Dear Edward(79)

“I got your letter,” he says. “I didn’t know. About you and my brother.”

She nods, calmer; she’s reined herself in. “I figured not.” She looks at Shay. “I’m Mahira,” she says. “Can I take those items? You look uncomfortable.”

Shay walks forward and awkwardly places the food on the counter. “I’m Edward’s friend,” she says. “Shay.”

Mahira’s forehead wrinkles. “Edward?” she says. “I thought you went by …”

“You can call me Eddie,” he says. “If you want.”

The door bangs open behind them, and they turn in that direction. A man in a UPS uniform drops three large boxes on the floor. He says, “See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” Mahira calls, and the man is gone. But almost immediately the door swings open again, and a woman pushes a stroller into the deli. She talks to her baby in a low singsong voice and heads straight for the shelf with the diapers.

Shay says, “Um, do you live here?”

“In the apartment upstairs.” Mahira points at the ceiling. She says, “And you’re in New Jersey now. Are the aunt and uncle you live with nice? Is it okay?”

“Yes,” Edward says. “They’re nice.”

The woman with the stroller is at the counter now, and Shay and Edward shuffle out of the way. She shoots them a quick glance while fishing her wallet out of her bag. The look seems to say: What suspicious behavior are you teens up to?

Edward looks at the baby in the stroller and finds the baby staring back at him. He has giant blue eyes, fat cheeks, and is completely bald. Still staring at Edward, the baby sticks most of his hand in his mouth and makes a blowing sound. He pulls his fingers out and grins.

“You’re very cute,” Shay says, in a polite voice.

The woman finishes paying, stuffs the package of diapers under the stroller, and shoves the baby away from them, out the jangling door.

“Maybe I’ll close up for a few minutes so we can have an actual conversation without half the neighborhood walking in,” Mahira says. “There’s a busybody who comes at the same time every afternoon and buys a pack of gum; I think she’s reporting on me to my uncle. It would be good to avoid her.”

She flips the sign on the door from OPEN to CLOSED and turns two heavy locks. “You’re fifteen now?” she says.

Edward studies the locks. He wishes the door was still open. He would like escape to be an easy possibility, as opposed to an awkward challenge. He nods. “You were fifteen when you were dating my brother.”

Dating my brother. The words sound impossible in the air.

Mahira walks to the counter and leans against it. “You do look like him,” she says. “But your voice is different. Your eyes too.”

Edward feels an ache that runs the length of him and he knows it’s on behalf of Jordan. His brother should be here now. If he were Jordan, he would walk up to the counter and hug her. Should he do that for his brother now?

He glances at Shay. Shay is solid. Shay is real. She’s standing by a rack of different-flavored potato chips. She’s watching the two of them with the same face she uses while studying for a test.

Mahira says, “Are you wearing … Was that your brother’s coat?”

Edward looks down at the orange parka. It fits him perfectly now but is worn on the elbows and seams. Lacey has been threatening to replace it. “Yes,” he says. “I have all his clothes.”

“Of course. That makes sense.” Her voice is level, but her eyes change, shine.

Edward wants to make this a normal conversation, between normal people. Even though he knows that’s not possible. “You said in your letter that you’re taking a gap year?”

Mahira nods. “I think I’m going to start at Hunter in the fall; it’s only a few blocks away, and it’s cheap. I’m a science person,” she says. “I always have been, and it’s important to my uncle that I become an engineer.”

Edward has no idea what kind of person he is. He feels lit up with pain and somehow knows that Mahira feels the same way. Jordan stands between them, a repository of longing created by their proximity. Not a ghost, a longing. Me plus Mahira equals missing Jordan, Edward thinks. But the word missing doesn’t say enough. The name Jordan doesn’t say enough.

The shimmering Jordan, carrying all of their loss, says to Edward: Stop talking about bullshit.

Edward says: “How did you find out about the crash? Where were you when you found out?”

He has been careful to collect this information from the people in his life. Edward thinks of it as plotting points on a graph, arresting the location of each person during a single moment. John saw news of the crash on Twitter almost immediately. He’d been in the middle of an IT job at a retail company, but when he saw the headline he packed up his bag and phoned Lacey from the parking lot. He wasn’t sure it was the same flight, and he stayed on the phone with Lacey while she checked her last email with her sister, the one with the information about their travel plans. Shay had been reading the third book of Anne of Green Gables on her bed when she heard the phone ring and heard her mother call out in Spanish. She and Besa had watched the crash footage on the television in the living room with the volume turned up so they could hear the reporter over Besa’s sobs. Mrs. Cox had been at the 92nd Street Y, listening to a talk on the legacy of Eleanor Roosevelt, when her chauffeur had tapped her on the arm. She’d followed him into the lobby, and he showed her the news on his phone. Dr. Mike had been in a session when the plane crashed and didn’t find out until later, when he turned on the radio in his car.