Chapter 13: Epilogue - Coast Starlight

Coming on to the tracks a bit north of Oxnard, Amtrak’s premier west coast night train, the Coast Starlight, travelled long and backwards. Two P42s lead the train, then a baggage, a transition sleeper, three coach cars, a sightseer lounge, a dining car, the Pacific Parlour dome, and two sleepers, were mostly normal fare for the train as it thundered north, in the almost midnight darkness, the waves breaking under the cliffs below, magnificent in their phosphorescence glow.

Behind these cars were less normal members of the consist of the storied train. Leading the group was a second transition sleeper, trailed by a recently retired Heritage all bedroom sleeper, stripped of its Amtrak livery, wearing just text above the window line saying “Heritage Rail Restorations,” with another, smaller line below the windows denoting it’s name, Jillian M. Caldwell. Behind that were Silver Bridle, Silver Blanket, and Silver Penthouse.

As the train thundered its way north, without preamble, the train sounded its horn long and loud, and as it did so, fireworks lit up the coast north of the train, fired off from somewhere in Santa Barbara. The engineers watch had beeped the hour, marking it out as a new hour, and a new day, a new year, and a new millennium.

“Happy New Year!” Sharon said, cuddled next to Miguel, “I’m still angry at you, but I forgive you.”

“Welcome to the new Millennium,” Jessica said.

“I can’t believe you guys talked me in to this trip,” Jack said, “Or to letting you off.”

“I talked you into letting him off,” Press said, his arm around Pam.

“I can’t believe I’m taking a week off with you people,” Sheriff Gomez said, sitting next to his wife Felicia.

“Eh, I can’t believe I’m sittin’ inna car full of coppers,” Frankie said, “But life, it has strange bedfellows, eh?”

“Gentlemen and ladies and Jill,” George said, eliciting a laugh from the others, sitting next to Jill at the front of the dome of Silver Bridle, the others flanking him down the sides of the huge dining table, to his left going aft, Frankie, his wife Maria, Sharon, Miguel, AAkilah, and Josh, and to his right, Jack, Press, Pam, Alonzo, Felicia, and Jessica, “I would like propose a toast to the New Year, and to new love and understanding.”

“Understanding,” Jack said begrudgingly, “I do not love this, but I accept it.”

“Understandin’,” Jill averred, “We gotta work togetheh, to make the world a betteh place. A safer place, for all the people we care about.”

“And to folks we take care of,” Jessica said, “And to valuing what we already got.”

“A toast,” Gomez chimed in, “to what matters.”

“Feh,” Josh said, “What understandin’?”

“Can you please excuse us?” Akilah asked politely.

“Of course,” George said.

Josh and Akilah went down the stairs, and she picked up a short range radio, “Can we have privacy back here?”

“I’ll let you know if you can’t, Mrs. Abati,” the conductor radioed back.

“Thank you,” she replied, and grabbed Josh’s hand and dragged him into their bedroom.

“I have put much thought into what I am going to say,” Akilah said carefully, “We can not keep going along like this, Joshuhlluh. We are not talking, we are not communicating. I love you, and I am sorry for my upset. I have to accept that me being hurt is the something that you fear the most. I can stop doing this, if you need me to, Joshuhlluh, there are things more important than-”

As she had been speaking pain had been crossing over Josh’s face. He had been thinking this over carefully for the past few weeks. He didn’t know how to break the wall Akilah had been erecting between them. They had not even spoken much. He had been scared; he feared that what was keeping her from talking was that she was angry with him, that she wanted to pull away. But he saw now that she, like him, had been building the wall in a misguided effort to ultimately tear it down. This was as far into what she was saying that he could take.

“Schmontzes,” Josh said, and pulled her close until each of their large noses were touching, “Into my eyes look, Acky. No, not away. Look. Who we are, we are. My hero you are. Understand I do now. For me you do this. For Simcha you do this. You must this do, I know. The people we were, we are not. To be them again, we can not. Accept this, I must.”

Akilah tried to look away, and Josh took her chin in his hand and brought her back to looking at him, “Who we are, I love. The distance you felt you needed, I did not. Acky, the distance you do not need. I love who you are, my hero. I have nothing to forgive you for, but for my churlishness I ask for your forgiveness. Work with you in fear I’d rather do than have this distance between us.”