Dear Edward(58)

He watches himself return the folder to the table. His body, as much as his brain, knows that he can’t do this alone. He plugs the flashlight in next to the door, and runs across the backyard in the direction of Shay’s house. He throws pebbles—the smallest he can find, for fear of waking Besa or breaking the glass—against Shay’s window until she appears, her hair wild, her glasses on.

“What in the world?” she says, once she’s pulled the window open. Her voice is barely loud enough to reach him; she doesn’t want to wake Besa either. “Are you okay?”

“I have something to show you,” he says back, and he feels a wave of relief when her face lights up.

“Hey,” she says, “happy birthday.”

“Oh.” He glances up at the night sky, at the punched-out stars in the black blanket. “It’s after midnight?”

She nods, and he can tell, even though they haven’t spoken about it, that Shay understands that this birthday is different, and more complicated. She’s downstairs two minutes later, wearing sweats, and Edward leads the way to the garage. He feels ridiculous and exhausted, but also giddy, as Shay whispers questions from behind him.

“What made you look in the garage?

“Why were you up at this hour?

“If you were going for walks, why didn’t you get me? I totally would have come.…”

Inside the garage, he points the flashlight at the chair, then the bookcase, the stacks of folders, and the locked duffel bags. He spots a small matching green footstool tucked under the armchair, which he pulls out for himself, while Shay sits down on the chair.

He points at the top folder, and Shay puts it on her lap. She looks down and then up again at Edward.

“What?” he says. “Go ahead, open it.”

“No.” She says the word slowly, as if the syllable is a surprise to her.

“No?”

“I’m not going to open it unless you promise me something.” She pulls herself up straight. “You have to promise to stop being weird. You have to be normal with me from now on. You can’t go back to being all icy and far away tomorrow morning.” She pauses, then says more quietly, “I can’t take it anymore.”

He looks into her eyes, startled. He realizes that they seem unfamiliar and that he hasn’t looked at her eyes for a long time. He’s been looking at the ground, looking away, scuffling inside himself. Edward understands, in that moment, that it’s been him all along, and not her. When Shay had said things were normal between them, she meant it. He’d convinced himself something between them was broken, when in truth the broken thing was him. Edward’s cheeks grow hot. He, alone, had almost destroyed the most important part of his life.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I promise.”

“Good.” She nods. “I’ve missed you, you weirdo.” Shay opens the folder, and he watches her scan the flight list. “Is this what I think it is?”

He presses his hands to his hot cheeks.

She whispers, “You’re not here. What was your seat number?”

“31A.”

When she’s done reading, she lifts the top page aside and reveals a photograph of a blond woman. The woman is leaning forward slightly, smiling at the camera as if she’s trying to please whoever’s behind it. It’s a different photograph than the one Edward saw in the school parking lot, but he still recognizes her. He says, “That’s Gary’s girlfriend.”

“Oh,” Shay murmurs. “Poor Linda.”

Next there’s a photo of an unsmiling Benjamin Stillman in uniform, but Edward stays quiet. He’s never mentioned the soldier to Shay and has no idea how to explain who Benjamin is. How can he say, I only met him for a few minutes, but I think about him at least once a day and want to get strong because of him, without sounding stupid, or crazy?

The following photos are of his family. His mother. His father. Jordan wearing the parka that Edward’s wearing right now. Then there’s a photo of the large woman who had bells on her skirt. She looks like she’s dancing; her arms are in the air. The photographs are so immediate—especially of his family—that Edward feels slightly seasick. It’s a relief when strangers appear. Many of the people look a little familiar but he can’t place them. Maybe he walked by their row on the plane. Maybe they stood in line together for the bathroom. His eyes fall on the rich-looking guy with the slicked hair, whom he does recognize. The man is smiling widely, but he looks a little angry, or mean, like he’s about to tell the photographer what’s wrong with him or her.

Shay turns the photo of the rich guy over, and that’s how they discover that there are notes on the back of each picture. His name: Mark Lassio. His age, presumably at the time of the crash. A list of the names of living relatives, which in his case is only one, a brother named Jax Lassio, with an address in Florida.

There are more than a hundred photographs in the folder, including two official-looking headshots of the pilots: one smiling under a salt-and-pepper mustache; the other, younger pilot somber but handsome. Edward feels their faces take up space inside him, as if the plane is being peopled within his skin. His arms are the wings. His torso, the body of the plane. The men and women file in, one by one.

When they’ve looked at every photo, Shay closes the folder. They sit in the dimness without talking, and then Shay says, “I bet John started putting this together after you came back from D.C.”