishing this without you.”

  Seth’s fingers tighten around mine. He sighs and says some of the hardest words he’s likely ever spoken. “Okay, Gabi. You win.”

  Chapter 20

  Every muscle in my body screams like a boiling lobster, but my calves hurt most of all. Rock-hard calves are what you get when you spend multiple days pushing a 175-pound man in a wheelchair across varied terrain. I don’t do it alone, thanks to the other pilgrims walking this last leg of the camino who offer to help out when we reach a steep/muddy/crappy section of road. The most arduous parts of the trek are behind us, but it isn’t all downhill yet.

  Seth handles his humbling circumstances like a champ. He’s visibly grateful for the assistance from strangers, even when he has to explain ad nauseam that no, despite his dog tags and cropped hair, he didn’t injure his ankle in combat—unless a heroic campaign to reduce littering on the camino counts.

  Neither of us brings up our kiss again, which is probably for the best. Still, I can’t stop thinking about it, and I kind of hate myself for thinking about it. Why should I let myself get all gaga over a guy when this journey is about something bigger than both of us?

  That’s just it. I can’t. And I won’t. Our pilgrimage is almost over and I need to focus all my thoughts on the reason we’re walking it in the first place: Lucas.

  I lift the phone to my ear and wait for the repetitive ring. The signal should be stronger now that we’re back near civilization, but my parents haven’t been answering their phones. That means something has happened. Some sort of change has taken place.

  And if it was good news, they’d have called me already.

  What if Mom and Dad are waiting until I get home to tell me that Lucas is dead? The thought makes me so ill I can’t even entertain it, not when I’m this close to the finish line. This walk is the only motivation I’ve had to get up in the morning. It’s the only thing keeping me from spending hours in bed, tallying up a long list of what ifs?

  What if Lucas doesn’t get better?

  What if I walk 500 miles for him and he never gets to hear about it?

  What if, after everything we’ve been through, Seth and I never speak again because the one bond holding us together doesn’t wake up in time to save us both?

  What if repentance and atonement don’t mean a thing because nothing we do ultimately matters, which means ultimately there’s nothing to forgive?

  What if cells in various stages of decomposition are the only thing that’s real?

  What if there’s no point to any of it? To life, to death, to war, to love?

  I dig through my pockets. If a passerby studied my jerky movements, he’d assume I’m an addict searching for her next hit. Oddly enough, that’s what this ritual has become: a respite, a moment of relief. The feel of wax between my fingers is like a surge of serotonin. A promise that not all lights—not the brightest ones—have to go out.

  Up ahead, Seth talks rugby with a young South African who volunteered to take over the reins of his rusty chariot. I take this opportunity to light a candle for Lucas, given that I’ve been slacking ever since my new wheelchair workout routine. I set the tealight below a plain wooden cross on the side of the road, decorated with worn-out boots hung by their laces, along with other random items pilgrims realized they could do without. The assortment of offerings includes a cherry-red cowboy hat, which brings a smile to my lips.

  “Is there something you must let go of to lighten your load?”

  The unexpected voice startles me. As I whirl around to face it, I accidentally knock Nancy’s hat off of the shrine. A man with a full head of white hair and skin the color of cardamom sits in the grass behind me. He wears an embroidered shirt made of linen that matches his mane, and kneels on a small carpet, facing east.

  “I don’t know if my load needs to be lightened,” I reply as the man rolls up his mat. “I, uh. I’m sorry if I interrupted your prayers.”

  “I doubt the Almighty minds.” The man smiles and joins me on the road. He gestures to the stack of random junk. “May I ask for whom you are lighting that candle?”

  “For my brother. He’s injured. Pretty bad.” It feels strange to be telling this man, of all people, about my brother. “Are you, uh . . . where are you from?”

  “Iraq originally, but I live in London now.”

  Talk about awkward. At least Lucas never deployed to Iraq.

  “And why, if you don’t mind me asking, are you walking the camino?”

  The man doesn’t flinch. “What am I doing here as a Muslim, you mean?”

  I nod. There’s no point trying to be PC when that’s exactly what I mean.

  “I came to Spain to visit relatives in Barcelona. They told me about this ancient pilgrimage route and I wanted to see it for myself.” He shrugs. “Simple as that.”

  “Muslims have to make a pilgrimage too, right? To Mecca?”

  The serene man nods, still smiling. “You might say this is my warm-up.”

  I smile back. “And it’s been okay so far?”

  “It has, in fact,” the man replies, sensing what I’m getting at. “Most pilgrims have been very welcoming, though they are curious about my intentions, just like you. Now, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you walking the camino, my young pilgrim friend?”

  This question is getting as old as “So, where are you from?” Yet the way this stranger asks it somehow feels fresh. For once, I come up with a halfway thoughtful answer, even if I’m not quite sure what it means. “I’m walking to heal what’s broken.”

  “Ah
, I see. Then you picked a good route, for this land is a symbol of what’s been broken in our world for centuries. Yet it also shows us ways the wounds might be mended.”

  He must be referring to Spain’s long history of religious conflict, seeing how this peninsula was once home to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. We pilgrims may seem like a peace-loving bunch, but there are lots of statues along the camino that depict St. James on horseback, slaying Moors with his sword. “I imagine seeing all those images of Santiago Matamoros is a little insulting.”

  The stranger shrugs. “Not really. Santiago Matamoros does not offend me, for he tells a story we would do well to remember. Besides, many of the people I’ve met along the Way practice what Muslims must also accomplish: welcoming the stranger, giving alms to the poor, and sharing with others everything one has.”

  The man studies the busted hiking boots dangling from the cross. “Perhaps now is the time for me to lighten my own load.”

  He doesn’t even have a hiking pack, just his prayer mat and the clothes on his back. The man digs through his pockets until he finds a small item, holding it out for me to take. When I open my hand, another hand stares back at me. It’s a red hamsa pendant with a turquoise stone in the center of the open palm—the same symbol worn by the Jewish woman in the family portrait I found inside that abandoned house.

  The charm leaves me speechless. I’m probably overthinking it, but the tingling in my toes makes me wonder if this man and I were destined to meet from the moment I stepped on the road.

  “This is my gift to you, fellow pilgrim,” the stranger announces, his face aglow. “May your brother be healed, Insha’Allah, and visited only by good, not evil.”

  • • •

  We reach Arca, the last overnight stop before Santiago. The weather is warm and the road is crowded. So are the pilgrim hostels, but there’s an electricity of anticipation in the air that makes it impossible to be too cranky about the increased lack of personal space. We’re almost there. We’ve almost made it.

  Now I’m the one who waves the flashlight in Seth’s face. “Rise and shine, gorgeous.”

  Seth groans, rolling over to face the wall. “This little light of mine is busted.”

  Most of the days in the wheelchair he’s been fine, upbeat even, but this is our last morning on the camino and I can tell Seth is disappointed that he won’t be able to walk it. Honestly, he isn’t missing much. We pass through a forest of amazing eucalyptus trees, but it’s hard to appreciate their gigantic, peeling trunks when you’re crammed onto the footpath with a hundred other pilgrims who are all ready to be done.

  The forest is the last scrap of nature before we reach the urban outskirts of Santiago de Compostela. The sound of traffic grates on my nerves after weeks of listening to grass grow, and nearly getting hit by a deranged scooter as I push Seth across the street isn’t exactly the warm welcome I anticipated.

  Seth is as underwhelmed by this pilgrimage finale as I am. I can literally see the tension traveling up the back of his neck. It doesn’t help that one of his chair’s wheels has gone berserk, like a sticky grocery cart wheel that makes you run into all the stacked cereal displays.

  “Stop. I can’t do it anymore,” Seth says when the wheel keeps squeaking. “I’m walking.”

  “Do you really want to backtrack on all the progress you’ve made?” The swelling in Seth’s ankle has gone down a lot, and the nurse who examined it last night said it should heal soon, as long as he stays off it. Which means he needs to stay off it.

  Seth hits the breaks by planting his good leg on the ground. “I tried, Gabi, I really did. I tried to think about Lucas lying in that bed so I’d be grateful for the mobility I do have. I tried to suck it up and deal with feeling weak and helpless. But this is the last day of the camino, and I want to walk it. I don’t care how much it hurts.”

  Before I can protest, Seth stands and starts pushing his chair towards a highway overpass, where a small crowd has gathered. Three nuns in full-on habits stand behind a picnic table, handing out cold drinks to the pilgrims arriving to Santiago. The small, smiley ladies wear white saris with blue trim, which means they’re members of Mother Teresa’s order.

  Vulgar swear words decorate the concrete walls behind them and litter covers the ground, making this spot a shoo-in for Ugliest Place on the camino, but the simple beauty of kindness in action overshadows all of it. One of the pilgrims waiting for a drink is the Muslim man I met yesterday. He bows in gratitude as he accepts his lemonade.

  “Would one of you sisters like to rest?” Seth asks, wheeling over the chair he no longer thinks he needs.

  “Thank you, young man,” the most elderly of the nuns replies. She trades Seth’s chair for a paper cup. He gulps down its contents in seconds. The sight of Seth’s chugging skills reminds me that he hasn’t been drinking much lately. Maybe he knows he shouldn’t mix alcohol with pain medication, or maybe he’s found other ways to deal with his inner ache.

  “Have you been healed?” the Indian sister asks, lowering her old bones into the seat.

  “Not quite. But I’m working on it,” Seth replies.

  The sister smiles, her brown face wrinkling like a peach left out in the summer sun. “Be faithful in the small things first.”

  Seth doesn’t respond. Telling a competitive soldier to start small is like telling a bird not to fly. A quiet calm as light and fluffy as the clouds above us fills the Indian woman’s eyes, but it’s propped up by beams of steel. Just like my abuela, this is one little old lady I wouldn’t mess with. It’s like she’s strong precisely because she knows where she is weak.

  “Do you believe your friend will be healed? That all will be well?”

  I turn to respond to this gentle inquiry and find myself facing the youngest sister in the group—a Filipino girl in her early twenties. At first I think she’s talking about Lucas, but then I realize she’s a nun, not a psychic, so that’s impossible. She must be asking about Seth.

  Or maybe, somehow, she’s asking about both.

  “I sure hope so.”

  The sister smiles, like she knows a secret I don’t. She nods in Seth’s direction. “I can see the pain you feel for him. Mother Teresa spoke of this pain, the knife of compassion, as one of life’s greatest paradoxes. After working with the poor her entire life, she learned that if you love until it really hurts, eventually there can be no more hurt, only more love.”

  “Well, the hurt isn’t going anywhere fast, so I hope she’s right.”

  “Me, too. In fact, I’ve bet my entire life on it.” The young woman’s face radiates pure joy. “Life is a gift, but most of its pleasures are fleeting and grow stale as soon as the novelty wears off. Yet I’ve found that serving those in need never gets old. Only the deep well of love lasts forever, long after everything else goes cold.”

  How can person so young already be so wise?

  The sister’s words feel like an invitation to a vow. The promise is one I automatically accept, even though the words never leave my mouth. If my brother wakes up, forget college. I will spend an entire year giving back. I’m not trying to strike a bargain with heaven or anything; I just want whatever it is that makes this young woman glow.

  But what if Lucas doesn’t wake up? Then there will be no light left in me to give.

  “Here, have some wisdom for the road.” The sister hands me a little saint card with a charcoal sketch of Mother Teresa on one side, and a quotation on the other. “After all, this is only the beginning of your pilgrimage, not the end.”

  Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is beauty, admire it. Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it. Life is a duty, complete it. Life is a game, play it. Life is a promise, fulfill it. Life is sorrow, overcome it. Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it. Life is luck, make it. Life is too precious, do not destroy it. Life is life, fight for it.

  Fight for it. That’s it.
That’s why I’m walking the Camino de Santiago. My pilgrimage is my own small protest against meaninglessness and annihilation and despair. It’s my war on nothingness, my own small way of fighting for light and for love.

  For Lucas’s life. For Seth’s life. For all our lives.

  I thank the sister for her gift. On the other side of the underpass, Seth is having an intense conversation of his own.

  With the Muslim man.

  Panic shoots down my spine as the man shakes his fist, then grabs Seth’s arm.

  No, Seth. Please.

  We are steps away from being done with this pilgrimage. Please don’t get into another ugly confrontation now.

  As I get closer, I see the tears in the older man’s eyes. He’s clutching Seth’s shoulder, but his face twists in pain, not anger. I can’t see Seth’s reaction because his back is to me, but as I approach, the weeping man turns and walks away.

  “What was that about?”

  Seth swallows hard. “He was telling me to call my father. He said not all children, his own son being one of them, make it home from war.”

  Seth has mentioned that he and his dad aren’t as close as they used to be, especially after he snubbed the colonel’s offer to get him into West Point. That’s the main reason Seth isn’t in a hurry to return to the States, though he of all people should know that holding grudges is a luxury soldiers can’t afford.

  “He’s right, Seth. Call your dad. Tell him you’re on your way home.”

  Chapter 21

  Santiago. We’re here. The cathedral’s baroque bell towers beckon us closer, standing tall and proud like a pair of watchmen guarding their post. Seth hones in on them like they’re brothers in arms. With every step, the thin red line of his grimaced mouth tightens.

  “Do you know how the Iliad ends?” Seth asks out of the blue.

  He must be striking up a conversation to distract himself from the pain. “Tragically, if I remember right. The most honorable warrior in the entire poem gets cut down.”

  “And the only way his father, the king of Troy, can get his son’s body back is by paying a visit to his mortal enemy, Achilles, and groveling at his feet.”