Then Elliott walked through the door and saw his son standing at the window, clenching the blinds like he wanted to rip them from the wall.
“Ambrose?” His voice rose in dismay. And then he flipped on the light. Ambrose stared and Elliott froze, realizing instantly what he had done.
Three faces stared back at Ambrose from the glass. He registered his father's face first, a mask of despair just behind his right shoulder, and then he saw his own face, gaunt and swollen, but still recognizable. But merged with the recognizable half of his reflection was a pulpy, misshapen mess of ruined skin, Frankenstein stitching, and missing parts–someone Ambrose didn't know at all.
When Fern told Bailey she had seen Ambrose, Bailey's eyes grew wide with excitement.
“He was running? That's good news! He’s refused to see everybody, as far as I know. That's definite progress. How did he look?”
“At first I couldn't see any change,” Fern answered honestly.
Bailey's look grew pensive. “And?” he pressed.
“One side of his face is very scarred,” she said softly. “I only saw it for a second. Then he just turned and started running again.”
Bailey nodded. “But he was running,” he repeated. “That's very good news.”
But good news or not, a month passed and then one more and Fern didn't see Ambrose again. She kept her eyes peeled as she pedaled home from work each night, hoping to see him running up and down the darkened streets, but she never did.
Imagine her surprise then, when one night she stayed later than usual at the store and caught sight of him behind the swinging bakery doors. He must have seen her too, because he ducked out of sight immediately and Fern was left gaping in the hallway.
Ambrose had worked in the bakery with his father all through high school. It was a family business after all, started by Elliott's grandfather almost eighty years before when he partnered with John Jolley, the original owner of the town's only grocery store.
Fern had always liked the contradiction of big, strong Ambrose Young working in a kitchen. In high school, he'd worked during the summers and on the weekends when he wasn't wrestling. But the night shift, the shift when the majority of the baking was done, was the kind of job where he wouldn't ever be seen if he chose not to be, working from 10:00 when the store was just closing, until 6:00 am, an hour before it opened again. The hours obviously suited him just fine. Fern wondered how long he had been back at the bakery and how many nights she'd barely missed him or just not realized he was there at all.
The next night the registers were off and Fern couldn't seem to get the books to balance. At midnight, as she was finally finishing up, the aroma of wonderful things started to curl from the bakery, wafting around the corner to the little office where she labored. She logged out of the computer and crept down the hallway, positioning herself so that she could see through the swinging doors that led into the kitchen. Ambrose had his back to her, his plain white T-shirt and jeans were partially covered by a white apron, Young's Bakery splashed across in bright red print. Elliott Young had worn the same apron for as long as Fern could remember. But somehow on Ambrose it looked totally different.
Fern could see now that his long hair had not grown back. She had half expected to see it brushing his shoulders. From what she could see, he had no hair whatsoever. His head was covered with a red bandana tied tightly in the back like he had just climbed off a Harley and decided to whip up a batch of brownies. Fern giggled to herself at the mental image of a biker making brownies, and winced when the giggle was louder than she’d intended. Ambrose turned, giving her a view of the right side of his face, a view she'd only seen briefly in the dark. Fern darted back around the corner, worried that he would hear her and misunderstand her laughter, but after a minute couldn't resist moving back where she could watch him while he worked.
His radio was turned up loud enough to drown out the canned music that played all day, every day, at Jolley's market. His mouth moved with the lyrics, and for a minute Fern watched his lips in fascination. The skin on the right side of his face was rippled, the way the sand looks when the wind blows across it and creates waves. Where there weren't ripples there were pock marks and the right side of his face and neck was spotted with black marks, like a prankster had taken a felt tip marker to his cheek while he slept. As she watched, he reached a hand to his face and rubbed at the marks that marred his skin, scratching as if they bothered him.
A long, thick scar ran from the corner of his mouth and up the side of his face, disappearing into the bandana on his head. His right eye was glassy and fixed, and a scar ran vertically through his eyelid, extending above his eye through his eyebrow and below his eye in a straight line with his nose intersecting the scar that started at the corner of his mouth.
Ambrose was still imposing, tall and straight, and his wide shoulders and long arms were still corded with muscles. But he was leaner, even leaner than he'd been during wrestling season, when the boys were so lean their cheeks were hollow and their eyes sunken in their faces. He'd been running the night Fern had first seen him. She wondered briefly if he was trying to get back in shape, and if so . . . why? Fern didn't love exercise, so it was hard to imagine him running for the joy of it, although she was sure that was a possibility. Her idea of exercise was to turn on the radio and dance around her room, shaking her little body until she worked up a good sweat. It had served her well enough. She definitely wasn't fat.
Fern wished she dared approach him, dared talk to him. But she didn't know how. Didn't know if he would want her to, so she stayed hidden for several moments more before she made her way to the exit and headed for home.