Dear Edward(75)

He reads a series of letters with more demands on how he should live. Fulfill every dream. My son was afraid to fail and so never joined a band. Don’t be afraid to take risks.

My daughter was lazy and put her dreams off because she thought she had nothing but time. Then she got on a plane to visit her sister in Los Angeles. She told me she would start working hard after her trip. Think of how much your mama must miss you, and make her proud.

I’m sorry for rambling—I’ve been in the Jack Daniel’s—but my lady was the love of my life and she was in pastry school because she had a gift for pastry. I wish you could have tried her beignets. They were fucking fantastic. Figure out what your gift is, Edward Adler, and then blow that shit up. You owe my lady that.

Usually, Edward experiences these kinds of letters as a crushing weight on his chest. Today, though, eating his brother’s sandwich, with Shay at his side, he feels a shot of Jordan’s crinkly, excited energy. Jordan was always looking for the opportunity to say, Fuck no. To defy their dad’s expectations and curfews, to opt out when everyone else was opting in. Edward never had that inclination, but he feels like he’s ingesting it with the hummus. Fuck no? he thinks, and it’s the first time he’s considered it as an option. Fuck no, to the people telling him how to live.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and writes a text to Mrs. Cox. I’m really sorry, but I haven’t read the investing book. I tried to, but the subject isn’t interesting to me, so I couldn’t get through it. Shay and I have really enjoyed the biographies you’ve sent, though. I hope you’re not disappointed.

When he sends the text, Edward immediately feels lighter. He’s felt guilty about his silence over the book since he received it. He pulls another letter out of the bag.

Hey, Edward,

My mother died a long time ago of depression and my brother, Mark, even though he crashed in your goddamn plane, would have died of depression eventually too. All I ever knew was that I wasn’t going to go that way, and that’s why I surf and smoke and don’t own anything that doesn’t fit inside my van. If I don’t love it, I don’t keep it.

Mark left me all his money in his will, even though we hadn’t spoken in three years, which was a kind of fuck-you to the way I’ve chosen to live my life. He wanted to saddle me with millions—after I paid off his ridiculous debts—so I would have to buy a house and a Benz and some fancy vases to fill my empty shelves. He wanted me to be like him, which just means rich and miserable and always in credit-card debt, but I’m not doing that. I’m giving the whole fuckload away. The insurance money too. Well, after I fix the back left tire on my van and buy a new board.

My girl is a Buddhist, and she’s always saying thank you to the beach and to the waves and the sunset. I used to think it was all woo-woo bullshit, but I like listening to her talk. I’ve caught myself thanking a tree once or twice. I’ve decided that even though it’s bullshit, it’s the good kind.

Anyway, she tells me to say thank you to Mark, because his death set me free all over again. Made me realize how important my chosen life is. But I think instead I’m going to say thank you to you, kid. Thank you for receiving this letter. Thank you for your life, and for being the one that was saved.

I’ve enclosed a check for the amount I got from the will and the insurance guys. I want you to have it. You can keep it, or give it away, whatever you want. I don’t care what you do. You deserve it, man, after what you’ve been through. And I got no use for it at all.

So, thank you, and peace, brother.

Jax Lassio

The postmark on the envelope says that he mailed the letter almost two years earlier, and there’s a check enclosed, made out to Edward Adler, for $7,300,000.

“Uh,” Edward says.

“What?” Shay takes the letter from him. She reads quickly, and her mouth falls open.

He studies the rectangular check and the numbers written on it.

“Hold it up to the light,” Shay says. “They always do that in movies. I don’t know why.”

Edward lifts his arm. Framed by the window, it’s still a check, with the same impossible number of zeros.

“Holy shit,” Shay says. “Holy shit. Do you think it’s a joke?”

“No.” Edward flips open the folder and finds Mark Lassio’s photograph. The man’s brash grin makes him look like someone who expects to be on magazine covers. Edward remembers Mark leaving the bathroom before the flight attendant. He hadn’t been grinning, but he’d looked satisfied, as if that had been another magazine spread, as if he was where he wanted to be. Gross, Eddie had said to Jordan. How was it possible that Edward was now in a net that contained that man and his brother?

“You don’t even need the money,” Shay says, behind him. “This is insane.”

When the school loudspeaker summons Edward to the principal’s office the next afternoon, Edward assumes Principal Arundhi figured out that he’d skipped school. On the way through the halls, Edward looks for Shay, wanting to tell her that this was her fault; they are a package deal, so the double absence was glaringly obvious, and they have been caught.

Principal Arundhi meets him at the door. A watering can dangles from his hand at an odd angle, as if it were a cigarette, and his suit looks like it’s been slept in.

“What’s wrong?” Edward says. This has to be more than him missing school; the principal looks like a seam that’s been picked apart.