“You could sign up for some ballet or some gymnastics,” Coach Sheen suggested after Ambrose lost his balance and fell to the mat for the tenth time. “That's what we used to have some of the football players do when they needed to work on balance, but I'm guessing you'd look hideous in a tutu and the little girls would think it was a reenactment of Beauty and the Beast.”
Ambrose was a little stunned by the blunt assessment of his lack of beauty. Leave it to Coach Sheen not to pull any punches. Bailey was just like him.
Coach Sheen continued, “The only way your balance is going to come back is if you just keep drilling. It's muscle memory. Your body knows what to do. You're just second-guessing yourself. Hell, stick an ear-plug in the other ear and see if it helps to be deaf in both.”
The next night, Ambrose tried it. Not being able to hear at all actually evened things out a bit. The eyesight wasn't as big an impediment. Ambrose had always been a hands-on wrestler–constant contact, hands on your opponent at all times. There were blind wrestlers in the world. Deaf ones, too. There were wrestlers without legs, for that matter. There were no allowances made, but no one was excluded either. If you could compete, you were allowed on the mat–may the best wrestler win. It was the kind of sport that celebrated the individual. Come as you are, turn your weaknesses into advantages, dominate your opponent. Period.
But Ambrose hadn't ever had weaknesses on the mat. Not like this. This was all new. Coach Sheen had him shooting single legs, double legs, high-C's, ankle picks, and duck-unders until his legs shook, and then he had him do it from the other side. Then he was pulling his big body up the rope. It was one thing to climb a rope if you were a wiry 5'5, 125 pounder. It was a completely different matter when you were 6'3, and over two hundred pounds. He hated the rope climb. But he made it to the top. And then he made it again the next night. And the next.
FIREWORKS OR PARADES?
“You think Sheen wants to come with us?” Ambrose asked when Fern stepped out onto her front steps. He'd been relieved when Fern had circled Fireworks on the whiteboard. Parades were boring and they usually involved lots of glaring sunlight and lots of staring people. Plus, it was the Fourth of July and Hannah Lake Township always had a pretty good fireworks display on the football field at the high school. Fern had seemed excited when he'd asked her if she wanted to go.
“Bailey's in Philadelphia.”
Ambrose tamped down the jubilant leap of his heart. He loved Sheen, but he really wanted to be alone with Fern.
“Should we walk?” Fern suggested. “It's nice out, and the field isn't far.”
Ambrose agreed, and he and Fern cut across the lawn and headed toward the high school.
“What's Bailey doing in Philly?” he asked after they'd walked a ways.
“Every year, Bailey, Angie, and Mike head to Philadelphia for the Fourth of July. They visit the Museum of Art, and Mike carries Bailey up those 72 steps and they do the Rocky reenactment. Angie helps Bailey raise his arms and they all yell, 'one more year!' Bailey loves Rocky. Does that surprise you?”
“No. It doesn't,” Ambrose said with a wry twist of his lips.
“They first went on a family vacation to Philadelphia when Bailey was eight. He climbed the steps himself. They have a picture of him in their family room with his arms up, dancing around.”
“I've seen it,” Ambrose said, now understanding the significance of the picture he'd seen in a place of prominence in the Sheen home.
“They had such a good time they went back the next year, and Bailey made it up the steps again. It became more and more significant every year. The summer Bailey was eleven he couldn't make it up the steps, not even a few of them. So Uncle Mike carried him.”
“One more year?”
“Yep. Bailey's already defying the odds. Most kids with Dushenne Muscular Dystrophy don't reach his age. And if they're still around, they don't look like Bailey. They aren't nearly as healthy. Twenty-one has always been a bit of a battle cry for Bailey. When he turned twenty-one this year we had a huge party. We’re all convinced he’s going to set records.”
Ambrose spread the blanket out on the edge of the grass, far away from the other folks that had gathered to watch the display. Fern settled beside him and it wasn't long before the first fireworks were being shot into the sky. Ambrose lay back, stretching out so he could see without straining his neck. Fern eased herself back self-consciously. She had never lain on a blanket with a boy. She could sense the hard length of Ambrose along her right side, his big body taking up more than half of the small blanket. He had chosen the right side of the blanket so the right side of his face was turned away from her, as usual. She and Ambrose didn't link hands, and she didn't lay her head on his shoulder. But she wanted to.
Fern felt like she'd spent most of her life wanting Ambrose in some way or another, wanting him to see her . . . really see her. Not the red hair or the freckles on her nose. Not the glasses that made her brown eyes look like moon pies. Not the braces on her teeth or the boyishness of her figure.
When those things morphed and eventually disappeared–well, all except for the freckles–she wished he would notice. She wished he would see her brown eyes, free of glasses. She wished he would see that her figure had finally rounded and filled out, see her teeth that were white and straight. But whether she was homely or pretty, she still found herself wishing.