Dear Edward(16)

“I didn’t know this.” Besa sounds offended.

“Mom, I was six. I probably told you and you forgot. Also, it wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t even remember until”—she pauses—“recently.”

“Jane loved to bring the boys here.” Lacey’s shoulders straighten. “She needed to give them a break from the hubbub of the city.”

Edward says to Shay, “Did you talk to him?”

“A little. When he came outside, he jumped down the steps, from the top to the grass. For some reason I was really shocked by this. Maybe I gasped, because he noticed me.”

Edward tries to picture this: bright sunshine, green grass, the five cement stairs in front of his aunt and uncle’s house.

“Jordan said something like, You’ve never seen anyone jump before? And I said that I hadn’t seen anyone jump like that. He laughed and ran to the driveway. Then he climbed on top of your parents’ minivan.”

“Wait a second.” Lacey frowns. “Don’t tell tales, Shay. We don’t need that around here.”

“Jordan did things like that,” Edward says. “That’s something he would do.”

Shay gives a small nod. “He waved at me, and then he jumped off the car roof.”

“Dios mío,” Besa says.

“Oh,” Lacey says, then pauses. In a different tone, she says, “I remember. He hurt his knee.… He wouldn’t tell me how, but I gave him a bag of frozen peas to put on it.”

Edward doesn’t remember any of this. He doesn’t remember Jordan going outside without him. He doesn’t remember the frozen peas, or this girl, or his brother with a limp. There is a cracking sensation in his chest, as if small bones are breaking. Why can’t he remember?

“He didn’t seem hurt to me,” Shay says. “A grown-up called him right after he jumped, and he went back inside.”

She pushes back her chair and swipes her mother’s cheek with a kiss. “I have to go, Mamí. The bus will be here any second.”

“Que tengas un buen día.”

“Adios,” Shay says, and then she’s gone.

Edward takes another gulp of coffee to try to block the lump in his throat. He coughs into his napkin. He can feel Lacey’s desire for him to eat, but there’s a force field around food that he can’t seem to penetrate—the smell, the solidity of it is impossible. He returns to the couch. Lacey switches the television on, but he can’t focus on the images. He listens to the hum of Lacey and Besa’s voices in the kitchen. When he passes the door once, on the way to the bathroom, he hears his aunt say, “Instead of a baby, a twelve-year-old boy.” Edward keeps his eyes on his feet, to make sure he doesn’t fall.

When the sky dims, and John comes home, Edward returns to the kitchen table. His uncle ruffles his hair; Lacey puts a dollop of buttery mashed potatoes on his plate and says, “Please, Edward?”

John says something about a lawyer, and Lacey says that it seems to be a bad season for tomatoes. His uncle and aunt pass bowls of food back and forth to each other, more often than is necessary, Edward thinks.

“I wish I liked salad,” Lacey says.

John makes a face. “Nobody likes salad.”

Edward can tell, without knowing how, that this exchange about salad is a standard in their marital repertoire. It’s a back-and-forth they repeat in order to recognize themselves, within their marriage and their lives. The same way John says, Lace, you okay? when he enters a room, without seeming to expect or need an answer. The way Lacey reaches up to check her hair a few times an hour. The way his aunt places the condiments in the door of the fridge, and John moves them to the top shelf.

“Did you have to take me in?” he asks.

Their faces turn to him. Lacey’s freckles darken. A line crosses John’s forehead.

“I mean, is it the law, because you’re my only relatives?”

“I don’t know if it’s the law,” Lacey says, and looks at her husband.

“There was no question,” John says. “There was no other possible outcome. We’re your family.”

“Yes,” Lacey says, but as her freckles lighten, Edward realizes she’s on the verge of tears. He sees John notice this too and press his hand over hers.

“My leg hurts,” he says. “May I be excused?”

“Of course,” John says.

Eventually, the square of window over the couch grows dark, and then darker. John stands in the doorway of the living room and says, “It’s bedtime, kiddo. Can I help you upstairs?”

Edward says the same thing he’s said the last two nights: “My leg … The stairs make me nervous. Would it be okay if I just stayed down here again?”

“Sure.” Moments later, Lacey appears with blankets and a pillow and murmurs good night into his ear. Edward listens to their footsteps on the stairs, and then their bedroom door clicks shut. He stands up, walks to the front door, opens it, and hobbles outside.

He crosses the lawn and his aunt and uncle’s driveway. He’s slow in his movements. It’s ten o’clock. The nighttime air feels soft against his cheek and makes the hairs stand up on his arms. Edward registers that the suburbs’ night sounds are very different from the city’s. Here, there is a wall of quiet set in front of warbling creatures, rustling leaves, and distant car engines. He drags across another lawn and climbs the front steps of a house that looks, in the shadows, almost identical to the one he came from.