“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.
33: Don't be Afraid of Dying
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 without 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.”