600 Hours of Edward

Jay L. Lamb’s office, letters correcting me for mistakes made in taking care of the house. I count eighteen of them as she reads them and dismissively tosses them back on Jay L. Lamb’s desk, one at a time.
    “I just can’t believe this,” she says. “How dare you? How dare you, Jay?”
    “Maureen, please, I was acting on behalf of my client.”
    “It’s absurd. It’s positively ridiculous. Did you never think to tell Ted that he was being an idiot for doing this?”
    “Maureen, he was trying to protect everybody—you, him, and of course, Edward. I don’t know. A lot of it seemed to make sense at the time. Ted wanted to separate his duties as a father from his duties as a legal benefactor.”
    “It makes no sense to me. This is his son. If he wanted to talk to his son, he should have just talked to his son.”
    I have never seen my mother so worked up about anything.
    “Point taken, Maureen.”
    “I can’t believe this,” she says, shaking her head. “I can’t believe this was going on and I had no idea about it.”
    – • –
    Eventually, my mother cools off, and she even apologizes to Jay L. Lamb, telling him, “Ted did a lot of dumb things he shouldn’t have done, and I guess I failed in not knowing what some of them were. I understand that you were just doing your job, Jay. But listen to me: Never again. You do what you’ve been hired by this family to do. I will do the talking to Edward. Do you understand me?”
    “Yes, Maureen, I do.”
    “OK, then. Edward, let’s go.”
    We’re heading to the door when Jay L. Lamb says, “Oh, one more thing. I nearly forgot. Edward, this is for you.”
    Jay L. Lamb hands me an envelope with my name written in across the front: “Edward.”
    “What’s this?”
    “It’s from your father. Read it when you get home.”
    – • –
    Because I don’t like Jay L. Lamb telling me what to do—in fact, my mother just instructed him not to do that anymore—I wait until I’m in the parking lot to open the envelope from my father. I turn the ignition far enough to get the stereo playing, and it’sone of my favorite R.E.M. songs playing on the CD I have in the player.
    I fish out the contents of the envelope, and it’s a two-page handwritten letter from my father, in his precise block letters that, when I was a child, I would try to emulate in my own penmanship. I could never do it.
    Dear Edward,
    As I write this letter to you, I do so with the hope that you never have to read it. For one thing, if you’re reading it, it means that I have died. More than that, it means that I did not get a chance to do in life what I’ll do now.
    You have been a challenging man and a challenging son, Edward, and I have not always performed admirably in my role as your father. I never quite figured out how to deal with your mental illness. For a long time, I tried to convince myself that I had tried my best. But I know the truth: I never tried hard enough. When I sent you away from the house in 2000, I did so out of anger and exasperation—I felt like your illness was overwhelming me and that episodes like the Garth Brooks incident were exposing the family to ridicule. I was selfish, Edward. I put myself before you.
    But then something wonderful happened: You thrived in your little house there on Clark, and Dr. Buckley made great progress with you. I was so happy about that, but I was also so sad, because I knew that I had thrown you out of the house and you weren’t coming back. You wouldn’t have wanted to, and I wouldn’t have known how to ask you.
    So even though you got better, you and I got worse. And I need you to know this, Edward: It’s not your fault.It’s mine. I can write this letter and say that, knowing that you aren’t going to be reading it any time soon, but I cannot bring myself to say these words to you in real life. I’ve tried. I am weak. I will keep trying. It will break my heart if you have to read this.
    Edward, I love you. I am proud of you. I know that life can be challenging for you and that it’s sometimes easier to retreat to a place where no one can intrude on you. I understand that. But you have been a great gift to your mother and me. You are a beautiful, gentle, sweet man, and I am proud to be your father.
    You’re the sunshine of my life, Edward, as the song goes. If I never got to tell you when I was alive, I am telling you now.
    I love you, son.
    Ted Stanton
    June 7, 2006
    R.E.M. is telling me that everybody hurts. I