Dear Edward(86)

He fills her in, and she punctuates each piece of paper she’s handed with a small “Oh my.”

They gather around the kitchen table. The two letters and the check are now on the table, and because of their shapes and location they look like two placemats and a napkin.

“You told me the details once,” Edward says. “Am I right that each victim’s family got one million dollars from insurance and that I’ll get five million when I turn twenty-one?”

“That’s correct,” John says.

“So Benjamin Stillman’s grandmother got one million dollars, for instance.”

Lacey scrunches up her face at the name—she hasn’t memorized the roster of the plane like the other three have—but doesn’t say anything.

Edward has been working with his uncle to complete the information in the folder. The collaboration had been John’s idea. He’d approached Edward one afternoon and said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said in the garage. I think we should finish documenting everyone on the plane, to make sure everyone is—as you said—seen. I like that idea very much.” He gave his nephew a shy look. “Would you help me finish the job?”

Edward told John everything he knew about the passengers on the flight. About the red-haired doctor going into first class to help someone. About his conversation with Benjamin. About the woman with the bells on her skirt, and Gary’s girlfriend. Even about Mark and Veronica sharing a bathroom. While Edward talked, John took notes and added the information to the back of the relevant photos.

When John wrote the description onto the reverse of Florida’s photograph, he’d said, “You know, I was in touch with her husband, and he told me that Florida believed in reincarnation, believed that she’d already had hundreds of lives. The husband—I believe his name was Bobby—sold his house after the crash and bought a camper, and now he’s driving around the country looking for her in her new incarnation.”

Edward’s first thought had been that if they could find a photograph of Florida in her new body, they could add that photo to the folder too. Then he shook his head, and when he looked at his uncle, he saw that John was thinking the exact same thing. They shared their new smile—one that had emerged when they started working together—which confirmed their mutual craziness and the fact that they didn’t care.

John says, “Lolly Stillman got a million dollars, yes. Why do you ask?”

The four of them are standing shoulder to shoulder, looking down at the correspondence, the check, the arrival and exit of Jax Lassio. Edward feels his shoulders soften with relief at having handed over another secret to his aunt and uncle. He no longer has any interest in secrets.

Before bed, Edward sprays the fern and checks the soil, adding a tablespoon of new dirt from the bag underneath the table. Principal Arundhi had told him that he wanted Edward to keep the kangaroo paw forever. “Ferns aren’t meant to be bounced around,” he’d said, with a mournful tug on his mustache. “You’ve cared for him long enough that you’re now his home.”

Edward brushes his teeth, flosses, puts on the sweatpants he wears as pajamas. He checks the fern one last time before climbing into bed. In the slow motion of these movements, an idea arrives in his head, fully formed. He could use Jax’s money to give Principal Arundhi several truly rare and expensive ferns, to refill his collection. The idea makes Edward smile into his pillow.

The letter from Tahiti had saddened him, but it had also been a relief. It felt like a piece of punctuation in a run-on sentence. Edward can move forward. The truth was that he’d always been uncomfortable with the money from Jax, mostly because it made no sense. Jax must have known that Edward had been given insurance money after the crash; he must have known that Edward didn’t need money. After the crash, it was perhaps the last thing Edward did need. But Jax had chosen to give it to him anyway. Maybe Edward can give it away in the same spirit? Just give it away simply because, and to whom, it feels right?

Ferns for Principal Arundhi feel right. Maybe Edward could even arrange for a greenhouse to be built behind the man’s house and filled with plants. Edward starts to smile and finds that he is already smiling. It occurs to him that Mrs. Cox, in particular, would think this was pure insanity. She believed that money was a building block to create more money, a tool to be utilized in building a life of prosperity. She believed in philanthropy—giving to specific, prestigious entities like museums—but she would never condone this kind of frivolity. And, though he would never criticize her directly, Edward knows from the delight bubbling through him that he, and this frivolity, are on the right track.

Who else can he give to? Who else feels right, even if it doesn’t make sense? Edward could give to the people who suffered from the crash but weren’t compensated by the airline and insurance company. He could pay for Shay’s college tuition, which Besa can’t afford. Mahira’s too. He could give Gary money for his whale research—Gary wasn’t Linda’s spouse, so he never received a check. He would like to give Benjamin’s grandmother money, even though she received an insurance payment. She could give the amount away however she saw fit.

He can hear Shay’s voice say: Don’t forget about my nun and the three kids in the first letter we read.

Who else? What else?

His body grows heavy on the mattress; his eyes are closing. He’s falling asleep. His last thought is that he has to find a way for the gifts to be anonymous and untraceable to him. Otherwise, he is an asshole.