“Two days after Bailey died, I went to see Coach Sheen. I thought he would be heartbroken. I thought he would feel the way I've felt for the past year, missing my friends, asking God why, angry as hell, basically out of my mind. But he wasn't.
“Coach Sheen told me that when Bailey was diagnosed, it was like the whole world stopped turning. Like it was frozen in place. He said he and Angie didn't know if they would ever be happy again. I've wondered that same thing over the last year. But Coach said, looking back, that what felt like the worst thing that could ever happen to them turned out to be an incredible gift. He said Bailey taught him to love and to put things in perspective, to live for the present, to say I love you often and to mean it. And to be grateful for every day. It taught him patience and perseverance. It taught him there are things that are more important than wrestling.”
Coach Sheen smiled through his tears, and he and Ambrose shared a moment with the whole town looking on.
“He also told me Bailey wanted me to speak at his funeral.” Ambrose grimaced and the audience laughed at his expression. He waited for them to grow quiet before he continued. “You know I love wrestling. Wrestling taught me how to work hard, to take counsel, to take my lumps like a man and win like one too. Wrestling made me a better soldier. But like Coach Sheen, I've learned there are things more important than wrestling. Being a hero on the mat isn't nearly as important as being a hero off the mat, and Bailey Sheen was a hero to many. He was a hero to me, and he was a hero to everybody on the wrestling team.
“Shakespeare said, ‘the robbed that smiles steals something from the thief.’” Ambrose's eyes shot to Fern's and he smiled softly at the girl that had him quoting Shakespeare once again. “Bailey is proof of this. He was always smiling, and in so many ways he had life beat, not the other way around. We can't always control what happens to us. Whether it's a crippled body or a scarred face. Whether it's the loss of people we love and don't want to live without,” Ambrose choked out.
“We were robbed. We were robbed of Bailey's light, Paulie's sweetness, Grant's integrity, Jesse's passion and Bean's love of life. We were robbed. But I've decided to smile, like Bailey did, and steal something from the thief.” Ambrose looked out across the mourners, most whom he had known his whole life, and cried openly. But his voice was clear as he closed his remarks.
“I'm proud of my service in Iraq, but I'm not proud of the way I left or the way I came home. In a lot of ways, I let my friends down . . . and I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself completely for their loss. I owe them something, and I owe you something. So I'll do my best to represent you and them well wrestling for Penn State.”
Gasps ricocheted around the room, but Ambrose continued over the excited response. “Bailey believed I could do it, and I'm going to damn well do my best to prove him right.”
1995
“How many stitches did you get?” Fern wished Bailey would pull off the gauze taped to his chin so she could see for herself. She'd run straight over when she’d heard the news.
“Twenty. It was pretty deep. I saw my jaw bone.” Bailey seemed excited about the seriousness of his wound, but his face fell almost immediately. He had a book on his lap, as usual, but he wasn't reading. He was propped up in his bed, his wheelchair pushed to the side, temporarily abandoned. Bailey's parents had purchased the bed from a medical supply store a few months before. It had bars along the side and buttons that would raise your upper body so you could read or your feet so you could pretend you were in a rocket ship shooting into space. Fern had Bailey had ridden on it a few times until Angie had firmly told them it wasn't a toy and she never wanted to catch them playing spaceship on it, ever again.
“Does it hurt?” Fern asked. Maybe that was why Bailey was so glum.
“Nah. It's still numb from the shot.” Bailey poked at it to show her.
“So what's wrong, buddy?” Fern hopped up onto the bed, wiggling her little body next to his and pushing the book aside to make more space.
“I'm not going to walk again, Fern,” Bailey said, his chin wobbling, making the gauze pad shimmy up and down.
“You can still walk a little though, right?”
“No. I can't. I tried today and I fell down. Smacked my chin really hard on the ground.” The bandage on Bailey's chin wobbled again, evidence to his claim.
For a while, Bailey had only used his wheelchair when he got home from school, saving his strength so he could leave it at home during the day. Then the school day got to be too much, so Angie and Mike changed tactics, sending him to school in his chair and letting him up in the evenings when his strength would allow. But slowly, incrementally, his evening freedom became more and more limited and his time in the chair increased. Apparently now, he wasn't walking at all.
“Do you remember your last step?” Fern asked softly, not savvy enough at eleven to avoid direct questions that might be painful to answer.
“No. I don't. I would write it in my journal if I did. But I don't know.”
“I bet your mom wishes she could put it in your baby book. She wrote down your first step, didn't she? She probably wishes she could write down your last.”
“She probably thought there would be more.” Bailey gulped and Fern could tell he was trying not to cry. “I thought there would be more. But I guess I used them all up.”
“I would give you some of my steps if I could,” Fern offered, her chin starting to wobble too. They cried together for a minute, two forlorn little figures on a hospital bed, surrounded by blue walls and Bailey's things.
“Maybe I can't take steps, but I can still roll,” Bailey wiped at his nose, and he shrugged, abandoning his self-pity, his optimism rising to the surface the way it always did.
Fern nodded, glancing at his wheelchair with a flood of gratitude. He could still roll. And then she grinned.
“You can't walk and roll, but you can rock and roll,” Fern squealed and jumped off the bed to turn on some music.
“I can definitely rock and roll.” Bailey laughed. And he did, singing at the top of his lungs while Fern walked and rolled and boogied and leaped enough for both of them.
Bailey's final resting place was nestled to the left of his Grandpa Sheen, Fern's grandpa too. Jessica Sheen laid just beyond, a woman who died of cancer when her son, Mike, was only nine years old. Rachel, Fern's mother, had been nineteen when her mother died, and she lived at home and helped her father raise her little brother, Mike, until he graduated from high school and left for college. As a result, the bond between Rachel and Mike was more like parent and child than brother and sister.
Grandpa James Sheen was in his seventies when Fern and Bailey were born, and he passed when they were five years old. Fern remembered him vaguely, the shock of white hair and the bright blue eyes that he'd passed down to his children, Mike and Rachel. Bailey had inherited those eyes as well–lively, intense. Eyes that saw everything and soaked it all up. Fern had her father's eyes, a deep warm brown that comforted and consoled, a deep brown the color of the earth that was piled high next to the deep hole in the ground.
Fern found her father's eyes as he began to speak, his slightly gravelly voice reverent in the soft air, conviction making his voice shake. As they listened to the heartfelt dedication, Fern felt Ambrose shudder as if the words had found a resting place inside of him.
“I don't think we get answers to every question. We don't get to know all the whys. But I think we will look back at the end of our lives, if we do the best we can, and we will see that the things that we begged God to take from us, the things we cursed him for, the things that made us turn our backs on him or any belief in him, are the things that were the biggest blessings, the biggest opportunities for growth.” Pastor Taylor paused as if gathering his final thoughts. Then he searched out his daughter's face among the mourners. “Bailey was a blessing . . . and I believe that we will see him again. He isn't gone forever.”
But he was gone for now, and now stretched on into endless days wit
hout him. His absence was like the hole in the ground–gaping and impossible to ignore. And the hole Bailey left would take a lot longer to fill. Fern clung to Ambrose's hand and when her father said 'Amen' and people began to disperse, Fern stayed glued to the spot, unable to move, to leave, to turn her back on the hole. One by one, people approached her, patting her hand, embracing her, until finally only Angie and Mike remained with Ambrose and Fern.
Sunlight dappled the ground, bending around the foliage and finding the floor, creating lace made of light and delicate shrouds over the heads of the four who remained. And then Angie moved to Fern and they clung to each other, overcome with the pain of parting and the agony of farewell.
“I love you, Fern,” Angie held her niece's face in her hands as she kissed her cheeks. “Thank you for loving my boy. Thank you for serving him, for never leaving his side. What a blessing you've been in our lives. “ Angie looked at Ambrose Young, at his strong body and straight back, at the hand that enveloped Fern's. She let her eyes rest on the sober face marked by his own tragedy, and she spoke to him.
“It always amazes me how people are placed in our lives at exactly the right times. That's how God works, that's how he takes care of his children. He gave Bailey Fern. And now Fern needs her own angel.” Angie placed her hands on Ambrose’s broad shoulders and looked him squarely in the eye, unashamed of her own emotion, demanding that he listen. “You're it, pal.”
Fern gasped and blushed to the roots of her bright red hair, and Ambrose smiled, a slow curve of his crooked mouth. But Angie wasn't done and she removed one of her hands from Ambrose's shoulder so she could pull Fern into the circle. Ambrose looked over Angie's blonde head and locked eyes with his old coach. Mike Sheen's blue eyes were bloodshot and rimmed in red, his cheeks wet with grief, but he tipped his head when Ambrose met his gaze as if he seconded his wife's sentiments.
“Bailey was probably more prepared to die than anyone I've ever known. He wasn't eager for it, but he wasn't afraid of it either,” Angie said with conviction, and Ambrose looked away from his coach and listened to a wise mother's words. “He was ready to go. So we have to let him go.” She kissed Fern again and the tears fell once more. “It's okay to let him go, Fern.”
Angie took a deep breath and stepped back, dropping her hands, and releasing them from her gaze. Then, with an acceptance born of years of trial, she reached for her husband's hand, and together they left the quiet spot where the birds sang and a casket waited to be blanketed in the earth, secure in the faith that it wasn't the end.
Fern walked to the hole and crouching down she pulled a handful of rocks from the pockets of her black dress. Carefully, she formed the letters B S at the foot of the grave.
“Beautiful Spider?” Ambrose said softly, just beyond her left shoulder, and Fern smiled, amazed that he remembered.
“Beautiful Sheen. Beautiful Bailey Sheen. That's how I'll always remember him.”
“He wanted you to have this.” Mike Sheen placed a big book in Ambrose's hands. “Bailey was always designating his belongings. Everything in his room has a specified owner. See? He's written your name on the inside.”
Sure enough, “For Ambrose” was written inside the cover. It was the book on mythology, the book Bailey had been reading that long ago day at summer wrestling camp when Bailey had introduced Ambrose to Hercules.
“I'll leave you two for a minute. I think I'm okay . . . but then I come in here and realize that he's really gone. And I'm not okay anymore.” Bailey's father tried to smile, but the attempt made his lips tremble and he turned and fled from the room redolent with Bailey's memory. Fern pulled her legs up and rested her chin on her knees, closing her eyes against the tears that Ambrose could see leaking out the sides. Bailey's parents had asked them to come by, that Bailey had belongings that he had wanted them to have. But it could wait.
“Fern? We can go. We don't have to do this now,” Ambrose offered.
“It hurts to be here. But it hurts not to be here too.” She shrugged and blinked rapidly. “I'm okay.” She wiped at her cheeks and pointed to the book in his hands. “Why did he want you to have that book?”
Ambrose flipped through the pages of the book, not pausing for the mighty Zeus or the big-breasted nymphs. With the book heavy in his hands and the memory heavy in his heart, he kept turning until he found the section and the picture he'd thought of many times since that day.
The Face of a Hero. Ambrose understood it so much better now. The sorrow on the bronze face, the hand on a breaking heart. Guilt was a heavy burden, even for a mythological champion.
“Hercules,” Ambrose said, knowing that Fern would understand.
He raised the book so Fern could see the pages he perused. When he held it upright, turning it so she could see, the thick pages fell forward, fanning out before he could smooth them back, and a folded sheet of paper fluttered to the ground.
Fern leaned down to retrieve it, sliding it open to ascertain its importance. Her eyes moved back and forth and her lips moved as she read the words printed on the page.
“It's his list,” she whispered, her voice colored with surprise.
“What list?”
“The date says July 22, 1994.”
“Eleven years ago.” Ambrose said.
“We were ten. Bailey's last summer,” Fern remembered.
“His last summer?”
“Before he was in a wheelchair. Everything happened that summer. Bailey's disease became very real.”
“So what does it say?” Ambrose crossed to Fern and sat beside her, looking at the sheet of lined paper with the fringe still attached, where Bailey had ripped it from a notebook. The handwriting was juvenile, the items listed in a long column with details listed out to the side.
“Kiss Rita? Get married?” Ambrose chortled. “Even at ten, Bailey was in love.”
“Always. From day one.” Fern giggled. “Eat pancakes every day, Invent a time machine, Tame a lion, Make friends with a monster. You can tell he's ten, huh?
Ambrose chuckled too, his eyes skimming the dreams and desires of a ten-year-old Bailey. “Beat up a bully, Be a superhero or a super star, Ride in a police car, Get a tattoo. Typical boy.”
“Live. Have courage. Be a good friend. Always be grateful. Take care of Fern,” Fern whispered.
“Maybe not so typical,” Ambrose said, his own throat closing with emotion. They were quiet for several long moments, their hands entwined, the page growing blurry as they fought the moisture in their eyes.
“He did so many of these things, Ambrose,” Fern choked out. “Maybe not in the typical way, but he did them . . . or helped someone else do them.” Fern handed Ambrose the page. “Here. It belongs in your book. Number four says Meet Hercules.” Fern pointed at the list. “To him, you were Hercules.”
Ambrose pressed the precious document back between the pages of the Hercules chapter, and one word leaped from the page. Wrestle. Bailey hadn't clarified the word, hadn't added anything to it. He'd just written it on the line and moved to the next thing on his bucket list. Ambrose closed the book on the pages of long ago dreams and ancient champions.
Hercules had tried to make amends, to balance the scales, to atone for the murder of his wife and three children, the four lives he had taken. And though some would say he was not to blame, that it was temporary madness sent by a jealous goddess, he was still responsible. For a time, Hercules had even held the weight of the heavens on his shoulders, convincing Atlas to surrender the weight of the world to his willing back.
But Ambrose wasn't a god with super-human strength and this wasn't ancient mythology. And some days, Ambrose feared he more closely resembled a monster than a hero. The four lives he felt responsible for were lost, and no amount of labor or penance would bring them back. But he could live. And he could wrestle, and if there was a place beyond this life where young men lived on and heroes like Bailey walked again, when the whistle blew and the mat was slapped, they would smile and know he wrestled for them. br />
Fern returned to work a few days after Bailey's funeral. Mr. Morgan had covered for her for almost a week and he needed her to come back. It was easier than staying home and moping, and Ambrose would be there at the end of her shift. By ten o'clock Fern was exhausted. Ambrose took one look at her and told her to go home. Which prompted tears and insecurity from Fern, which prompted kisses and reassurances from Ambrose, which led to passion and frustration, which led to Ambrose telling her to go home. And the cycle repeated.
“Fern. I am not going to make love to you on the bakery floor, baby. And that's what's going to happen if you don't get your cute butt out of here. Go!”
Ambrose dropped a kiss on her freckled nose and pushed her away from him. “Go.”
Fern was still thinking about sweaty sex on the bakery floor when she walked out of the employee entrance at the back of the store. She almost couldn't stand to leave him. Being apart had become torture. Soon Ambrose would be leaving for school. And with Bailey gone and Ambrose far away, Fern didn't know what she was going to do with herself.
The thought caused a flood of emotion that had her turning back toward the employee entrance, eager to return to his side. She wondered what Ambrose would do if she followed him. She could register for school and get a student loan. She could live in the dorms and take a couple of classes and write in the evenings and follow him around like a puppy, the way she'd done her whole life.
Fern shook her head adamantly, took a fortifying breath, and walked toward her bike. No. She wasn't going to do that. In recent days she had thought about what came next for them. She had made her feelings known. She loved Ambrose. She had always loved him. And if Ambrose wanted her in his life permanently, not just as a temporary distraction or a safety net, he was going to have to be the one to say the words. He was going to have to ask.