Dear Edward(83)

The letter he read this morning was a very short, almost incomprehensible note from the wife of the co-pilot. In it, she tells the story of how she and her husband met in college and how sorry she is that he made a mistake in the cockpit. She ends with: My husband killed 191 people. Can you imagine what it’s like to be me?

Out of all the letters Edward has read, this is the only one he’s certain shouldn’t have been sent. Her husband killed his family. How could she think it was okay to write and ask him for … what? Validation? Empathy? He should be angry at her, he thinks, but he’s not. She had nothing to do with what happened, and she was left behind too. Besides, whether Edward likes it or not, he can imagine what it’s like to be her. He can imagine the crush of guilt, the fractured metal airplane that must lie on this woman whenever she tries to sleep.

He’s in the middle of the main hallway at school; he looks around at the throng of teenagers. Social studies begins in three minutes; they’re studying the French Revolution. He knows his peers in that class are hoping to ace this semester so they have a better chance of being accepted into AP History next year, not because they’re interested in history, but because the best colleges expect students to take at least three advanced placement classes. There’s an exit door at the end of the hallway, and Edward slips through it.

He walks toward the main street, feeling the school drift, cloud-like, behind him. He feels bad that Shay will be confused, and concerned, when she realizes he’s not in social studies, and then not in school at all. But he keeps walking anyway. When he’s on the next bus into the city, he texts Mahira for the address of the tarot-card reader.

Aren’t you supposed to be in school? she texts back.

Yes.

Ha. She sends the address and then adds, Remember, it’s all bullshit.

He takes a taxi to the location, which is on a tree-lined side street on the Upper East Side. Edward climbs out of the taxi on the corner and has the thought that he’s traveled more miles in the last six months than in the prior three years combined. It’s as if he turned his brother’s age and Jordan shoved him into motion. He’s propelled now, toward what he does not exactly know.

Edward spots the purple lamp in the window first, before he sees the street number over the door. It’s a ground-floor window in a medium-sized apartment building. There’s a small white sign with black lettering in the lower right corner of the window. The sign reads: FUTURES TOLD BY MADAME VICTORY, BUZZER 1A.

This is bullshit, he thinks, and feels a searing hopelessness again. He stands on the far side of the street and decides, I’ll write back to the co-pilot’s wife when I get home. I’ll tell her that I understand. This decision allows Edward to move, to cross the street, climb the steps, and ring the buzzer.

He hears a click, and pushes through the building’s two front doors. He finds himself in a lobby with a green rug and wallpaper covered with leaves. The door to his left is partly ajar. He pushes it the rest of the way open.

“Hello?” he says. He’s in what looks like a dingy dining room. There’s a round wooden table with four chairs around it. A bureau against one wall. A tapestry against the far wall in the style of the Renaissance; it shows a unicorn on its hind legs inside a corral. Flowers decorate the air around the corral. Edward remembers watching an animated movie about a unicorn when he was very young, and becoming, for a time, obsessed with the mythical animal. Part of his obsession stemmed from the fact that his parents, who prided themselves on separating fact and fiction for the boys, seemed uncomfortable when he asked if unicorns were real. Maybe? his mother had said. Maybe they were real, a long time ago?

“One second, sweetheart,” a woman’s voice says. Edward hears bells and looks toward the window, where a metal wind chime is quivering. Had the woman’s voice set it off? He gets goosebumps on his arms, and then she’s in front of him.

She’s tall—at least six feet—and has a colorful wrap around her hair. She has tan skin, brown eyes, and a generous smile. She’s wearing a bright-yellow skirt and a zipped-up hoodie sweatshirt.

“Sit down, handsome,” she says, waving at one of the chairs. “Fifteen minutes with Madame Victory costs thirty dollars in cash, just so you are aware.”

“Okay,” Edward says, but he hesitates before sitting down, because his body is on high alert. The chimes still ring from the corner, though less wildly now. He can’t quite decipher the message his body is sending him; he’s experiencing it as a surge of adrenaline: Be careful; danger; leave. But he sinks into the chair, anyway.

Madame Victory sits down across the table. “Would you prefer a tarot-card or a palm reading?”

“I don’t know.”

She looks him in the face for the first time. He has trouble meeting her eyes but also can’t look away. The adrenaline in his body hasn’t faded. The chimes clatter as if a two-year-old were playing with them. Edward shifts in his chair, trying to find a comfortable position. She’s doing this to him; he knows that, but he doesn’t know why. His brain thinks, Do I know you? But of course he doesn’t know her.

“Hmm,” she says. “I’d like to look at your palm. Give me your hand please, darling.”

He extends his arm, skinny despite the weights he lifts. He’s shaking slightly. It occurs to him how intimate this is, offering your hand to another person. When she takes his hand, her skin is dry and warm.