Dear Edward(67)

He reads the truth in her shrug. That younger version of Shay was planning to find her father. Out West. He wonders whether it would be for a reconciliation or to tell him off. He guesses a little of both.

He points the flashlight at the bag closest to them. The lock is a horizontal row of four dials with numbers. The correct four-number combination will open it.

Shay flips through the book in her lap. “I think we have to just try every possible combination.”

Edward looks at her. “There are ten thousand.”

“You should do it, then. I’ll get frustrated.”

Edward leans forward and spins one of the dials. It takes a few rotations for him to get a feel for the traction between the numbers and the wheel beneath them. He’s looking for the telltale stickiness that signals the correct digit.

“I wish John had put in carpeting,” Shay says. “This could take forever, and my butt is cold.”

Something occurs to Edward. “Wait a minute,” he says. He stares down at the lock. These four digits were programmed by his uncle, which means they’re not random. “I have an idea.” He spins each of the four dials until the lock reads 2977.

There’s a loud click, and the lock mechanism opens quietly and falls into Edward’s waiting palm.

“You did it,” Shay whispers. She leans forward and unzips the length of the duffel bag. This seems to take a long time, and Edward watches. He’s aware that part of him had not wanted the bags to open. He’d wanted them to remain in the corner, a mystery that enticed Shay but a mystery unanswered. I wonder, instead of I know.

“It is full of paper,” Shay says.

The bag is stuffed with envelopes. Shay picks one up, and Edward reads the handwritten name above the address.

Edward Adler

The letter is unopened. The address is unfamiliar: It’s a P.O. box in town. Edward’s heartbeat notches faster. Who would have written to him? Shay pulls another letter from the bag. It’s also addressed to him, at the same address.

Edward reaches past Shay and pushes his arm into the bag, creating space so he can read several addresses at once. The handwriting is different. The color of the envelopes, the color of the ink, all varied. He picks one out at random and sees that the postmark is for a date two years earlier.

“They’re all addressed to you,” Shay says, in a quiet voice.

Same name, every envelope. So many envelopes.

Adrenaline ignites Edward’s brain and he feels his thoughts shoot forward, beyond his control. He figures something out and says it at the same time. “They don’t get mail here at the house. I’ve never seen any lying around. I guess I figured Lacey got it while I was at school? But all the mail must go to that P.O. box.”

Why? he sees Shay think.

“Because of how upset they got about the binder—they had a big fight—and because of whatever this is,” he says, and waves his hand at the paper rectangles, the stamps, the printed dates. “I guess the other bag must be full of letters too?”

“Do you want me to open one?”

“Wait.”

She studies his face in the dim light.

He thinks, I know the impossible is possible. I’ve seen it, been inside it.

“What?” she whispers.

When he speaks, his voice is small too, as if they’re trying to communicate below a larger, louder conversation, as if to speak now they need a new register. “What if the letters are from my parents and brother and everyone who died on the plane?”

She looks startled. “You mean from their ghosts?”

“Things don’t always have to make sense. Do they? Maybe if you’re open to things not making sense, you get to see more?”

He can read Shay. He always can. Now she looks sad, worried. She knows he wants these letters to be from his parents and brother. She wants the letters to be from them too. But she hasn’t seen the impossible herself. She wasn’t inside the plane when it fell out of the sky. She only saw the aftermath on television, watching beside her mother on a couch.

“I don’t think things always make sense,” she says, her voice so soft the words join the dust atop the shelves around them.

He nods. “Open one.”





1:40 P.M.

There is no true silence on an airplane. The engines drone; air swooshes from vents overhead. There are intermittent coughs, stifled conversations, the hiccup of the beverage cart’s one bad wheel, the clipping shut of the bathroom door, small children and babies putting up an intermittent, righteous wail of protest. The seatbelt and cramped quarters say, Be still. The air says, Listen. More passengers are asleep now than at any other point during the flight. Some cover themselves with a jacket or blanket; like turtles, they withdraw into their shells. Another camp seems to flaunt their vulnerability. They sleep with their faces tilted back, mouths slightly agape. An arm might dangle into the aisle, as if hoping a stranger will reach out and clasp his or her hand.

Veronica sways down the first-class aisle. “Beverage?” She speaks in a singsong whisper, so as not to awaken the sleepers. She makes eye contact with everyone who’s conscious, because eye contact is a crucial ingredient in ensuring that first-class passengers feel special, like they got their money’s worth.

She gives Mark a quick glance, though, and no more. The woman seated beside him asks for a bottle of water.