Dear Edward(88)

Is it the age?

Is it the moment in time right before you leave childhood?

He swims with them that afternoon. If he could have kept them out of the lake, he would have, but swimming is a nonnegotiable part of the camp schedule. He lectures them on safety before they enter the water. “No roughhousing. Focus on your stroke. You know who your buddy is, right? Keep an eye on him and no one else. We’ll swim to the yellow buoy and back. No detours, no distractions. You hear me?”

Within fifty yards he’s confident that all the campers are capable swimmers, which is a relief, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be an accident or mistake. He powers past the boys on the flanks, checking their faces to make sure they’re not struggling. The boys pivot their wet heads toward him and smile.

That night he says to Shay, “I think I want to be a teacher. Seventh-grade math, probably.”

She laughs, then notices his expression. “You’re serious?”

“I think so.”

“So many kids with braces and acne,” she says. “Everyone is a mess at that age. Do you remember my stupid bangs?”

“Kind of.”

“Why would you want to spend your life with twelve-year-olds?”

“Maybe I can help them. When I was twelve, you watched me. You had a notepad just for writing down what you noticed, remember? Maybe everyone needs that kind of attention at that age. I could get a notepad.”

She considers him, the dimple deep in her cheek.

He thinks, She’s still carrying that notepad.

Edward spends the next weekend helping John turn the nursery into a home office. The single bed and rocking chair have been donated, and they paint the walls the specific shade of off-white that Lacey selected. John and Edward mumble expletives while trying to force an Ikea desk into shape with hex keys and various screws and bolts. Behind them, Lacey pushes the green armchair from one corner of the room to the other, trying to get a feel for which position promotes the best feng shui. When a corner is finally chosen, the bookcase, packed with Westerns, is set carefully beside it.

The garage was cleaned out a few weeks earlier. The letters have all been collated; the ones Edward wants to keep are stored beneath his bed in the basement. John closed the P.O. box in town, and all mail now comes to the house. Cleaning out this room is the last step.

They’re exhausted and sweaty when the room is done, but Edward, John, and Lacey bunch in the doorway. They regard the new space with amazement, as if it is a total surprise, and not the result of their labor.

On a Friday evening near the end of the summer, Shay and Edward walk down to the lake after dinner. The teenagers settle, cross-legged, onto the soft grass. They’re in sight of where Edward swims every day with his campers. It’s a particularly beautiful summer evening, and the lake shines like a coin under the setting sun.

“Two weeks until school,” Shay says.

Edward studies the shimmering lake, with trees darkening behind it. “The first day I got here,” he says, “John brought me up to the nursery and showed me this lake out the window. And then I didn’t see it again for a long time, because I never went upstairs. But I remember him saying that we might go swimming in the lake when I felt better, and how that felt about as likely as going to the moon.”

Shay wraps her arms around her knees. “You were so weak and skinny back then, you could hardly walk to the end of the block.”

“I swam in the lake almost every day this summer.” Edward feels no sense of accomplishment at this. Just wonder at left turns and moonscapes in his life. Tarot-card readers, heartbreaking letters, a new friendship with his uncle, lake swims. It’s all equally unexpected.

“I didn’t tell my mother we were coming down here.” Shay lies back onto the grass.

“She wouldn’t care.”

“I care.”

Edward smiles at the fact that Shay doesn’t want to share any life experiences—big or small—with her mother. Life continues to be a tug of war between the two women, a battle Edward doesn’t understand but enjoys watching. His brother had shared a tension with their father too. Had Edward simply been too young to engage in this primordial battle? He can only imagine turning toward his mom and dad, embracing them. He missed the chance to experience a more complicated relationship, and right now he feels another sting of loss.

“I don’t know what temperature the air is,” Shay says, “but this is the perfect temperature.”

Edward puts his hand out, to assess the air himself, and decides she’s right. He lies down on the soft grass. “Shay?” he says.

“Yes?”

He can’t see her. He’s looking up at the dimming sky. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

He laughs, because they’ve never said this out loud before, and that strikes him as ridiculous. He knows that he’s always loved her, and will always love her, even if another plane crashes or a car hits her or she has a heart attack or he gets cancer or an aneurysm ruptures their brains or global warming evaporates the water supply and causes them to join resource militias until they die of hunger or thirst.

“I’m really tired,” Shay says.

“Me too, because of that dumb race. I canoed those kids for three hours.”

“Is canoed a word?”

“Not sure. But I canoed them.”