Dear Edward(55)

She takes his arm, as if she has some right to it, and places two fingers on the inside of his wrist. He lets her, because, along with the ability to subtract, his physical strength is gone.

“Thready pulse,” she says, under her breath.

He nods, or maybe he doesn’t actually nod but he nods on the inside, in agreement. He is thready. He’s threading in and out of whatever and wherever this is.

“Are you cold, Mr. Cox?”

Yes, he thinks. I am freezing cold. And I am no longer young. And I am alone in the sky, headed to where I do not know.

When her seatmate returns, Jane is amused by the difference in energy between him and her husband.

The skin on Mark’s face appears chapped and ruddy, as if he’s been out for a walk in rough weather. He fidgets and clicks the end of his pen on and off. Bruce had sat quietly beside her. She’d had to look in his eyes to guess his thoughts; there were no external clues.

“I think it’s hailing,” she says, indicating the window.

“That’s crazy. It’s summer.”

She nods and stares out at the gray blur of cloud and precipitation. She wonders if the weather is trying to warn her off. Turn back, it might be saying. Write your love story. Live smaller, on less. You could move near Lacey, like she’s always wanted. Raise your babies together.

But it had turned out that Lacey wasn’t able to have babies. Jane had been surprised, each time, by how upset she was when her sister miscarried. She’d hidden her sadness from Lacey, of course, but when her sister became pregnant again, Jane felt her body flood with excitement. There would be a brand-new person in their family, and a baby for her boys to dote on. She became almost dizzy with joy at the prospect. A new baby to love. Balancing the rush of hope, though, was fear at what her sister might lose in the process.

Jane had said into the phone: There are other ways to make a family. Do you want me to research adoption agencies, or surrogacy? But Lacey had refused to stop trying to get pregnant, and Jane certainly wasn’t going to move next door to her sister to watch her kill herself. Besides, she would hate the suburbs, the Super Bowl parties, the weird looks people would give her family for their homeschooling and dangerous opinions. Bruce would alienate people by showing up uninvited at local education meetings to debate the merits of the mass education of children.

“Goddammit,” Mark says. “I can’t focus.”

“It’s because it’s the middle of the flight,” Jane says. “I always get hopeless in the middle. When you still have hours in front of you and hours behind you. You feel stuck.”

Mark turns to look at her. “That makes sense.” He clicks his pen and says, “How long have you been married?”

She smiles with surprise. “Let’s see … sixteen years.”

“Fuck. That’s a long time. And you never cheated?”

What a strange conversation, Jane thinks. But perhaps people in first class are always more open with each other, because they assume they have so much in common?

“No.”

He shakes his head. “Fuck.”

“Are you married?”

“I was once, for about ten minutes.”

“Was that a fun mistake?”

“Ha.” The laugh is a bark. “Yeah, it kind of was. Too much cocaine, though.”

“Ah.” Jane has never taken cocaine, never married the wrong person, never fallen for a flight attendant. She feels a pang of regret. She would not like to be this man, with his scratchy energy, but she wishes she had perhaps taken a detour or two in her own journey. She has always moved with deliberation.

Now that Jordan seems to have his fists raised at the world, she wishes she could say to her son, I can relate. I spent one November in Seattle protesting the WTO. But she can’t. Her version of fist-raising has been to read articles in The Nation and nod emphatically. There can be merit, she thinks, in a life of messiness. She and Bruce live a tidy life. Even her greatest ambition—writing a small, personal, intimate film—is neat and tidy.

Mark rubs his eyes and looks around, no doubt for the flight attendant.

Jane cranes her head too, in an effort to help.





December 2015

Edward checks the tree outside Dr. Mike’s office. Its gray bark is traced with deep rivulets. The branches look like they’ll never grow leaves. A bird alights on a branch and almost immediately helicopters away.

Dr. Mike says, “Can you tell me what’s going on in there? If I know what the problem is, maybe I can help.”

Edward has stopped trying to control his thoughts, so each one is a small surprise. He hears the ornate clock on the desk tick forward and thinks, I miss Jordan more than ever.

“Edward?” Dr. Mike says.

“I know they want me to come here twice a week,” he says. “But I think that’s a waste of your time.”

“You collapsed outside your aunt and uncle’s house.”

“Three months ago. It really wasn’t a big deal.”

“If it had been colder outside, you could have frozen to death. It is a big deal.”

“I wouldn’t have died.”

“How do you know?”

Edward watches the branch, hoping the bird will corkscrew back to its spot, but the air and the tree remain still. The empty space feels appropriate, though. Edward sleeps in empty space now, alone. He walks around all day, alone, even if Shay is with him. He considers telling the therapist that even though Shay is still his friend, their deeper connection—which he’d always known was his oxygen—has been slowly dying ever since he told her to back off in the gym. Shay is so strong that when she has to, she will break free and find air elsewhere, but he knows that he’s not strong like her and that this was already his second chance. Edward understands that when whatever’s between him and Shay finally dies, what’s alive inside him will be done too.