Making Faces(55)

“Bailey's in Philadelphia.”

Ambrose tamped down the jubilant leap of his heart. He loved Sheen, but he really wanted to be alone with Fern.

“Should we walk?” Fern suggested. “It's nice out, and the field isn't far.”

Ambrose agreed, and he and Fern cut across the lawn and headed toward the high school.

“What's Bailey doing in Philly?” he asked after they'd walked a ways.

“Every year, Bailey, Angie, and Mike head to Philadelphia for the Fourth of July. They visit the Museum of Art, and Mike carries Bailey up those 72 steps and they do the Rocky reenactment. Angie helps Bailey raise his arms and they all yell, 'one more year!' Bailey loves Rocky. Does that surprise you?”

“No. It doesn't,” Ambrose said with a wry twist of his lips.

“They first went on a family vacation to Philadelphia when Bailey was eight. He climbed the steps himself. They have a picture of him in their family room with his arms up, dancing around.”

“I've seen it,” Ambrose said, now understanding the significance of the picture he'd seen in a place of prominence in the Sheen home.

“They had such a good time they went back the next year, and Bailey made it up the steps again. It became more and more significant every year. The summer Bailey was eleven he couldn't make it up the steps, not even a few of them. So Uncle Mike carried him.”

“One more year?”

“Yep. Bailey's already defying the odds. Most kids with Dushenne Muscular Dystrophy don't reach his age. And if they're still around, they don't look like Bailey. They aren't nearly as healthy. Twenty-one has always been a bit of a battle cry for Bailey. When he turned twenty-one this year we had a huge party. We’re all convinced he’s going to set records.”

Ambrose spread the blanket out on the edge of the grass, far away from the other folks that had gathered to watch the display. Fern settled beside him and it wasn't long before the first fireworks were being shot into the sky. Ambrose lay back, stretching out so he could see without straining his neck. Fern eased herself back self-consciously. She had never lain on a blanket with a boy. She could sense the hard length of Ambrose along her right side, his big body taking up more than half of the small blanket. He had chosen the right side of the blanket so the right side of his face was turned away from her, as usual. She and Ambrose didn't link hands, and she didn't lay her head on his shoulder. But she wanted to.

Fern felt like she'd spent most of her life wanting Ambrose in some way or another, wanting him to see her . . . really see her. Not the red hair or the freckles on her nose. Not the glasses that made her brown eyes look like moon pies. Not the braces on her teeth or the boyishness of her figure.

When those things morphed and eventually disappeared–well, all except for the freckles–she wished he would notice. She wished he would see her brown eyes, free of glasses. She wished he would see that her figure had finally rounded and filled out, see her teeth that were white and straight. But whether she was homely or pretty, she still found herself wishing.

Fern’s yearning for Ambrose was something that had been so much a part of her, that as the patriotic songs accompanying the display rang across the football field, Fern felt incredibly grateful, grateful that in that moment, Ambrose Young lay by her side. That he knew her. Seemingly liked her, and had returned to her, to the town, to himself.

The gratitude made her weepy, and moisture leaked out the sides of her eyes and made warm rivers on her cheeks. She didn't want to wipe them away because that would draw attention to them. So she let them flow, watching the burst of colors crackle and boom in the air, feeling the aftershocks ring in her head.

Fern wondered suddenly if the sound was reminiscent of war and hoped that Ambrose was in the moment with her and not somewhere in Iraq, his mind on roadside bombs and the friends who didn't come home. Afraid that he might need someone to hold him there, hold him to the celebration, she reached out and slipped her hand in his. His hand tightened around hers.

He didn't interlock his fingers the way couples do as they walk. Instead he held her hand inside his, like an injured bird in his palm. And they watched the display to its conclusion, not speaking, their heads tilted toward the light, only their hands touching. Fern sneaked a look at his profile, noting that in the darkness, in the space between bursts of cascading light, that his face was beautiful, as beautiful as it had ever been. Even the smoothness of his bald head did not detract from the strength of his features. Somehow it made them more stark, more memorable.

With the last crack of the manic finale, families and couples started to stand and make their way off the field. Nobody had noticed Fern and Ambrose there on the far edge, beyond the circle of the track, behind the goal post. As the field lost its occupants and the smoky residue of revelry left the air, the sounds of night resumed. Crickets chirped, the wind whispered softly in the trees that edged the field, and Fern and Ambrose lay still, neither of them wishing to break the silence or the sense of pause that surrounded them.

“You are still beautiful,” Fern said softly, her face turned to his. He was quiet for a moment, but he didn't pull away or groan or deny what she'd said.

“I think that statement is more a reflection of your beauty than mine,” Ambrose said eventually, turning his head so he could look down at her. Fern's face was touched with moonglow, the color of her eyes and the red of her hair undecipherable in the wash of pale light. But her features were clear–the dark pools of expressive eyes, the small nose and soft mouth, the earnest slant of her brow that indicated she didn't understand his response.