Dear Edward(85)

“Gently.”

“Yes.”

The co-pilot eases the backward pressure on the stick, and the plane gains speed as its climb becomes more shallow. It accelerates to 223 knots. The stall warning falls silent. For a moment, the pilots are in control. But they’re not communicating well, so the pilot doesn’t know that they’re a hair’s breadth away from total disaster, and the co-pilot doesn’t know that if he never again pulled back on the stick, everything would be fine, and they would land in Los Angeles on schedule.

Mark can’t see Veronica. He is in his seat, fumbling for the loose buckle. Jane is making a funny breathing noise next to him.

“It’s just turbulence.” His voice comes out choppy, knocked around his throat by the jerks of the plane. “Planes never crash because of turbulence. I read that somewhere.”

“I know,” she says. “I just wish I were back with my family.”

Mark remembers being on the plane with Jax and his mother: nine years old, sharing candy bars with his brother, fighting the urge to kick the seat in front of him. Always a struggle to be still.

“I’m a writer,” Jane says. “I have a habit, I guess, where I see all the possibilities in a situation. No matter what, there’s always at least one that’s terrifying.”

“Don’t do that,” he says. “Focus on what’s in front of you.”

But his own attention is split between hoping to see Veronica’s face, and the deal he’s been prepping for in L.A. He’s come up with a closing strategy that’s complex and imbued with a shade of caution, and therefore not his usual style. He can feel his skills sharpening and his capacity growing with each heartbeat. With this deal, he’ll prove his colleagues wrong for thinking he couldn’t work at the highest level without cocaine. He’ll prove the press wrong for thinking he was a flash in the pan. If men like Cox are leaving the world stage, he’s ready to take over. And then Veronica will fuck him; every woman alive will want to fuck him. This—this turbulence, the dead hero across the aisle—none of this can stop him. He cannot be stopped.





May 2016

Out of nowhere, Shay will whisper in Edward’s ear, “Seven million dollars,” while they’re at the grocery store or trying on sneakers at the mall. Each time, he makes a face and says, “Not yet.” The check is stored in the original envelope from Jax and is safely underneath Edward’s bed with the other letters. After school each afternoon, he either lifts weights in the gym or runs a loop around the lake with Shay. If the weather is mild, they end their run at the playground and sit on the swings until their breath returns to normal. Edward does his math homework every day—a first—because a new math teacher had been hired midyear, and the work is finally both challenging and interesting. Deep inside a difficult problem, Edward can sense his father looking over his shoulder, offering strategies.

Edward doesn’t know what he’s waiting for, until it arrives in the mail. It’s one of the Friday letters John brings home from the post office. Edward takes it from his uncle in the front hallway and opens it. He normally waits until he’s alone with Shay, but something about the slant of the writing on the envelope makes him slide open the flap, even though it’s almost dinnertime and John’s standing right in front of him.

Dear Edward,

You should know that Jax talked about you often. The idea of you made him happy. You freed him when he sent you the money. It was important to Jax that it be yours. I have the letter you sent him asking if he was sure, if he wanted it back. He never wanted it back.

He got really into big-wave surfing, so we moved near a famous break point in California last year. He loved it, but he died three months ago. He wiped out on a wave and then disappeared. They found him a couple hours later, with his board leash trapped under some rocks.

The lawyer told me there might be a problem depositing the original check because of Jax’s death, so I’ve enclosed a new check for the same amount. Please don’t write back and say you’re sorry, because there’s nothing to be sorry for. This was not a tragedy. Dying on your couch watching TV by yourself is a tragedy. Dying while doing something you love with every part of your body is magic. I wish you magic, Edward.

Tahiti

Edward looks up from the letter.

“Are you crying?” John says, and at the same moment Shay walks through the front door and Edward says to her, “Jax is dead.”

Shay puts her hands over her mouth. “No. What happened?”

John says, “What’s going on?”

“Hold on.” Edward goes downstairs and gets the first letter from Jax. He hands it to his uncle, who reads it. Then he hands him Tahiti’s letter and the new check.

When John has studied all three, he walks toward the kitchen, and the teenagers follow. Lacey is cooking at the stove. She has earbuds in and is humming. She removes them when they all troop in. The atmosphere in the house has changed since Edward confronted his uncle in the garage. They’re all on the same page, even if that page is in the middle of an ongoing story with an uncertain end. There has been a softening between Lacey and John. A few days earlier, Edward had overheard his aunt call his uncle “Bear” and watched John blush with happiness.

“You won’t believe this,” John says to her now.