Dear Edward

by Ann Napolitano

Edward lays the tablet down. He regards it for a minute. Numbers are never random, his father would say. They like patterns and meaning.

Edward spends every night reaching for unconsciousness as if it were a rock in the middle of a river, while a fierce current pulls him away. His fingertips sometimes brush the rock, and he manages a nap. Never a full night’s rest.

“I’m not ready for this,” she says. “This,” Florida says. She thinks: This is the subject that defines women. Having babies. Will you have them? Can you have them? Do you want to have them? “You’ll be fine,” Florida says, calling on her experience as a performer to shine confidence at the young girl, but her skepticism must have leaked through, because there it is, all over Linda’s face.

His fingers feel different, and no music has played in his head since the crash. It’s not something he’s consciously thought about, but he realizes now that he’d been waiting for the music to return, like a dog that escaped its leash. But it hasn’t, and it won’t. It’s gone. Eddie was musical; Edward is not.

He’s been sucker-punched by memories of his brother. This happens sometimes, and he knows he has to ride the memories out. The only way out of it is through it. He remembers Jordan above him on the top bunk, his head half-buried in his pillow. He remembers Jordan’s face when he wrote music, his brow furrowed in concentration. He sees Jordan beside him on the plane and knows that the smallest, truest reason he will never fly again is that the last airplane seat he ever sits in has to be the one beside his brother.