“Thank you, Ambrose,” he answered, and his voice broke with sudden emotion. “I have often worried that when Bailey died something would happen to Fern. It's an illogical fear, I know, but their lives have been so entwined, so connected. Angie and Rachel even discovered that they were pregnant on the same day. I worried that God had sent Fern for a specific purpose, a specific mission, and when that mission was fulfilled he would take her away.”
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away?”
“Yes . . . something like that.”
“I've always hated that quote.”
Joshua Taylor looked surprised, but continued on. “Tonight, when you called . . . before you even spoke, I knew something had happened. And I prepared myself to hear the news. I've never told Rachel about this. I didn't want her to be afraid with me.” Joshua looked up at Ambrose, and his large brown eyes, eyes so like Fern's, were filled with emotion.
“You've given me hope, Ambrose. Maybe restored my faith a little.”
“Restored mine too,” Ambrose admitted.
Joshua Taylor looked surprised once more and this time he sought clarification. “How so?”
“I wouldn't have heard her scream. I shouldn't have. I had the radio on. And the mixer. Plus, I don't hear all that well to begin with,” Ambrose smiled, just a wry twist of his lips. But this wasn't a moment for levity, and he immediately became grave once more. “I heard Paulie, my friend Paulie. You remember Paul Kimball?”
Joshua Taylor nodded once, a brief affirmation.
“It was like he was standing right next to me, speaking into my ear. He warned me–told me to listen. Paulie was always telling us to listen.”
Joshua Taylor's lips started to tremble and he pressed a hand to his mouth, clearly moved by Ambrose's account.
“Since Iraq, it's been . . . hard . . . for me to believe that there is anything after this life. Or, for that matter, any purpose to this one. We're born, we suffer, we see people we love suffer, we die. It just all seemed so . . . so pointless. So cruel. And so final.” Ambrose paused, letting the memory of Paulie's voice warm him and urge him forward.
“But after tonight, I can't say that anymore. There's a lot I don't understand . . . but not understanding is better than not believing.” Ambrose stopped and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked at Joshua Taylor for affirmation. “Does that make any sense at all?”
Joshua Taylor reached for the arm of the nearest chair and sat abruptly, like his legs could no longer bear his weight.
“Yes. Yes. It makes perfect sense,” he said quietly, nodding his head. “Perfect sense.”
Ambrose sat too, the old couch welcoming his weary frame into her folds.
“You're a good man, Ambrose. My daughter loves you. I can tell.”
“I love her,” Ambrose said, but stopped himself from saying more.
“But?” Pastor Taylor asked, the many years of listening to people's problems making him highly aware when someone was holding back.
“But Fern likes to take care of people. I'm worried that my . . . my . . . my . . ‘“ Ambrose couldn't find the words.
“Need?” Joshua Taylor supplied delicately.
“My ugly face,” Ambrose corrected abruptly. “I'm worried my disfigurement makes Fern want to take care of me. I'm not exactly beautiful, Pastor. What if one day Fern sees me as I really am and decides my need for her isn't enough?”
“Your father came and saw me once, a long time ago. He was concerned about the same thing. He thought if he looked different your mother wouldn't have left.”
Ambrose felt an immediate surge of pain for his father and a corresponding flash of anger for the woman who had discarded him for an airbrushed underwear ad.
“Can I suggest to you what I suggested to him?” Joshua Taylor asked gently. “Sometimes beauty, or lack thereof, gets in the way of really knowing someone. Do you love Fern because she's beautiful?”
Ambrose loved the way Fern looked. But he wondered suddenly if he loved the way she looked because he loved the way she laughed, the way she danced, the way she floated on her back and made philosophical statements about the clouds. He knew he loved her selflessness and her humor and her sincerity. And those things made her beautiful to him.
“There are a lot of girls who are physically more lovely than Fern, I suppose. But you love Fern.”
“I love Fern,” Ambrose readily agreed, once again.
“There are a lot of guys who are needier . . . and uglier . . . than you in this town, yet you're the first guy Fern has ever shown any interest in.” Pastor Taylor laughed. “If it's all about altruism, why isn't Fern out looking to start a home for wayward ugly men?”
Ambrose chuckled too, and for a moment Joshua Taylor looked at him fondly, the lateness of the hour and the brush with death giving the conversation a surreal cast that invited candor.
“Ambrose, Fern already sees who you really are. That's why she loves you.”
Fern was subdued as she helped Ambrose pack. She'd been subdued all week. The trauma of Bailey's death and Becker's attack had taken its toll and now with Ambrose leaving, she didn't know how it was going to feel to wake up tomorrow, completely alone for the first time in her life. Ambrose had helped to temper Bailey's loss. But who would temper Ambrose's?
She caught herself refolding his shirts, rewinding his socks, fiddling with things he'd put in one place, unintentionally putting them in another so when he turned to retrieve them they were gone.
“I'm sorry,” Fern said for the tenth time in the last half hour. She moved away from the open suitcases before she could do more damage and began making Ambrose's bed, simply because she had nothing better to do.
“Fern?”
Fern continued patting, smoothing, and fluffing and didn't look at Ambrose when he said her name.
“Fern. Stop. Leave it. I've just got to climb back in it in a few hours,” Ambrose said.
Fern couldn't stop. She needed to keep doing, keep busy. She bustled into the hallway, looking for the vacuum so she could tidy up Ambrose's room. Elliott was working a swing shift at the bakery, covering for Ambrose on his last night at home, and the house was quiet. It didn't take her long to find the vacuum and a dust cloth and Windex too.
She buzzed around Ambrose's half-empty room, hunting dust bunnies and wiping down every available surface until Ambrose sighed heavily and, zipping his last suitcase, turned on her with his hands on his hips.
“Fern.”
“Yeah?” Fern answered staring at a section of the wall where the paint looked suspiciously light. She had scrubbed too hard.
“Put the Windex down and step away slowly,” Ambrose commanded. Fern rolled her eyes but stopped, fearing she was doing more harm than good. She set the Windex down on Ambrose's desk. “The rag too,” Ambrose said. Fern folded the rag and set it beside the Windex. Then she put her hands on her hips, mimicking his stance.
“Hands in the air, where I can see 'em.”
Fern put her hands up and then stuck her thumbs in her ears, waggling her fingers. Then she crossed her eyes, puffed out her cheeks, and poked out her tongue. Ambrose burst out laughing and swooped her up like she was five years old and tossed her on his bed. He followed her down, rolling over so he pinned her partially beneath him.
“Always making faces.” He smiled, running his finger along the bridge of her nose, across her lips, and down her chin. Fern's smile faded as his finger crossed her mouth, and the despair she'd been busily avoiding crashed down on her.
“Wait . . . what's that face?” Ambrose asked softly, watching the laughter fade from her countenance.
“I'm trying really hard to be brave,” Fern said quietly, closing her eyes against his perusal. “So this is my brave, sad face.”
“It is a very sad face.” Ambrose sighed, and his lips found hers and briefly caressed her mouth before pulling away again. And he watched the sad face fall and break into tears that leaked out beneath her closed lids. Then Fern was pushing
him off, fighting out of his arms, scrambling for the door so she wouldn't make him feel bad and make it harder for him to go. She knew he needed to go. Just as much as she needed him to stay.
“Fern! Stop.” It was the night at the lake all over again, Fern rushing away so he wouldn't see her cry. But he was quicker than she was, and his hand shot out, pinning the door closed so she couldn't leave. Then his arms were around her, pulling her up against him, her back to his chest, as she hung her head and cried into her palms.
“Shush, baby. Shush,” Ambrose said. “It's not forever.”
“I know,” she cried and Ambrose felt her take a deep breath and bear down, gaining control over herself, willing her tears to ebb.
“I wanted to show you something,” Fern said abruptly, wiping her cheeks briskly, trying to remove the residue of her grief. Then she turned toward him and her hands rose to the opening of her shirt and she began to undo the row of white buttons.
Ambrose's mouth immediately went dry. He had thought about this moment countless times, and yet with all the turmoil and loss, he and Fern had only flirted with the edge, as if they feared falling over. And privacy was hard to come by while they both lived at home, the kind of privacy he wanted with Fern, the kind he needed with her. So passion had been bridled and kisses stolen, though Ambrose was finding it more difficult every day.
But she only made it about five buttons down before she stopped, sliding her shirt opened over her left breast, just above the lace of her bra. Ambrose stared at the name printed in very small letters in a simple font across Fern's heart. Bailey.
Ambrose reached out and touched the word and watched goose bumps rise on her skin as his fingers brushed against her. The tattoo was new and lightly rimmed in pink, not yet scabbed over. It was maybe an inch long, just a little tribute to a very special friend.
Fern must have been confused by his expression. “I felt like such a bad-ass getting a tattoo. But I didn't do it to be hardcore. I just did it because I wanted . . . I wanted to keep him close to me. And I thought I should be the one . . . to write him across my heart.”
“You have a tattoo, a black eye, and I just saw your bra. You are getting to be very hardcore, Fern,” Ambrose teased gently, although the fading black eye made his blood boil every time he looked at her.
“You should have told me. I would have gone with you,” Ambrose said as he pulled his soft grey T-shirt over his head, and Fern's gaze sharpened just like his had moments before.
“Seems we both wanted to surprise each other,” he added softly as she looked at him. The names were spaced evenly in a row, just like the white graves at the top of the little memorial hill. Bailey didn't get to be buried with the soldiers, but he stood with them now, his name taking a position at the end of the line.
“What's this?” Fern asked, her fingers hovering above a long green frond with delicate leaves that now wrapped around the five names.
“It's a fern.”
“You got a tattoo . . . of a fern?” Fern's lower lip started to tremble again, and if Ambrose wasn't so touched by her emotion, he would have laughed at her pouty little girl face.
“But . . . it's permanent,” she whispered, aghast.
“Yeah. It is. So are you,” Ambrose said slowly, letting the words settle on her. Her eyes met his, and grief, disbelief, and euphoria battled for dominion. It was clear she wanted to believe him, but wasn't sure she did.
“I'm not Bailey, Fern. And I'm not going to ever replace him. You two were inseparable. That worries me a little because you're going to have a Bailey-sized hole in your life for a long time . . . maybe forever. I understand holes. This last year I've felt like one of those snowflakes we used to make in school. The ones where you fold the paper a certain way and then keep cutting and cutting until the paper is shredded. That's what I look like, a paper snowflake. And each hole has a name. And nobody, not you, not me, can fill the holes that someone else has left. All we can do is keep each other from falling in the holes and never coming out again.
“I need you, Fern. I'm not going to lie. I need you. But I don't need you the same way Bailey did. I need you because it hurts when we're apart. I need you because you make me hopeful. You make me happy. But I don't need you to shave me or brush my hair or wipe syrup off my nose.” Fern's face collapsed at the memory, at the reminder of Bailey and the way she had lovingly cared for him.
Fern covered her eyes, covering her anguish, and her shoulders shook as she cried, unable to muscle the emotion back anymore.
“Bailey needed that, Fern. And you gave him what he needed because you loved him. You think I need you. But you aren't convinced I love you. So you're trying to take care of me.”
“What do you want from me, Ambrose?” Fern cried from behind her hands. He pulled at her wrists, wanting to see her face as he laid it all on the line.
“I want your body. I want your mouth. I want your red hair in my hands. I want your laugh and your funny faces. I want your friendship and your inspirational thoughts. I want Shakespeare and Amber Rose novels and your memories of Bailey. And I want you to come with me when I go.”
Fern's hands had dropped from her face and though her cheeks were still wet with tears, she was smiling, her teeth sunk into her lower lip. The teary eyes and the smiling mouth were a particularly endearing combination, and Ambrose leaned forward and tugged her bottom lip free with his teeth, gently nipping, softly kissing. But then he pulled away again, intent on the subject at hand.
“But the last time I begged someone I loved to come with me when they really didn't want to go, I lost them.” Ambrose wrapped a strand of Fern's red hair around his finger, his brow furrowed, his mouth turned down in a wistful frown.
“You want me to come to school with you?” Fern asked.
“Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
“I love you Fern. And I want you to marry me.”
“You do?” Fern squealed.
“I do. It doesn't get better than Fern Taylor.”
“It doesn't?” Fern squeaked.
“It doesn't.” Ambrose couldn't help laughing at her incredulous little face. “And if you'll have me, I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you happy, and when you get tired of looking at me, I promise I'll sing.”
Fern laughed, a watery, hiccupping sound.
“Yes or no?” Ambrose said seriously, reaching for her hand, the ultimate either/or question hanging in the air between them.
“Yes.”
The stands were packed with blue and white and Fern felt a little lost without a wheelchair to make arrangements for and sit beside, but they had good seats. Ambrose had made sure of that. Her Uncle Mike was on her left, Elliott Young on her right, and beside him, Jamie Kimball, Paulie's mom. Jamie had worked the front counter at the bakery for years, and Elliott had finally gotten the nerve to ask her out. So far, so good. Another silver lining. They needed each other, but more importantly, they deserved each other.
It was the last duel of the season for the Penn State Nittany Lions and Fern was so nervous she had to sit on her hands so she wouldn't resume her bad habit of shredding her fingernails. She felt this way every time she watched Ambrose wrestle, even though he won a whole lot more than he lost. She wondered how Mike Sheen endured this torture year after year. If you loved your wrestler, and Fern did, then wrestling was absolutely agonizing to watch.
Ambrose hadn’t won every match. He’d had an impressive year, especially considering his long absence from the sport and the disadvantages that he started the season with. Fern had made Ambrose promise to enjoy himself and he had genuinely tried. No more trying to be Mr. Universe or Hercules or Iron Man or anything but Ambrose Young, son of Elliott Young, fiance of Fern Taylor. She took a deep breath and tried to take her own advice. She was the daughter of Joshua and Rachel, cousin of Bailey, lover of Ambrose. And she wouldn't trade places with anyone.
She hadn't gone with him when he left for school. They'd both known it wasn't possib
le right away. Fern had finally scored a three-book deal with a respected romance publisher and had deadlines to meet. Her first novel would be out in the spring. Ambrose had been convinced he had to slay his dragons on his own two feet–no metaphoric shield or minions to keep him company.
Ambrose had been afraid and admitted as much. The discomfort of curious gazes, the whispers behind hands, the explanations that people felt they were owed all grated on him. But it was okay too. He claimed the questions gave him an opportunity to get it all out in the open, and before long the guys on the wrestling team didn't really see the scars. The way Fern never saw Bailey's wheelchair. The way Ambrose finally looked beyond the face of a plain little eighteen-year-old and saw Fern for the first time.
The Penn State head coach had made Ambrose no promises. There was no scholarship waiting when he arrived. He told Ambrose he could come work out with the team and they would see how it all shook out. Ambrose had arrived in October, coming in on the block, a month behind everyone else. But within a few weeks, the coaches at Penn State were impressed. And so were his new teammates.
Fern and Ambrose started writing letters again, long emails filled with either/or questions both tender and bizarre, designed to make the distance seem trivial. Fern always made sure to close her letters with her name in bold and all in caps, just to make sure Ambrose knew exactly who they were from. The love notes kept them laughing and crying and longing for the weekends when one or the other would make the trip between Hannah Lake and Penn State. And sometimes they met somewhere in between and lost themselves in each other for a couple of days, making the most of every second, because seconds became minutes and minutes became precious when life could be taken in less than a breath.
When Ambrose ran out on the mat with his team, Fern's heart leaped and she waved madly so he would see them all there. He found them quickly, knowing what section they were sitting in, and he smiled that lopsided grin that she loved. Then he stuck out his tongue, crossed his eyes, and made a face. Fern repeated the action and saw him laugh.