Dear Edward(34)

“Oh.” Lacey scans him up and down, and her face changes. “You don’t … I understand. Of course.”

“I’m on it,” Shay calls from the middle of a tower of cardboard. “I’ll find the clothes, pronto.”

That night, Edward lies on the sleeping bag in his own plaid pajama pants and his brother’s red T-shirt. He has already put the clothes Lacey bought him into a bag; he will wear them only if he has to, every once in a while, to make his aunt happy. Otherwise, he will wear clothes that fit and suit him. Clothes already worn and that smell faintly of Jordan.

He listens to Shay read, so exhausted that he is unable to separate himself from the experience. They’re making their way through the Harry Potter series; every night Shay reads a chapter aloud.

“Hey,” Shay says, at the end of a paragraph.

“Hey,” Edward says sleepily.

“Did your scar hurt when you saw the boxes?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” She doesn’t look discouraged. “When you encounter something important, you’ll feel it,” she says. “I know you will.”

Edward closes his eyes. He listens to Shay’s voice; she’s a good reader, her voice dramatic in the right places, lower when it’s more effective. Jordan used to read to him too. Not regularly, but when he came to a particularly funny or scary passage of a novel, he’d repeat it aloud. The pajamas are so soft against Edward’s skin that, when he lies perfectly still, he can pretend he’s the same boy who used to sleep in a bunk bed beneath his brother.

One morning, his aunt says, “Was there a warm coat in those boxes?” This is how Edward finds out it’s almost winter. He goes to the closet and pulls out Jordan’s orange parka. It’s far too big for him, but the long sleeves double as mittens, and the hood covers most of his face, which he likes. He tries to avoid knowledge of the seasons passing. First fall alone, gone. First winter alone, here. His birthday, Christmas and Hanukkah—his family celebrated both, to some degree—rapidly approaching. Dr. Mike tells him that the experience of time passing without noticing is called a fugue state. “It’s common in trauma victims,” he says. “They lose track of hours, sometimes days. They live their lives, but their brains don’t seem to register the experiences. It’s like the brain doesn’t take note; it’s not paying attention.”

“I’d like to be in a fugue state every day.”

Dr. Mike shrugs and says, “If I could give you one that would take you through the holiday season, I would.”

This type of kindness makes Edward want to cry, but crying doesn’t come easily to him. He has rarely cried since the hospital; his tears seem lodged in his head, unsure of which pipe to exit through. In their place is a sinus ache. He rubs the bridge of his nose now. “Can we stop?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Last week you told me that Jordan should have survived instead of you. Why do you think that?”

Edward’s whole body groans, though no sound comes out of his mouth. Leaves on the tree outside the window, which were bright red during his last appointment, have faded and are curling up on themselves. Some have already fallen to the ground.

Edward can feel Dr. Mike looking at him. “Because,” he says.

“Because why?”

Edward thinks, Why are you pushing me?

Dr. Mike touches the rim of his cap. Edward knows now that this is not a signal; it’s just a habit. The man does it without thinking.

He says, “I’m sorry, Edward. But I can’t let you shut down anymore. Out there, yes. But not in here.”

I could leave, Edward thinks. But he says, in a voice that sounds annoyed, “Jordan was a real person.… He knew who he was. People liked him. He was already doing things. Important things. Like he did at the airport when he opted out of the scanner. He stopped eating meat …” Edward trails off.

“You were twelve when the plane crashed,” Dr. Mike says. “Jordan was fifteen. That’s a crucial difference in age. Was your brother opting out of security checks when he was twelve?”

Edward thinks for a second. “No.”

“You get to choose a lot of what you do when you’re fifteen, Edward. You’re still only twelve. Because of what you’ve survived, you’re already more interesting than your brother. People want to talk to you, don’t they?”

This is true. Edward visits the principal’s office every Wednesday afternoon, and while he hoists an old blue watering can from one pot to the next, Principal Arundhi tells him the names and history of each plant. The short boy in his science lab told him, while they were dissecting frogs, that he wants to be an opera singer when he grows up. The school secretary, when he was submitting paperwork to the office, told him that she was born in Georgia and that she and her sister had fed two wild alligators every afternoon after school. “They liked Wonder Bread best,” she said. The girl with the locker next to his told him that she has a six-year-old sister who has never spoken out loud.

Dr. Mike says, “They want to share something extraordinary about themselves, because you’ve experienced something extraordinary.”

Edward doesn’t say anything in reply, because he has no response. The doctor has told him something true. He will not waste time arguing the point.