Dear Edward: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

setting. “How long have you been hearing it?”
    The boy considers. “Since I woke up.”
    The neurologist is summoned. He orders new tests and an MRI of Edward’s brain. He has white eyebrows and no other visible hair, and every day he cups Edward’s face in his hand while he stares deep into his eyes, as if there’s information there only he can read.
    The neurologist calls Lacey and John into the hall. “The truth is,” he says, “that if ten different people went through exactly the same trauma as this child—were banged around, pitched at a tremendous velocity, and then jolted to a stop—they would all have different symptoms.” He raises his white eyebrows for emphasis. “Traumatic brain injury is invisible to most of our measuring tools, so I can’t tell you with any certainty what Edward is going through or will go through in the future.” He focuses his attention on Lacey. “Imagine I grabbed you by the shoulders and shook you as hard as I could. When I let go, you might not be technically injured—no muscles pulled, et cetera—but your body would feel the trauma. Right? That’s how it is for Edward. He may have odd symptoms over the next few months, even years. Things like depression, anxiety, panic; his senses of balance, hearing, and smell may all be affected.” The doctor glances at his watch. “Any questions?”
    John and Lacey look at each other. Everything, including language, seems to have splintered and fallen apart at their feet. Any questions?
    Finally, John says, “Not right now,” and Lacey shakes her head.
----
    —
    The nurse wakes the boy up in the middle of the night to take his blood pressure and temperature. She says, “Are you okay?” The bald doctor always leads with, “How’s the pain?” When his aunt arrives each morning, she smooths his hair off his forehead and says, in a low whisper, “How’re you doing?”
    Edward is unable to answer any of these questions. He can’t consider how he’s feeling; that door is far too dangerous to open. He tries to stay away from thoughts and emotions, as if they’re furniture he can skirt past in a room. When the nurse leaves the TV on the cartoon channel, he watches it. His mouth is always dry, and the clicking in his ear comes and goes. Sometimes he is awake but not awake, and hours go by without him noticing. He’ll have a breakfast tray across his lap, and then the light’s fading outside.
    He doesn’t like his daily walk, which isn’t actually a walk, since he’s in a wheelchair. “You need a change of scenery,” the nurse with dreadlocks tells him each weekday. The weekend nurse, who has blond hair so long it almost touches her bottom, doesn’t say anything. She just loads him into the wheelchair and pushes him into the hallway.
    This is where the people wait. The hall is lined with them. Sick people, also in wheelchairs, or standing weakly in doorways. The nurses try to shoo them back into their rooms. “Don’t clog the corridor,” a male nurse shouts. “This is a fire hazard. Give the boy some space.”
    An old man makes the sign of the cross, and so does a dark-skinned woman with an IV in her arm. A redheaded teenager, the age of Jordan, nods at him, his eyes curious. So many eyes stare at Edward that the scene looks like a Picasso painting: hundreds of eyeballs, and then a smattering of limbs and hairstyles. An old woman reaches out to touch his hand as he passes. “God has blessed you.”
    The worst are the criers. Edward tries not to look, but their sobs thunder like organ notes and suck up the available air. It feels unkind that they are shoving their emotions at him when his own sadness and fear are so vast that he has to hide from them. The tears of these strangers sting against his raw skin. His ears click and people hold handkerchiefs to their mouths and then the nurse reaches the end of the corridor and the mechanical door slides open and they are outside. He looks down at his busted legs, to