Dear Edward(84)

“You are familiar to me,” she says.

“My friend comes to see you.” He’s aware, of course, that Mahira is not his friend, but whatever she is has no tolerable name. His dead-brother’s-girlfriend-whom-he-never-knew-about? The other-one-who-loved-Jordan?

Madame Victory nods, as if she already knew that. She studies his hand. She touches the middle of his palm with her index finger. “Eddie,” she whispers.

He wonders if perhaps he heard her incorrectly. “Excuse me?”

She doesn’t repeat herself, so he says, “Did Mahira tell you I was coming?”

“Mahira?” She shakes her head. She touches the mound under each of his fingers and thumb. “I don’t usually ask my clients this,” she says, “but, sweetheart, what would you like to hear?”

“What do you mean?” He’s confused. “I thought you were going to tell me my future.… Are there other options?”

She doesn’t respond. Bent over his hand, she doesn’t look at him.

“I want to know what to do,” he hears himself say, and, like the decision to write to the co-pilot’s wife, the statement is a relief. He wants to know what to do.

She taps the center of his hand. “That’s easy. The same thing we all must do. Take stock of who we are, and what we have, and then use it for good.”

He replays this in his mind. He listens to it through, more than once, then says, “But you could tell anyone that.”

She smiles. “Indeed I could. I would like to tell everyone that. Unfortunately, everyone does not come to see me. But you did, and you are of an age, and a history, that makes my advice particularly relevant.”

Edward feels his phone buzz in his pocket, and knows that school has ended for the day. Shay is texting: Where are you? Are you okay? He says, “There are these steps for what you’re supposed to do: You figure out what you want to study, and then go to the best college you can get into. And then go to the best graduate school. And then get the best job.”

This makes Madame Victory’s face light up, and Edward watches as the light shines out of her skin and she starts to laugh: a giant, warm, bubbling sound that fills the room. She tips her head back, puts her free hand on her belly. The wind chime in the corner weighs in. Edward can’t help but laugh in response. He hears himself give a new chuckle, one he hasn’t heard himself make before.

When her laughter slows, the light dims slightly, and she says, “You’re very cerebral, Eddie, aren’t you?”

“Edward. Could you please tell me how you know my name?”

“What you need to realize, sweet boy, is that the thicket you’re trying to walk through isn’t cerebral in nature. It’s not a math puzzle you can reason out. You need a different kind of wisdom to extract yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s been fifteen minutes,” she says, in a changed tone.

“I’ll pay for another fifteen.”

“Impossible today, I’m afraid. I have a standing appointment. You may come again, if you like.” She is still holding his hand; now she covers it with her own, and a feeling of warmth travels into his skin and up his arm. “I am tempted,” she says, and it sounds like she’s talking to herself, “to give you some mushrooms.”

“Mushrooms?” Edward pictures the button mushrooms that grow between the roots of the tree in John and Lacey’s backyard.

“Psilocybe semilanceata,” she says. “They would open you up to the different kinds of wisdom I mentioned. But, no, I’m not going to do that. You’re capable of opening up on your own, Eddie. I trust you to see yourself all the way there.”

“I don’t understand,” Edward says.

She smiles. “Understanding is overrated.”

Madame Victory is standing now, so Edward stands too. The chimes ring out in the corner. He pulls his wallet out of his pocket.

She shakes her head, then comes closer. He can feel the warmth he’d felt from her hand coming off her entire body. She smells of cinnamon. “I won’t charge for the first session. It’s a gift.”

Madame Victory takes his arm and walks him to the door. Just before she opens it, she leans in and says into his ear, “There was no reason for what happened to you, Eddie. You could have died; you just didn’t. It was dumb luck. Nobody chose you for anything. Which means, truly, that you can do anything.”

And then the door is open and he’s moving through it and then he’s standing in the middle of the lobby, which he realizes has been decorated to look like a forest.





2:09 P.M.

The pilot raises his voice for the first time. “Check your speed!”

The plane is climbing at a blistering rate of seven thousand feet per minute. While it’s gaining altitude, it’s losing speed, until it’s crawling along at only 93 knots, a speed more typical of a small Cessna than an airliner.

The pilot: “Pay attention to your speed. Pay attention to your speed.”

The co-pilot: “Okay, okay, I’m descending.”

Pilot: “Stabilize.”

Thanks to the effects of the anti-icing system, one of the pitot tubes begins to work again. The cockpit displays once again show valid speed information.

“Here we go, we’re descending.”