Dear Edward(87)

2:10 P.M.

The plane has climbed to 2,512 feet above its initial altitude, and although it’s still ascending at a dangerously high rate, it is flying within its acceptable envelope. But the co-pilot once again increases his backward pressure on the stick, raising the nose of the plane and bleeding off speed. None of the pilots who later study Flight 2977’s black-box recording can believe that a trained pilot repeated the mistake at this point. But he did.

The stall alarm sounds.

“Pay attention,” the pilot says.

“Okay.”

Maybe the pilots ignore the alarm because they believe it’s impossible for them to stall the airplane. It’s not an entirely unreasonable idea. This is a fly-by-wire plane; the control inputs are fed directly to a computer, which in turn commands actuators that move the rudder, elevator, ailerons, and flaps. The vast majority of the time, the computer operates within what’s known as “normal law,” which means that the computer will not enact any control movements that would cause the plane to leave its flight envelope. The flight-control computer under normal law will not allow an aircraft to stall.

But once the computer loses its airspeed data, it disconnects the autopilot and switches from normal law to “alternate law,” a regimen with far fewer restrictions on what a pilot can do. In alternate law, pilots can stall an airplane. And the co-pilot, by pulling back on the stick, is doing exactly that.

“What’s happening?” the old lady next to Benjamin asks him. “What in the world is going on?”

She looks up at him with wide eyes. Her left hand is gripping his arm, a fact he doesn’t think she’s aware of.

“It’s turbulence, ma’am. It happens.”

The plane gives two hops, a sound like hard suitcases being slammed against the ground. Benjamin whistles slightly, under his breath. He thinks, I do not want to die with this old white lady hanging on my arm. Please, God.

“I have fourteen children,” she says.

“Fourteen?”

She’s happy to have surprised him. “Well, only nine are still alive.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Do you have a mother?” she asks.

Bam. The plane hops again. “No, ma’am. I don’t.”

“Oh.” She looks disappointed.

He glances at the family across the aisle. Little Eddie looks terrified, gripping his brother’s hand. Benjamin feels a small localized softening inside him, and thinks, Poor kid. The thought almost makes him tear up, and he realizes that his sympathy extends beyond the child across the aisle, back in time to himself, when he was Eddie’s age. Poor kid.

He says, “A family that big must have been a lot of work.”

“It was. You’re a man, so you’ll never know work that hard. It’s reserved solely for the women.”

The plane skitters sideways, and he thinks, We’re off course.

“My oldest daughter is picking me up at the airport. I’m going to live with her. I have a plan.”

“It’s good to have a plan.”

“This is going to be my retirement,” she says. “I’m going to put my feet up, read magazines, and drink gin and tonics.” She purses her lips. “I could use one now.”

Benjamin glances again at the family across the aisle. He thinks of Gavin, eyes smiling behind his glasses. He thinks of resigning from the army, folding his uniform into a trunk and locking it shut. He thinks of fitting together puzzle pieces at the kitchen table with Lolly. Kissing a man behind the 7-Eleven down the street.

At school and at camp he woke to: Boots on the ground, soldier! He had one commanding officer who liked to mix things up by entering the barracks predawn and shouting: Where’s the enemy?

These had been his wake-up calls, his alarm clocks, his calls to action for most of his life. Where is the enemy? he wonders. He feels a great sadness. This old lady’s idea of putting her feet up is anathema to him. He will stay alert. He will keep his boots on the ground.





July 2016

The summer before tenth grade, Edward and Shay are counselors at the town’s day camp. Edward is put in charge of the oldest group of campers, and on the first morning he stands in front of a cluster of twelve-year-old boys. He’s about to introduce himself and call attendance, when something inside him judders.

He looks at one boy, and then another. He meets their eyes, one set brown under a mop of hair, one set blue. About half of the boys have arranged their hair to hide their faces, but Edward looks past these carefully arranged curtains. Their eyes hold something. He doesn’t know what it is, but he can’t look away.

“My mom said you were in a plane crash,” one boy says.

“Yes, I was.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes. It hurt a lot.”

The boys laugh at this. Edward realizes that these boys are the same age he was when he crashed. He was broken open when he was twelve, but there’s something broken open in these boys’ eyes too.

“Is something wrong?” a boy asks.

“No. Get in height order.”

They bustle into motion, bumping each other with their backpacks. He doesn’t need them in height order. He’s just buying time. He watches them shuffle and duck into place.