Making Faces

by Amy Harmon

“Think about it. There isn’t heartache if there hasn’t been joy. I wouldn’t feel loss if there hadn’t been love. You couldn’t take my pain away without removing Bailey from my heart. I would rather have this pain now than never have known him. I just have to keep reminding myself of that.”

so true but hard fo admit

he could take his friends from his heart, but in purging the memory, he would rob himself of the joy of having loved them, having known them, having learned from them. If he didn’t understand pain, he wouldn’t appreciate the hope that he’d started to feel again, the happiness he was hanging onto with both hands so it wouldn’t slip away.

“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 by 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.”

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...

“Do you feel that?” The words came into Ambrose’s mind as if Paulie stood at his shoulder and spoke them in his ear. His deaf ear.

“Thank you, Paulie.”

“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.”

“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.

“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.”

“True beauty, the kind that doesn’t fade or wash off, takes time. It takes pressure. It takes incredible endurance. It is the slow drip that makes the stalactite, the shaking of the Earth that creates mountains, the constant pounding of the waves that breaks up the rocks and smooths the rough edges. And from the violence, the furor, the raging of the winds, the roaring of the waters, something better emerges, something that would otherwise never exist. “And so we endure. We have faith that there is purpose. We hope for things we can’t see. We believe that there are lessons in loss, power in love, and that we have within us the potential for a beauty so magnificent that our bodies can’t contain it.”

Ambrose looked down at his son,

that made me cry

“Dad, are you as strong as Hercules?” Ambrose bit back a smile and swooped his little dreamer up in his arms and tucked him into bed. Story time had gone too long, it was way past bedtime, and Fern was somewhere in the house dreaming up her own story. Ambrose had every intention of interrupting her. “Dad, do you think I could be a hero like Hercules someday?” “You don’t have to be like Hercules, buddy.” Ambrose flipped off the light and paused at the door. “There are all kinds of heroes.” “Yeah. I guess. Good night, Dad!” “Good night, Bailey.”

full on sobbing