Love Edy by Shewanda Pugh Page B

the
time. Tall ones, short ones, smart ones, dumb ones—a lot of girls
who weren’t Edy. It was time he called them back.
    It was time Hassan proved
to himself what his parents insisted all along: that there was
someone out there for him. Someone other than Edy
Phelps.

Eight
     
    Winter ripped in harsh. Stark, snow
blinding, arctic glacial days bled to mind numbing nights, resolute
in unyielding bleakness. Even the thin, scattered clouds seemed
iced, a mirror of the permafrost blanketing the city. Keeping warm
became a perpetual task of diligence, with thickly layered clothes,
puffy coats, hats, scarves, mittens and lumberjack boots the only
things keeping Edy alive.
    Thanksgiving loomed, and along with it, her
birthday. Early Monday morning, the Phelps’ phone shrieked. At a
wink past six, Edy stumbled from bathroom to hall, grasping for
bearings as no one but her seemed able to hear it. Slippered feet
dragging, fist rubbing her eye, she got to the call, mumbled a
hello, and received word that the secretary of state would be put
on the line.
    She tore out for her father, yelling for him
as she went. Seconds later, she stood in the doorway of her
parents’ bedroom with her father’s back to her as he picked up the
phone in his room. Her mother, ill content to sit on the edge of
the bed, paced before Edy’s father, arms crossed, body rigid with
the tenseness of the moment.
    They could turn on the television, Edy
supposed. No doubt, whatever had roused the secretary of state
herself would be cause for snippets of burning things, bold
flashing headlines, and grasping reporters speculating and
retracting in the same breath. Mother and daughter exchanged a look
of trepidation. They could go downstairs, or, they could wait for
the real news, right there, in their very own home. This was what
it meant to be a Phelps, right here in the flesh.
    The conversation dragged on without leaving
much to piece together. Lots of nods and simple affirmations,
confirmation that he could leave immediately. The federal
government seeking her father’s counsel wasn’t new; he’d advised on
the pitfalls of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan, on the
intersection of human resource deficiencies and human rights in the
Middle East, and most recently, as a special adviser at a U.N.
conference on least developed countries.
    But none of those calls had come at six
a.m.
    Edy’s mother must have had the same thought,
as she began pulling suits from the closet, shoes from the rack,
ties from the drawer, and barking at Edy to help lend a hand.
Though she had no idea what to do, Edy stepped forward; never brave
enough to question her mother’s direct instruction.
    Husband and wife communicated through brief
glimpses and slight turns of the head, enough for her to know when
a shirt or pair of shoes was undesirable. She tossed things to Edy,
who folded them neatly, only to have her mother fuss and refold
them. Edy’s fingers fumbled with the truth of what her mother’s
shaking hands meant: that they were ushering her father toward
someplace even she wasn’t certain about.
    Finally, the call ended.
    “Egypt,” he said. “There’s complete and
utter chaos. Again. People have taken to the streets, rioting and
immolating themselves in a violent rebellion of government.”
    “So?” Edy blurted.
    She didn’t mean “so” as in “so what if
people are dying.” She meant “so, what can her father do?”
    “Their democracy is decomposing. As a
scholar, I’m obligated to discover why and aid my government
whenever called.”
    That. That endless need to be a Phelps. As
if anyone knew what that meant.
    “I’ve seen those places on TV,” Edy said.
“When order breaks down, they fix it by shooting everyone.”
    “Edith,” her father said. “That’s a tad
overwrought.”
    Only a tad? Well, good.
    He’d been to dangerous places before, but
after conditions settled and once troops were brought in—certainly
not before breaking news could