A few years back, the district attorney’s office had promoted June to senior litigator. She had always had a rare gift of being able to think on her feet and out-argue anyone who dared to lock horns with her, including Martin. She lived by the law of black and white—there was right and there was wrong, no room for an in-between. If you did wrong, she would prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law, with vigor. Martin categorized her as an extreme Type A, reserved but tenacious, professional yet at times unyielding.
“It’s the career, Martin,” she’d argue. “Being detached and methodical is a job requirement.”
As her career took her further up, it also took her further from home and family. Martin had been at the same drugstore for 22 years. He knew the names and the faces of his customers. He knew their preferences, the names of their grandchildren, and even their finances to a degree. To him, that was loyalty, quality and customer service. That was success.
“You can be so much more than that,” June had said, during one of their many arguments. “Why do you want to be a bump on a log?”
“Because, June, that log is what people rely on! I am not just the guy who gives out pills! Some of these people need that conversation and that stability in their lives. I can be that for them.”
“But what about you, Martin? What about your life? Don’t you want more?”
“No, I don’t. I think what I’ve got is pretty damn great. I don’t want any more!”
“Well, I do!”
She had fared far better than he had, when it came to dealing with Maggie’s death. She could cut off emotions when she needed to, and she had a bustling career and a circle of close friends to keep her elevated. For the first time in his life, Martin was jealous of June’s “gotta go, gotta run, gotta do something” style. He knew it left little time for wallowing in grief.
And, deep down, he knew she was right. He needed to let them go, both his wife and his daughter, and he needed to strive for something. It was the first step in trying to make his life whole again. Could something as simple as writing a letter be that helpful? His father would’ve thought so.
Martin had grown up along with Suffolk, Virginia. He’d watch it grow from a sleepy rural town into a good-sized, modern city, complete with an active “downtown revitalization” program. By the time he was born, his father was already known as one of the most successful peanut growers in the state. Robert Abingdon had thousands of acres to manage, with several large crews of young farmhands, all eager to learn the secrets to their employer’s success.
Each year, during the spring planting season, Robert would pack up the whole family and join other area farmers in a simple prayer service to ask for rain. This greatly frustrated Martin. The weather was warming up, and the catfish in the pond near their farmhouse were itching to munch on his homemade dough-ball bait. The last place he wanted to be was church.
When Martin was eight-years old, on the way to a mid-week service, he asked: “Daddy, why do we have to go ask God for rain? It’s not like it’s dollars or something we can spend.”
His father chuckled, removed his pipe, and replied: “Martin, to a starving man, bread is gold. To a cold man, a blanket is money. And to our crops of goober peas, water is better than any dollars we could hope for. Water grows ‘em, keeps ‘em fresh and gets us our blankets, our bread. It also pays for them fancy steel hooks for a certain someone’s fishing rod.”
Martin flushed, embarrassed that the reason for his questioning was so obvious.
“What you need, and why you need it, is all a matter of perspective in this world, son.”
Even at that young age, Martin had known that this was something to remember. He pondered it and smiled, like he was smiling now, remembering nearly 50 years ago. “And to a grieving father, closure is gold,” he said aloud. “Thanks Dad.”
He pulled the keyboard toward him and typed in the address for the Say Goodbye to Me website. As soon as it loaded, he began his letter.
Maggie,
This world got a little dimmer when you left it behind. You put the light and color in my world. I know you are in a better place, but I am in a worse place without you here with us. Your mother says we have to move on. I know she’s right. But I don’t know how. Even though you were already out of the nest, this house still seems too quiet. Not having you here at the moment isn’t nearly as bad as knowing that you will never be here again. I miss your smile. I miss your laugh and the way you could always see the good in things.
I don’t understand how this could’ve happened to you. Why didn’t you talk to us? How could we have been so blind as to miss it? I know you didn’t plan for this to happen, but that doesn’t help much with the pain.
I have to say goodbye now. I know that. But I don’t know how to do that. I can write it down here: GOODBYE. But does that do anything? I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to see if I feel any better once I send this.
Regardless of all that, I want you to know that I will love you always. I will carry you and our happiest memories in my heart. Whenever the day seems too dark or too long, I will pull out those happy memories and smile. I’ll think of you. I love you Maggie.
Love,
Dad
He scanned the message and pressed SUBMIT. Then he stood up from the computer desk and went to find his keys and wallet. He had a sudden urge for some Virginia peanuts.
Chapter 19
“That was weird,” said Susan Nikko, hanging up the phone.
“What? Who was it?” her husband asked, half-listening.
“It was Sharon, from Abby’s school.”
“The busybody that works in the office?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What’d she want?”
“She said some strange preacher showed up today, asking for Abby.”
“What? Seriously?” he asked, muting the TV. “Who was he? What did he want?”
“According to her, he didn’t say, Jack,” Susan frowned. “When Sharon questioned whether he had our permission, he basically said never mind.”
“He didn’t say what church he was from or anything?”
“No. He said he was ‘here to see her’ or ‘here for her;’ or something like that.”
“That is weird. I know we got some house calls and stuff like that right after Zack died, but it seems a little late for that now. And at school? That’s weird,” Jack said.
“That’s not all,” said Susan. “Sharon said he was totally creepy.”
“Creepy how?”
“Well, she said he smiled real wide, like he was in on some secret joke. And when she picked up the phone to call us to see if we had given our permission, he put his hand over hers, it was like a block of ice.”
“Hmmm,” Jack said, stroking his chin and feigning deep concern. “So a preacher shows up, smiles and has cold hands, and she thinks it’s suddenly creepy?”
“Jack, I’m serious! I’ve seen this five-foot tall woman dominate twelfth-grade boys with just an evil glare. She was freaked out, and I think she was genuinely scared. Her voice was still trembling just now as she was telling me about it.”
“Okay, babe,” said Jack, putting his hands up, “I admit, it does sound a little weird. But I don’t think we need to call the cops in yet. Look, we’ll ask Abby about it when she gets home tonight, okay?”
“Okay. But maybe I should call her and ask her if everything is all right. Y’know, just to be safe?”
“Susan, don’t. Sweetie look, she’s out with her friends, hopefully relaxing a bit. She needs it. If you call and ask about some preacher, she is instantly going to think about Zack, regardless of why the guy was there. She needs a break.”
Susan moaned and put the phone back.
“Fine,” she said, “but I am going to ask her about it as soon as she gets home.”
“Good. I agree. We will, okay? Promise.”
“Okay. I am worried about her, Jack. She doesn’t sleep, she hardly eats, and she’s like a zombie som
etimes.”
“I know, Sweetie.”
He pulled her closer and kissed her forehead, putting his arms around her. “I see it too. We are going to keep her safe, I swear it. But it’s like the counselor said—we have to know when to push and when to let it go.
“I know, I know,” she said, sniffling. “She is all we’ve got left, and I want her to be okay.”
“She will be, Sweetie,” he said, squeezing her into his chest. “She will be. I promise.”
Chapter 20
Six hours after he left his office, Steve still had nothing to show for his efforts. A well-known internet hosting company owned www.saygoodbyetome.com. Only the employees in that company knew how to contact the actual owner, and Steve knew there was no way they would provide that information without a court order.
All he learned from the search of the domain name itself was that someone had registered it several months before Julie’s death (which made him second-guess his theory that he was being specifically targeted) and that it was set to expire 15 years after it was registered. The phone number, address and contact info about the technical and billing contact for the domain name all pointed to the hosting company—a dead end for now.
He put the technical search aside and then spent time using the search engines to find references to the site itself. He searched for “say goodbye to me website” and “say goodbye to me.” Although the latter produced nearly 10 million results, none were useful. He scanned the results for the first 22 pages and gave up. The phrase was used in songs, love poems and even news articles, but nothing seemed to link to the website. It appeared that the only way to get to the site was to enter the address directly into the web browser. This was another bizarre twist on the typical scamming website, which usually was well-linked and well-advertised.
Dead end after dead end was not what he had expected to find. His only other thought was to go back to the site itself and see if there were any type of clue he might have missed. But software and coding were not his best skills. He ran the site’s domain name through several filtering programs, and all of them came back with a clean bill of health. So, once again, he logged in.
The same bland, black and white form he’d seen and used the night before greeted him. Say Goodbye to Me in tall, plain letters covered the top of the page, followed by the simple tagline: “A chance to tell them how you feel, even though they’re gone.” Further down the page was the date, a To: field a From: field and a Subject line. Rounding out the page was an open text box, the one into which Steve had poured his heart last night. Below the text box was a tiny, unassuming button with the word SUBMIT on it, and below that, a simple horizontal line marked the end of the page. That was it—nothing to scroll to, nothing to see. He decided to peek under the hood and viewed the source code for the page. As he expected, it was very simple. No metadata explained who had created the page or why. A few lines of code formatted the text, and another line pointed the form to a computer script that Steve knew captured the data someone submitted and sent it to a predefined email address, which of course wasn’t visible on the page or even here in the code. That info was stored securely back on the server that hosted the website, and it was not accessible from here. He followed the rest of the code down the page until he came to the last line. It read:
On Tenterhooks Page 9