But when the store’s not busy, I sit down and I open to a search engine and I want to type in Whit’s name so bad I could cry. I want to know he’s okay. But I’m afraid, every Web site you visit on that machine is recorded in a file somewhere in the world, I’m sure of it, and having made myself vanish again I don’t want to risk it. I would for him and him alone. Because if I know he’s okay, will that be enough? Will I keep from e-mailing him? Or phoning him? Did he get the two-plus million out of the account? Is he having fun with his share or did he give it all away to charity out of pointless guilt? I won’t ever know.
The temptation is like hunger, hell, starvation of the worst sort. Because you imagine that the barest crumb would keep you going.
But I don’t. For weeks and weeks, I don’t. Then I get an idea. I log on using Doris’ account (her password was ‘doris,’ for God’s sakes), go to the Web site for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. I don’t search by Whit’s name on the archives, I search for ‘justice of the peace.’ How many are there in the Coastal Bend? Not many, right?
I find articles on him. Still in office, conducting a death inquest on a homicide over in Laurel Point. A mention in a story on Babe’s passing, dated two weeks ago. Babe gone. Whit grieving bad, I know, I’m aching to hold him now.
So Whit’s safe. He stayed in office. I didn’t ruin him. He’s tough like me.
But it made me miss him more, bad enough where I felt sick and I went home early and lay on my bed. I could buy one of those prepaid call cards. Pay cash. Make it impossible to trace. Let him know I’m okay, hear his voice for a minute.
But no. He let me walk away when I needed to and it’s not fair, me opening the door again. Let it be shut. Let me be strong to keep it shut. He doesn’t need me.
At night I rent the movies. Caddyshack and Monty Python and all those Woody Allen ones full of jokes only New Yorkers and Whit get. I pretend he and I are sitting together, sharing popcorn, watching the movies. It is all I’m gonna get now.
And it has to be enough.