Until the Day I Die(53)

“Jeez!” Rhys exclaims.

“Why didn’t you mention that earlier?” Lowell cries.

“I don’t know.”

“You think somebody might’ve taken it?” Rhys asks. “The people messing around on Jax?”

“I don’t know,” I repeat. “I’ve looked everywhere for it. But it doesn’t make any sense. None. My father was never without his monthly journal. He wrote everything in it. Everything—his weekly plans, his to-do lists. Even poems he thought my mom would like. He couldn’t function without his journal. I used to make fun of him.” I feel my face grow red, my heart throb. “An IT guy, toting around his analog diary.”

We fall silent.

After a moment, Rhys speaks. “If your dad noticed anything amiss in the servers, he would’ve made a note of it, right?”

“Maybe. Hard to say for sure. That kind of thing wasn’t always important enough for him to deal with. A lot of times he’d get somebody else, another programmer or an intern, to deal with it. He might’ve even kicked it over to me, as an assignment.” My stomach does a little flip. “Wait a second. The message. Maybe he mentioned it there.”

“What? He messaged you?” Rhys says. “Through Jax?”

“Yeah, when he was setting up my budget. It was the day before he died, and I . . . I just couldn’t . . .” I shake my head, embarrassed.

The room has gone silent, all except for the wheezing from the fridge back in the kitchen. I look down at my phone. Open Jax. Take a deep breath and click on the unread message.

“Shorie, that’s a private thing,” Rhys says. “The last message from your dad. You don’t have to do this right now. Right here, with us.”

“It’s okay.”

I hope I’m right. I hope I won’t lose my shit right here in front of Rhys and Lowell. But even if I do, I’ve got to open the damn thing; avoiding the inevitable is just becoming stupid. And it may reveal something I haven’t thought of yet.

Dated March 19, the message starts the way all Dad’s notes and cards and letters to me always do. Shorie, my sweet . . . And it’s long. I take a deep breath, lightheaded, terrified, and exhilarated all at once. I scan the first part.

“He set up a couple of special allocations for me. Emergency, car, extra medical.”

He’d also instructed me not to connect with men I didn’t personally know—fairly standard Dad advice—and gave me a mini-lecture about birth control. But I wasn’t about to reveal that.

“It’s mostly details about Jax,” I say. “Working on my budget—a college student’s budget that includes a scholarship—has got him going back and tinkering with the original algorithm he created.”

“Is that it?” Rhys asks.

“No,” I say. There’s more.

I feel myself going wobbly inside, and I order myself not to cry.

Shorie, my sweet, one last thing. I’ve been trying to write you a letter . . .

The air in my lungs whooshes out of me, so fast I nearly faint.

“Are you okay?” Rhys asks me.

I nod, inhale deeply, and read silently. . . . but I’ve been having trouble with it. I know at some point, I’ll give up on trying to say the perfect thing to you before you leave home and go off to school. But the damn thing’s like a wonky piece of code that I just can’t get right, and you know how I am about those . . .

My vision is suddenly obscured. When I wipe my eyes, my fingers come away wet.

Anyway, one day I’ll finish, but I wanted to tell you, if the letter is lame, it’s because there’s no way to express exactly what you mean to me. I’ll keep trying. Love, Dad.

I sit quietly, staring at the message.

Rhys finally speaks. “Shorie?”

I look up. Unbidden tears swim up and spill out; then to make matters worse, my nose starts running. Rhys’s expression changes, but I can’t tell if he’s feeling awkward or regretful that he didn’t push me to wait—or if he’s just remembering how much he misses his dad too. It doesn’t really matter, I think. The only thing that feels important right now is what I just read.

“He was writing me a letter,” I say. The tears are overflowing now, and I can’t care. I just can’t.

“I’m so sorry, Shorie,” Rhys says. “But I’m glad too.” And he does seem really sad and also glad. Not like someone who’s been tasked with spying on me.

I start crying even harder.

Rhys touches my hand. “We’ll help you figure this out. We’ll do what we can.”





29

PERRY’S JOURNAL

Sunday, March 10

TO DO:

Haircut—ask for Cindy this time, NOT GARRETT

Mercedes Marathon with Layton?

$5,000—transfer to Mom’s bank account (Set up lunch or dinner with them to talk about finances)

New Error Message—Shorie assignment—take a look at it and write up fix? New process? Glitch?

WORK ON SHORIE LETTER!!



Drink to me only with thine eye-openers, And I will pledge with minicab;

Or leave a kitty but in the curate,

And I’ll not look for winning.

(for Erin—or Foxy Cat, Ben Jonson, “Song: To Celia,” N+7) I’ll not look for winning . . . nice.