The window was open. Just like it always was. The wind made the curtains flutter slightly and the blinds banged against the sill every now and again when an impudent gust would make an attempt to come inside. It wasn't that late, just after dark. But Fern had been up for thirty-six hours and she fell into her bed, needing the sleep that would come in fits and starts, interspersed with crying that hurt her head and made breathing impossible.
After they left the hospital, left Bailey in the hands of those who would carry out an autopsy and then transfer him to the mortuary, Fern and her parents spent the day with Angie and Mike at their home, acting as a buffer between the well-wishers and the grieving parents, accepting food and condolences with gratitude and making sure they offered comfort in return. Ambrose went back to the store to help his father and she and Rachel kept Ty with them so Sarah could stay with Rita. Becker had run off and no one knew where he was.
Angie and Mike seemed shell-shocked but were composed and ended up giving more comfort than they received. Bailey's sisters had been there as well, along with their husbands and children. The mood was one of both sorrow and celebration. Celebration for a life well-lived and a son well-loved, and sorrow for the end that had come without warning. There were tears shed, but there was laughter too. More laughter than was probably appropriate, which Bailey would have enjoyed. Fern had laughed, too, surrounded by the people who had loved Bailey most, comforted by the bond they shared.
When Sarah came to get Ty that evening, reporting that Rita was going to be okay, Fern had stumbled gratefully to her room seeking comfort in solitude. But when she was finally alone, the truth of Bailey's absence started to push through her defenses, riddling her heart with the pricking pain of precious memories–words he would never say again, expressions that would never again cross his face, places they wouldn't go, time they wouldn't spend together. He was gone. And she hurt. More than she’d thought was possible. She prepared for bed at nine o'clock, brushing her teeth, pulling on a tank top and some pajama bottoms, washing her swollen eyes with cold water only to feel the heat of emotion swell in them once more as she burrowed her face in the towel, as if she could snuff out the knowledge that throbbed at her temples.
But sleep would not come and her grief was amplified by her loneliness. She wished for reprieve, but found none in the darkness of her small room. When the blinds clanked loudly and a flicker of light from the street lamp outside danced across her wall, she didn't turn toward the window, but sighed, keeping her heavy eyes closed.
When she felt a hand smooth the hair that lay against her shoulders, she flinched, but the flash of fear was almost immediately replaced with a flood of welcome.
“Fern?”
Fern knew the hand that touched her. She lay still, letting Ambrose stroke her hair. His hand was warm and large, and the weight of it anchored her. She rolled toward him on her narrow bed, and found his eyes in the darkness. Always in the darkness. He was crouched by her bed, his upper body outlined against the pale rectangle of her window, and his shoulders seemed impossibly wide against the soft backdrop.
His hand faltered as he saw her swollen eyes and her tear-stained face. Then he resumed his ministrations, smoothing the fiery strands from her cheeks, catching her tears in the palm of his hand.
“He's gone, Ambrose.”
“I know.”
“I can't stand it. It hurts so bad that I want to die too.”
“I know,” he repeated softly, his voice steady.
And Fern knew that he did. He understood, maybe better than anyone else could.
“How did you know I needed you?” Fern whispered in broken tones.
“Because I needed you,” Ambrose confessed without artifice, his voice thick with heartache.
Fern sat up and his arms enveloped her, pulling her into him as he sank to his knees. She was small and he was wonderfully large and he enfolded her against his chest. She nestled into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and sinking into his lap like a child who had been lost and then found, reunited with the one she loved most.
It was a testament to Ambrose's love for her, the length of time in which he knelt on the hard floor with Fern in his arms, letting her sorrow wash over and through him. His knees ached in steady concert with the heavy ache in his chest, but it was a different pain than he'd felt when he'd lost Beans, Jesse, Paulie and Grant in Iraq. That pain had been infused with guilt and shock and there had been no understanding to temper the agony. This pain, this loss, he could shoulder, and he would shoulder it for Fern as best he could.
“It wouldn't hurt so badly if I didn't love him so much. That's the irony of it,” Fern said after a while, her voice scratchy and thick with tears. “The happiness of knowing Bailey, of loving him, is part of the pain now. You can't have one without the other.”
“What do you mean?” Ambrose whispered, his lips against her hair.
“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 then never have known him. I just have to keep reminding myself of that.”
Ambrose rose with her in his arms and settled them both on her bed, his back against the wall, stroking her hair and letting her talk. They ended up curled around each other, Fern flirting with the edge of the mattress, but supported by Ambrose's arms that were wrapped securely around her.
“Can you make it go away, Ambrose? Just for a while?” she whispered, her lips against his neck.
Ambrose froze, her meaning as plain as the devastation in her voice.
“You told me that when you kiss me, all the pain goes away. I want it to go away, too,” she continued plaintively, the tickle of her breath against his skin making his eyes roll back in his head.
He kissed her eyelids, the high planes of her cheekbones, the small dollop of an earlobe that made her shiver and bunch his shirt in her hands. He smoothed her hair from her face, gathering it in his hands so he could feel the slide of it through his fingers as he found her mouth and did his best to chase memories from her head and sorrow from her heart, if only for a while, the way she did for him.
He felt her breasts against his chest, her slim thighs entwined with his own, the press of her body, the slide of her hands, urging him on. But though his body howled and begged and his heart bellowed in his chest, he kissed and touched, and nothing more, saving the final act for a time when sorrow had released its grip and Fern wasn't running from feeling but reveling in it.
He didn't want to be a temporary balm. He wanted to be a cure. He wanted to be with her under an entirely different set of circumstances, in a different place, in a different time. At the moment, Bailey loomed large, filling every nook and corner, every part of Fern, and Ambrose didn't want to share her, not when they made love. So he would wait.
When she fell asleep, Ambrose eased himself from the bed and pulled her blankets around her shoulders, pausing to look at the deep red of her hair against her pillow, the way her hand curled beneath her chin. It wouldn't hurt so badly if I didn't love him so much. He wished he would have understood that when he'd found himself in a hospital full of injured soldiers, filled with pain and suffering, unable to come to terms with the loss of his friends and the damage to his face.
As he stared down at Fern he was struck with the truth she seemed to intuitively understand. Like Fern said, 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.
The day of the funeral, Fern found herself on Ambrose's doorstep at nine a.m. She had no reason to be there. Ambrose had said he would pick her up at 9:30. But she was ready too early, restless and anxious. So she’d told her parents she would see them at the church and slipped out of the house.
Elliott Young answered the door after a brief knock.
“Fern!” Elliott smiled as if she were his new best friend. Ambrose had obviously told his dad about her. That was a good sign, wasn't it? “Hi, Sweetie. Ambrose is dressed and decent, I think. Go on back.”
“Ambrose!” he called down the hallway adjacent to the front door. “Fern's here, son. I'm going to head out. I need to stop by the bakery on the way. I'll see you at the church.” He smiled at Fern and grabbed his keys, heading out the front door. Ambrose's head shot out of an open door, a white dress shirt tucked into a pair of navy slacks making him look simultaneously inviting and untouchable.
His face was lathered on one side, the side untouched by violence.
“Fern? Is everything okay? Did I mess up the time?”
“No. I just . . . I was ready. And I couldn't sit still.”
He nodded as if he understood and reached for her hand as she approached.
“How you holding up, baby?”
The endearment was new, protective, and it comforted Fern like nothing else could have. It also made her eyes fill with tears. She clung to his hand and forced the tears away. She'd cried endlessly in the last few days. Just when she felt she couldn't cry anymore, she would surprise herself and the tears would come again, rain that wouldn't stop. She had applied her make-up that morning heavier than usual, lining her brown eyes and laying the water-proof mascara on thick, simply because she felt stronger with it; a sort of armor against the grief. Now she wondered if she should have left it off.
“Let me do that.” Fern held out her hand for the razor he wielded, needing to do something to distract herself. He handed it over and sat on the counter, pulling her between his legs.
“It only grows on the left side. I won't ever be able grow a mustache or a beard.”
“Good. I like a clean-shaven man,” Fern murmured, expertly slicing away the thick white lather.
Ambrose studied her as she worked. Fern's face was too white and her eyes were shadowed, but the slim black dress complimented her lithe figure and made her red hair look even redder still. Ambrose loved her hair. It was so Fern, so authentic, just like the rest of her. He slid his hands around her waist and her eyes shot to his. A current zinged between them and Fern paused for a deep breath, not wanting the liquid heat in her limbs to make her slip and nick his chin.
“Where did you learn to do that?” Ambrose asked as she finished.
“I helped Bailey shave. Many times.”
“I see.” His blind eye belied his words, but his left eye stayed trained on her face as Fern picked up a hand towel and blotted off the residue, running her hand across his cheek to make sure she'd gotten the shave close and smooth.
“Fern . . . I don't need you to do that.”
“I want to.”
And he wanted her to, simply because he liked the way her hands felt on his skin, how her form felt between his thighs, how her scent made him weak. But he wasn't Bailey, and Fern needed to remember that.
“It's going to be hard for you . . . not to try to take care of me,” Ambrose said gently. “That's what you do. You took care of Bailey.”
Fern stopped blotting and her hands fell to her sides.
“But I don't want you to take care of me, Fern. Okay? Caring about someone doesn't mean taking care of them. Do you understand?”
“Sometimes it does,” she whispered, protesting.
“Yeah. Sometimes it does. But not this time. Not with me.”
Fern looked lost and avoided his gaze as if she were being reprimanded. Ambrose tipped her chin toward him and leaned in, kissing her softly, reassuring her. Her hands crept back to his face and he forgot for a minute what he needed to say with her pink mouth moving against his. And he let the subject rest for the time being, knowing she needed time, knowing her pain was too sharp.