Dear Edward(26)

He types in Lacey’s birth year: 1974. The screen shakes its refusal. He tries John’s birth year: 1972. No. There is only one attempt left before it locks and an email is sent to John, checking if he has indeed been struggling with his own device.

Edward lays the tablet down. He regards it for a minute. Numbers are never random, his father would say. They like patterns and meaning.

Edward picks up the tablet again and types in the flight number: 2977.

The screen clears.

A wave of fear surges through Edward, and he stands up from the couch. He leaves the house, pushes through the muggy night air, and climbs the steps to Shay’s house and Shay’s bedroom. When he clatters into her room, she’s at her desk. He hands the tablet to her as if it’s a grenade without a pin.

She accepts it with appropriate gravity. Edward leans over her shoulder and types in the passcode.

They both watch the home page appear. In the lower-right corner, there is a red circle with the words Plane Tree beneath it.

She looks at him, and he nods. She clicks on the symbol, and a list of links appears:

relatives of victims

edward twitter

edward facebook

edward google alerts

notes

She says in a low voice, “Where did you get this?”

“It’s John’s.”

The dimple in her cheek deepens with her frown. “Look,” she says. “I can look up one of these things and read it, and tell you what it says. You don’t have to look yourself. I wouldn’t want to, if I were you.”

Edward crosses the room and sinks down on her bed. In all his visits to this room, he’s never sat on the mattress before. It’s soft and creaks lightly under his weight. He wishes he could lie down, close his eyes, and sleep. But sleep, even in this room, is hard to come by. Edward spends every night reaching for unconsciousness as if it were a rock in the middle of a river, while a fierce current pulls him away. His fingertips sometimes brush the rock, and he manages a nap. Never a full night’s rest.

He whispers, “Is there information about Jordan?”

He can see only the side of Shay’s face. She taps at the screen. “John’s created PDFs with links,” she says. “There’s a Facebook page that was created about Jordan after the crash. By a couple girls, it looks like. I don’t think they knew him. There’s a photo.”

“I want to see.”

She holds the screen up. There is Jordan, beaming in his bright-orange parka. He’s outside the deli near their house. His hair is standing almost completely upright.

“I took that picture,” Edward says.

Shay lowers the screen. “He’s mentioned in the lists of people who died on the plane and as your brother,” she says. “Online and in the newspaper articles about the crash. That’s it.” She takes a breath.

“What?” Edward says, and an unlikely stripe of hope crosses his chest.

“I just clicked on the Google search for your name, and there are over a hundred and twenty thousand results, Edward. One hundred and twenty thousand.”

“Okay.” He doesn’t know what else to say.

“Jordan only has forty-three thousand results.”

“Turn it off,” Edward says. “Please.”

She closes the case, and he’s grateful for her immediate response. He knew there were people outside the house keeping watch for him; it hadn’t occurred to him that the same might be true online, inside every phone, tablet, and computer.

He and Shay get ready for bed, taking turns in the bathroom. Edward’s green toothbrush sits in a glass next to her blue one on the side of the sink.

When he comes out, she’s already unfurled the navy sleeping bag in the middle of the floor. Edward folds down onto it, favoring his damaged leg. “I’ll need to wake up early,” he says. “To get the iPad back before John notices.”

“Would he be mad if he knew?”

Edward considers this. “I don’t think so.”

“Do you think he and Lacey mind that you sleep here?”

He answers without thinking. “Lacey does.”

Shay nods and takes off her glasses, which makes her face look different—bleary and vulnerable. It’s the only moment of the day when she doesn’t look confident, and it’s a moment Edward watches for every evening. Before she can turn out the light, he says, “Where’s your father?”

Shay reaches out for her glasses, but then her hand drops, and she looks in Edward’s direction. It’s clear that she can’t see him, beyond a blurred shape and a collection of colors.

“My father,” she says, and the two words sound awkward in her mouth. “He took off when I was two. I’ve never heard from him. My mom thinks he has a new family, somewhere out West.”

Colorado, Edward thinks, because that is now the West to him. The white walls of the hospital, the lady on crutches, the swimming sensation in his brain. Maybe Shay’s father saw the plane fall out of the sky. He took off, Shay said, while Edward’s family descended.

Shay says, “If he didn’t want us, then I don’t want him.”

“He must be crazy,” Edward says. “To leave you guys.”

“My mom said he only married her to piss off his own mother, who didn’t want him to marry a Mexican.”