Making Faces (4 page)

Basically, Bailey was born with all the
muscle he was ever going to have, so his parents had to carefully
consider how much activity he should participate in. Too much, and
his muscles would tear down. In a normal person, muscles that are
torn down repair themselves and rebuild stronger than before, which
is what creates bigger muscles. Bailey's muscles couldn't rebuild.
But if he didn't get enough activity, the muscle he did have would
weaken more quickly. Since the age of four, when he was diagnosed
with Dushenne muscular dystrophy, Bailey's mother had monitored
Bailey's activity like a drill sergeant, making him swim with a
life jacket even though Bailey could navigate the water like a
fish, mandating nap time, quiet time, and sedate walks in her busy
little boy's life so he maintained his ability to avoid a wheel
chair for as long as possible. And they were beating the odds so
far. At ten years old, most kids with Dushenne MD were already
wheelchair-bound, but Bailey was still walking.

“
I may not be as strong as Ambrose, but I
still think I could beat him,” Bailey said, his eyes narrowed on
the match below them. Ambrose Young stood out like a sore thumb. He
was in the same class as Bailey and Fern, but he was already
eleven, old for his grade, and he stood several inches taller than
all the other kids his age. He was tussling with some of the boys
from the high school wrestling team who were assisting with the
camp, and he was holding his own. Coach Sheen was watching him from
the sidelines, shouting out instructions and stopping the action
every so often to demonstrate a hold or a move.

Fern snorted and licked her purple popsicle,
wishing she had a book to read. If not for the popsicle, she would
have left a long time ago. Sweaty boys did not interest her very
much.

“
You couldn't beat Ambrose, Bailey. But
don't feel bad. I couldn't beat him either.”

Bailey looked at Fern in outrage, spinning
so fast that his dripping popsicle slid from his hand and bounced
off his skinny knee. “I may not have big muscles, but I'm super
smart and I know all the techniques. My dad has shown me all the
moves, and he says I have a great wrestling mind!” Bailey parroted,
his mouth turned down in an angry frown, his popsicle
forgotten.

Fern patted his knee and kept licking. “Your
dad says that 'cause he loves you. Just like my mom tells me I'm
pretty 'cause she loves me. I'm not pretty . . . and you can't beat
Ambrose, buddy.”

Bailey stood up suddenly and he wobbled a
little, making Fern's stomach flop in fear as she imagined him
falling from the bleachers.

“
You aren't pretty!” Bailey shouted,
making Fern instantly seethe. “But my dad would never lie to me
like your mom does. You just wait! When I'm a grown-up, I will be
the strongest, best wrestler in the Universe!”

“
My mom says you are going to die before
you are a grown-up!” Fern shouted back, repeating the words she had
heard her parents say when they didn't think she was
listening.

Bailey's face crumpled, and he began to
climb down the bleachers, hanging onto the railing as he teetered
and tottered to the bottom. Fern felt the tears rise up in her eyes
and her face crumple just as Bailey's had. She followed after him
even though he refused to look at her again. They both cried all
the way home, Bailey pedaling his bike as fast as he could, never
looking over at Fern, never acknowledging her presence. Fern rode
alongside him and kept wiping her nose with her sticky hands.

Her face was a mess with snot and purple
popsicle when she brokenly confessed to her mother what she had
said. Fern's mother silently took her by the hand and they walked
next door to Bailey's house.

Fern's Aunt Angie, Bailey's mom, was holding
Bailey on her lap and talking quietly to him on the front porch as
Fern and her mother climbed the stairs. Rachel Taylor slid into the
adjacent rocker and pulled Fern onto her lap as well. Angie looked
at Fern and smiled a little, seeing the tear-stained cheeks
streaked with purple. Bailey's face was hidden in her shoulder.
Fern and Bailey were both a little too old to sit in their mothers'
laps, but the occasion seemed to demand it.

“
Fern,” Aunt Angie said softly. “I was
just telling Bailey that it's true. He is going to die.”

Fern immediately started to cry again, and
her mother pulled her against her chest. Fern could feel her
mother's heart pounding beneath her cheek, but her aunt's face
stayed serene, and she didn't cry. She seemed to have arrived at a
conclusion that would take Fern years to accept. Bailey wrapped his
arms around his mother and wailed.

Aunt Angie rubbed her son's back and kissed
his head. “Bailey? Will you listen to me for a minute, son?”

Bailey was still crying as he lifted his
face and looked at his mother and then looked at Fern, glowering
like she had caused all of this to happen.

“
You are going to die, and I am going to
die, and Fern is going to die. Did you know that, Bailey? Aunt
Rachel is going to die, too.” Angie looked at my mother and smiled
apologetically, including her in the gloomy prediction.

Bailey and Fern looked at each other in
horror, suddenly shocked beyond tears.

“
Every living thing dies, Bailey. Some
people live longer than others. We know that your illness will
probably make your life shorter than some. But none of us ever know
how long our lives are going to be.”

Bailey looked up at her, some of the horror
and despair relaxing from his expression. “Like Grandpa Sheen?”

Angie nodded, laying a kiss on his forehead.
“Yes. Grandpa didn't have muscular dystrophy. But he got in a car
accident, didn't he? He left us sooner than we wanted him to, but
that's how life is. We don't get to choose when we go or how we go.
None of us do.” Angie looked her son squarely in the eyes and
repeated herself firmly. “Do you hear me, Bailey? None of us
do.”

“
So Fern might die before me?” Bailey
asked hopefully.

Fern felt a rumble of laughter in her mom's
chest and looked up at her in amazement. Rachel Taylor was smiling
and biting her lip. Fern suddenly understood what Aunt Angie was
doing.

“
Yes!” Fern jumped in, nodding, her
springy curls bouncing enthusiastically. “I might drown in the tub
when I take my bath tonight. Or maybe I will fall down the stairs
and break my neck, Bailey. I might even get smashed by a car when
I'm riding my bike tomorrow. See? You don't have to be sad. We're
all going to croak sooner or later!”

Angie and Rachel were giggling, and Bailey
had a huge grin spreading across his face as he immediately joined
in. “Or maybe you will fall out of the tree in your back yard,
Fern. Or maybe you will read so many books that your head will
explode!”

Angie wrapped her arms tightly around her
son and chuckled. “I think that's enough, Bailey. We don't want
Fern's head to explode, do we?”

Bailey looked at Fern, and everyone could
see that he was considering this seriously. “No. I guess not. But I
still hope she croaks before me.” Then he challenged Fern to a
wrestling match on his front lawn where he soundly pinned her in
about five seconds. Who knew? Maybe he really could have whupped
Ambrose Young.

2001

In the days and weeks following the attacks
on 9/11, life returned to normal, but it felt wrong, like a
favorite shirt worn inside out--still your shirt, still
recognizable, but rubbing in all the wrong places, the seams
revealed, the tags hanging out, the colors dulled, the words
backwards. But unlike the shirt, the sense of wrong couldn't be
righted. It was permanent, the new normal.

Bailey watched the news with equal parts
fascination and horror, tapping away at his computer, filling pages
with his observations, recording the history, documenting the
footage and the endless tragedies in his own words. Where Fern had
always lost herself in romance, Bailey lost himself in history.
Even as a child he would dive into stories of the past and wrap
himself in the comfort of their timelessness, of their longevity.
To read about King Arthur, who lived and died more than a thousand
years before, was its own immortality, and for a boy who felt the
sands of time slipping by in an endless countdown, immortality was
an intoxicating concept.

Bailey had religiously kept a journal for as
long as he could write. His journals filled a shelf in his bedroom
bookcase, standing among the stories of other men, lining the wall
with the highlights of a young life, the thoughts and dreams of an
active mind. But in spite of his obsession with capturing history,
Bailey was the only one who seemed to take it all in stride. He
wasn't any more fearful or any more emotional than he ever was. He
continued to enjoy the things he had always enjoyed, tease Fern the
way he always had, and when Fern could take no more of the history
enfolding on the television screen he was the one to talk her down
from the emotional cliff everyone seemed to be teetering on.

It was Fern who found herself closer to
tears, more fearful, more affectionate, and she wasn't the only
one. A pervading sense of outrage and sorrow intruded on daily
life. Death became very real, and in the senior class at Hannah
Lake High School there was resentment mixed with the fear. It was
senior year! It was supposed to be the best time of their lives.
They didn't want to be afraid.

“I just wish life was more like my books,”
Fern complained, trying to hoist both her and Bailey's backpacks on
her narrow shoulders as they left school for the day. “Main
characters never die in books. If they did, the story would be
ruined, or over.”

“Everybody is a main character to someone,”
Bailey theorized, winding his way through the busy hall and out the
nearest exit into the November afternoon. “There are no minor
characters. Think how Ambrose must have felt watching the news in
Mr. Hildy's class, knowing his mom worked in one of those towers.
He's sitting there, watching it all on TV, probably wondering if
he's watching his mother's death. She might be a minor character to
us, but to him she's a leading lady.”

Fern brooded, shaking her head at the memory.
None of them had known until later how close up and personal 9/11
was for Ambrose Young. He'd been so composed, so quiet, sitting in
math class, repeatedly dialing a number that had never been
answered. None of them even suspected. Coach Sheen found him in the
wrestling room more than five hours after the towers collapsed,
after everyone else had long since gone home.

“
I can't reach her, Coach.” Ambrose
whispered, as if the effort it took to increase his volume would
crack his control. “I don't know what to do. She worked in the
North tower. It's gone now. What if she's gone?”

“
Your dad is probably wondering where you
are. Have you talked to him?”

“
No. He's got to be going crazy too. He
pretends like he doesn't love her anymore. But I know he does. I
don't want to talk to him until there's good news.”

Coach Sheen sat beside the boy who dwarfed
him and put his arm around his shoulders. If Ambrose wasn't ready
to go home, he would wait with him. He talked about random
things--about the upcoming season, about the guys in Ambrose's
weight, about the strengths of the teams in their district. He
strategized with Ambrose about his teammates, distracting him with
inconsequential things while the minutes ticked by. And Ambrose
kept his emotions in check until his phone peeled out in shrill
alarm, making them both jump and reach for their pockets.

“
Son?” Elliott's voice was loud enough for
Mike Sheen to hear it through the phone, and his heart seized,
afraid of the words that hadn't been spoken. “She's okay, Brosey.
She's okay. She's coming here.”

Ambrose tried to speak, to thank his dad for
the welcome news, but was unable to reply. Rising to his feet, he
handed his phone to his coach. Then, overcome, he walked several
steps and sat down once more. Mike Sheen told Elliot they were on
their way to the house, snapped the phone shut, and put his arm
around the shaking shoulders of his star wrestler. There were no
tears, but Ambrose shook like he was overcome with fever, like he'd
been stricken with palsy, and Mike Sheen worried for a second that
the emotion and stress of the day had made him genuinely sick.
After a time, the manic shivering eased, and together they left the
room, flipping off the lights behind them and closing the door on
an agonizing afternoon, grateful that on a day of unprecedented
tragedy, they had been granted a reprieve.

“My dad's worried about Ambrose,” Bailey
said. “He says he seems different, and he's distracted. I've
noticed that even though he works as hard as he always has in
practice, something's off.”