Dear Edward(64)

He rereads the same sentence for the fourth time and thinks, But they won’t actually be her lips. How has this not occurred to him before? He doesn’t want to kiss just any girl. It has to be the right one—at least he assumes this is true. He has, after all, never kissed anyone other than Mahira. Jordan straightens in his chair, in order to be taller than his brother and father. The L.A. sunshine suddenly looks white and bland. The bikinied girls look white and bland. Mahira had chosen him, and he had been lucky. What if his luck has run out or was tied to New York City and her?

“Dad,” Eddie says, “remember how you told us that every whole number can be written as a product of prime numbers?”

Bruce nods.

“Why is that? I mean, that’s super weird, isn’t it? That it works for every single number?”

Their father regards Eddie. “You’re asking me why it’s true?”

I want to turn this plane around, Jordan thinks. He feels punctured, stupid, young. He can feel the falseness of his actions. He drew attention to himself by opting out in the security line. He drew attention to himself by ordering a vegan airplane meal. He drew attention to himself every time he flouted his father’s curfews and rules. He hadn’t kissed Mahira; she had kissed him. It had been her idea, not his, and it was the one part of his life that had been secret and genuine. Otherwise, apart from her, he is a blowhard, a showman, playacting at real life. Jordan misses her in a new, more acute way. The feeling twists like hot metal in his chest. She had been at the core of him—maybe she was the core of him?—and he hadn’t appreciated that until now.

“That’s a great question,” Bruce says. “But I don’t know the answer. I mean, why is anything true?”

Jordan shuts his novel.

“You tired, buddy?” his father says.

He thinks: I’ll text Mahira when I land. I’ll tell her what I feel.

“Look,” Eddie says, excitement in his voice, “the rain has stopped.”





January 2016

Edward and Shay end up having to wait to open the duffel bags until after the holidays, because Besa is—as Shay puts it—batshit crazy about Christmas and New Year’s, which means she more or less stops sleeping for the duration, so they can’t safely visit the garage. At 2:00 A.M. Besa was likely to be in the kitchen baking polvorones de canela or mulling wine. She would move to the living room at some point, take a short nap on the couch, and then commence with wrapping presents or redecorating the Christmas tree. Before her cousins arrived on New Year’s, she draped the dining room walls with red, yellow, green, and white streamers—each color solicited a different kind of luck—and baked buns called pan dulce. At midnight on New Year’s Eve, she opened the front door and swept out the previous year’s bad luck with a broom.

“Is she like this every year?” Edward asked, because he had no memory of Besa attacking the holidays in this manner. Shay nodded wearily, while building a tall stack of cookies to bring to her room, where she hid for as much of each day as possible.

Edward’s sleep worsened over the holiday period, which he attributed to a diet of mostly sugar and the frustration of not being able to visit the garage. Dark circles appeared beneath his eyes, and his aunt told him that if he didn’t look less terrible soon, she would bring him to the doctor. In an effort to wear his body out, Edward forced himself to eat kale, drink Sleepytime tea before bed, and lift the dumbbells he kept in the basement. Each day he considered stealing one of Lacey’s sleeping pills, thinking that they would solve the problem, but the strength of the pills scared him. He worried that if he swallowed one, he might never wake up.

On the first Monday back to school—even though he’s relieved that life has returned to normal and he and Shay can visit the garage that night—he’s half asleep through every class. He trudges to Principal Arundhi’s office when the final bell rings, to see how the ferns fared over the break. He picks up his watering can from its usual spot inside the door.

“Happy New Year, Edward,” the principal says.

“Happy New Year.” The words are hard to get out of Edward’s mouth; they jumble like marbles for a moment in his throat. He realizes how little he’s spoken that day.

While studying the stem of a spider fern, the principal says, “I’ve been meaning to ask you, what would you think about joining the math club?”

Edward blinks. “Me? Uh, I guess I’ve never thought about math club.”

“You’re a fine natural mathematician. Perhaps you should consider it.”

“No, thank you.”

“How about debate, then, or is there a sport you like? I fancied fencing when I was young, but I’ve never been able to muster enough interest for a fencing club here.” The principal’s mustache droops for a moment, as if in memory of that failure.

Edward focuses on watering in a slow, steady circle around the periphery of the fern, and then a smaller circle at the base of the stem.

“I just think, Edward, that it might be good for you to join a group of some kind. To broaden your circle. Humans need community, for our emotional health. We need connection, a sense of belonging. We are not built to thrive in isolation.”

“I’m not isolated,” Edward says. “I have my aunt and uncle. And Shay.”