Father's Day
For many years, young Stanley Holder believed the worst day of his life was when he found his parakeet, Long John Silver, lying dead on the bottom of its cage. The grieving five-year-old wrapped the bird in Kleenex tissues, put it in a Reebok shoebox and buried it in his back yard beneath a large maple tree. After crying for two full days, he finally dried his tears and went to the pet shop where his mother bought him a new bird: a yellow canary that he named Bruce Wayne in honor of his favorite superhero.
When he was sixteen, Stanley again experienced what he thought was the worst day of his life. At that time his childhood friend, Porter Bridgman, turned seventeen. Porter celebrated his birthday and his new driver's license by taking a car full of classmates out for a ride. An inexperienced driver, he made a sharp turn at a high rate of speed and flipped his father's SUV over. The seventeen-year-old was ejected from the vehicle through the driver's door window and killed instantly.
Although he himself had not been seriously injured in the accident, it was months before Stanley could sleep through the night and not be awakened by dreams of that tragic day. Eventually, though, he made new friends, and Porter Bridgman became a bittersweet memory.
Two more days shook Holder's life and were viewed as two of his worst: the day his father suffered a fatal heart attack and the day his mother lost her battle with breast cancer. However, when his parents died, he was an adult and was thus better able to deal with their passing. True, he still mourned his loss, but by that time he was blessed with a wife and children who gave him the reason to live and the strength to go on.
All in all, if Stanley Holder were to tally the days of his life on a balance sheet, marking the good days in one column and the bad in another, the total in the good column would far outweigh that in the bad. He had to admit that with few exceptions he led a happy life. He was married to a woman he loved deeply, who gave him three strapping, healthy sons. Then when he was thirty-one, his wife gave birth to a blond-haired, blue-eyed angel of a girl. Stanley loved his sons dearly, but there was no denying that his daughter was the apple of his eye.
Then came the year he turned fifty. Only one month after that milestone birthday, there was another worst day in his life. He was diagnosed with cancer, and the prognosis was not good. Stanley tried to keep his illness a secret, but when he began chemotherapy treatments and lost his hair, his condition became obvious.
To his wife and four children, it was no doubt one of the worst days of their lives. They cried when they heard the news but then tried to bolster Stanley's spirits by insisting he could beat the disease. Months of treatment, however, yielded no improvement. Although none of the Holders said it aloud, they all knew the head of their family would be lucky to see another Christmas.
* * *
If Stanley were to somehow combine all the worst days of his life, beginning with the death of Long John Silver and ending with the day he learned he had cancer, the cumulative result would in no way equal the devastating impact his last Father's Day had on the dying man.
What was meant to be the best Father's Day of his life started out on a happy note. Margo, his wife, made her husband his favorite breakfast and served it to him in bed.
"Homemade Belgian waffles!" he exclaimed when she put the tray on the table beside the bed. "I remember the first time you made them. It was the week after we returned from our honeymoon."
"I was so afraid of burning them, that I removed them from the griddle too soon," Margo reminisced. "They were raw on the inside."
"They tasted good to me," Stanley said with a loving smile.
By midday all three of the Holder boys had arrived, the two married ones with their wives and children and the single one with a new girlfriend.
"Where's Tabitha?" Vincent, the youngest son, asked.
"She's not here yet," his mother replied.
"You know how college kids are," Randolph, the oldest son, commented. "She probably went to a party last night and overslept this morning."
"I'm sure she'll be here by dinner time," Stanley said, coming to his daughter's defense. "She knows you're all taking me out to eat for Father's Day. I'm sure she won't want to miss it."
When Tabitha hadn't arrived by five o'clock, her mother tried reaching her on her cell phone. After several unanswered rings, the call went to Tabitha's voicemail.
"It's me, honey," Margo said. "We're all here waiting for you. Our reservations are for six. Please call me and let me know if you can make it."
By quarter to six there was still no word from Tabitha. Margo phoned again and left a message for her daughter to meet them at the restaurant. Several times the worried mother tried contacting her daughter during the meal; however, by the time dessert and coffee were served, Tabitha had yet to answer any of the messages.
"She must have had car trouble," Rodney, the middle son, suggested.
"I don't think so. She would have called if she had," Margo insisted.
"People do forget their cell phones, Ma."
Stanley, who had been unusually quite throughout dinner, said, "Your sister doesn't. And she always remembers to charge it. Even if something had happened to her car, she would have found a way to contact us."
"Don't worry, dear," his wife said, noticing the paleness of her husband's complexion and the quiver in his voice. "I'm sure she's all right."
"How can I help worrying? My daughter is missing."
Missing. It was a word that aptly described the family's worst fear. Yet despite all the frightening connotations it conjured up, no one tried to argue the point since it was the same conclusion they had all come to themselves.
* * *
As Randolph Holder turned onto his parents' street, all four people in the car craned their necks, anxious to see if Tabitha's blue Honda Accord was in the driveway.
It wasn't.
After entering his house, Stanley went to the phone in the kitchen and began calling the hospitals located in towns between his home and his daughter's school. He also telephoned a number of local police departments as well as the state police. Meanwhile, his three sons all tried contacting their sister's friends on their cell phones. No one knew what had become of Tabitha, however.
"I've got the number for her school and the cupcake bakery where she works," Vincent said, "but no one will be there on a Sunday night. I'll call them first thing in the morning."
"I'm sure we'll hear from your sister way before then," Stanley declared optimistically.
Randolph drove his girlfriend home and then returned to his parents' house. Although the grandchildren had been put to bed at nine, none of the adults slept that night. They remained in the living room, listening for their phones to ring. Their hopes skyrocketed each time a ringtone broke the silence, only to plummet when the caller was someone other than Tabitha.
"It's getting late. Maybe we should all go to bed and try to get some sleep," Margo suggested at three in the morning, but nobody moved.
"Who can sleep?" her husband asked.
The following day, all members of the Holder family called off from work. More telephone calls were made, and a missing persons report was filed.
"I suppose now all we can do is sit and wait," Rodney said when they ran out of people to call.
Never known for his patience, Stanley borrowed his wife's laptop computer and, with his youngest son's assistance, designed a poster that asked for the public's help in finding his missing child.
"I'll take you down to Staples, Dad," Vincent offered. "We can have a stack of those printed and put them up all over town."
The telephone rang just as they were heading out the door.
"Stanley," Margo called to her husband, "it's the police."
His hand froze on the doorknob.
What if the news isn't good? he thought.
Stanley closed his eyes, fought down his growing panic and spoke into the mouthpiece.
"Have you found my daughter?"
"No, not yet. But we did locate her car."
"Where?"
"Along Route 26, about three miles east of Smithfield. Apparently, she had a flat tire."
"Oh, thank God!" Stanley exclaimed as relief flowed through his body. "I was beginning to worry that something bad might have happened to her."
"Mr. Holder," the police officer continued, "your daughter's purse, keys and cell phone were all in the vehicle."
Stanley's smile quickly faded, and his hand tightened on the receiver as he waited for the police officer to continue.
"I'm sorry, sir, but it appears as though your daughter was abducted."
* * *
Weeks passed, and the Holder family kept up its efforts to find the missing girl. They displayed posters on telephone poles and in store windows in Smithfield, as well as all the surrounding towns within a ten-mile radius. They made appearances on local news shows, pleading for anyone with information as to the girl's whereabouts to come forward. The parents and siblings even pooled their resources to offer a reward. Still, their efforts bore no fruit.
Meanwhile, life went on as best it could under such trying circumstances. Margo went back to her secretarial job and her husband, despite his worsening physical condition, continued working as a security guard.
At the end of August, Stanley sat at his desk eating a ham and cheese sandwich and watching the security monitors at the Parkview Mall. The stores were full of mothers and their children buying school clothes and supplies.
If Tabitha doesn't come home soon, she'll miss the start of the fall semester, he thought.
Unlike most people, he refused to consider the fact that his daughter might be dead. After all, Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Dugard, Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus were all found alive. Until a body was discovered, there was always hope.
As Stanley took a sip of Gatorade to wash his sandwich down, his eyes were drawn to the video screen showing the entrance to the Apple Store. There was something familiar about the young woman who stopped to look at the latest iPhone. The security guard put down his drink, leaned forward and stared at her profile.
Can it be? he wondered, his heart racing with hope.
Moments later, the girl walked away, heading toward Sears. Stanley turned to the next monitor, waiting for her to appear, but she was nowhere to be seen.
It's as though she vanished into thin air.
He rewound the video taken at the entrance to the Apple Store and pressed the play button. It was a young man, not a woman he had seen. He rewound the video a second time and replayed it again. It was indeed a man. Stanley took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
I only imagined it was Tabitha.
Another hope dashed, he finished his sandwich and Gatorade in gloomy silence.
* * *
The Holders tried to keep up their spirits as September faded into the past and October brought with it colorful autumn foliage, cooler temperatures and shorter days.
"The holidays will be here before you know it," Randolph said to his mother when the family gathered for Sunday dinner.
"It won't be the same," Margo commented, fighting back her tears.
"I know it's hard with Tabitha still missing ...."
"It's not only that. It's your father. He's lost so much weight; he's practically skin and bones. I honestly don't know if he'll still be with us at Christmas."
"It's funny," Randolph later told his wife in the privacy of their own home. "We can talk about Dad's dying but not the likelihood that Tabitha is ... gone. Look at me. I can't even bring myself to say the word dead."
"You've all had the chance to accept your father's illness," Charmaine Holder said. "As for your sister, no one knows what's happened to her. You want to hold on to the possibility that she might still be alive."
"You're right. It's the not knowing that makes it so hard. Oh, Christ! How long will this go on? What if we never learn what happened to her? How will we ever be able to lead normal lives?"
Meanwhile, at his parents' home, Margo was worried more about her husband than about her daughter—at least for the time being.
"Maybe you ought to quit your job," she suggested.
"I can't, not now."
"You need to take care of yourself. You should be home in bed, not trying to catch shoplifters at the mall."
"You don't understand," Stanley explained. "I didn't want to tell you, but I've ... I've seen Tabitha."
Margo was flummoxed by her husband's statement.
"Where?"
"At the mall. I've seen her about a dozen times on the security monitors."
"What did the police say when you showed them the videos?"
"I didn't call the police."
"Why in hell not?" Margo cried.
"Because when I rewind the videos and rewatch them, Tabitha is no longer there. It's always someone else's face I see."
The poor mother's hopes deflated.
"So, you only imaged you saw our daughter."
"That's one possible explanation."
"What else could it be?"
"A premonition. As ridiculous as it sounds, I believe we're going to find Tabitha. Furthermore, she's going to show up at the Parkview Mall."
* * *
As Thanksgiving approached, the terminally ill father pushed himself to the limits of his endurance. Although he had to rely on painkillers to get through the day, he still continued to don his uniform and report to the mall for work. His employer, realizing Stanley had little time left, gave him light duties. All he had to do was sit behind a desk and keep an eye on the security monitors.
The second week in November, as he picked at a jelly donut during his coffee break, he watched the mall employees make the center court ready for Santa's arrival. His eyes misted with tears when he recalled Tabitha's childhood visits to the mall to have her photograph taken with Kris Kringle.
Out of the corner of his eye, the guard saw a young woman in a pink jacket exit Aéropostale. He immediately recognized the jacket as one Margo had picked out for their daughter the preceding Christmas. Unlike on the previous occasions he had seen her, this time he was able to follow the young woman's progress from monitor to monitor. Although he only caught glimpses of her face, Stanley knew beyond a doubt the young woman in the pink jacket was his missing child.
* * *
When Margo returned from lunch, she was told by a coworker that two detectives were in the conference room, waiting to speak to her. Fearing the worst, she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths to calm her nerves. She instinctively knew what the police were going to say to her.
"Mrs. Holder?" the senior detective asked when she walked through the conference room door. "I'm sorry ...."
Those two words were all Margo heard before she fainted onto the carpeted floor.
* * *
From monitor to monitor, from storefront to storefront, the young woman in the pink jacket made her way to the mall's security office. In front of Bath & Body Works, her hand went up to brush a stray lock of blond hair from her eyes. Stanley had seen that same gesture countless times before. Outside Victoria's Secret she temporarily stopped walking to avoid a collision with a mother trying to get control of her unruly toddler. Near Spencer's she mounted the escalator that took her down to the ground level of the mall.
* * *
"My partner and I don't want to upset your husband any more than we have to. We know how sick he is," the detective explained after Mrs. Holder had recovered from the severe emotional shock. "We weren't sure if you wanted to break the news to him yourself or have us do it."
"Actually," Margo said, "I'd like to have my oldest son tell him."
"You understand it will have to be soon. The reporters will ...."
"I understand. I certainly wouldn't want Stan to find out that way. I'll have the entire family come to dinner tonight, and we'll tell him then."
* * *
Banana Republic. GNC. Lids. Game Stop. With each store she passed, the blond girl in the pink jacket came closer to the mall's security center. Hollister. LensCrafters. Gymboree.
A severe pain ripped through Stanley's body, causing him to reach into his pocket for his bottle of OxyContin.
The Gap. Starbucks. The mall office.
Struggling for each pain-racked breath he took, Stanley stared at the monitor showing the hallway on the other side of the security room door. Tabitha stopped, raised her head, looked directly into the camera and smiled. As she turned the handle and opened the door, her father slid from his chair and collapsed onto the floor.
"Hi, Daddy," she said, kneeling down beside the dying man. "I've come for you."
* * *
For the second time that day, the two police detectives brought tragic news to Margo Holder.
"One of the other security guards found your husband on the floor. An ambulance was called, but there was nothing that could be done for him."
"At least he's no longer in pain," the grieving wife concluded.
Stanley Holder's death was indeed a mixed blessing.
"Your father died never knowing what happened to Tabitha," Margo said to her sons at the cemetery where Stanley and his daughter were buried, side by side, three days later. "I don't know if we should be thankful for that or not."
"He'll be spared what will happen next," Randolph added. "There'll be an investigation into her murder and the trial of her killer—hopefully."
"I had hoped we'd find closure once her body was discovered, but the ordeal isn't over yet, is it?" Margo asked.
"I wonder if it will ever truly be over for us," Vincent replied.
Unseen by the mourners, Tabitha took her father's arm and led him away from sorrowful sight.
"Don't grieve, Daddy. They'll be all right," she assured him.
"I'm not sad. In fact, this is the happiest I've been since Father's Day."
Stanley Holder then squeezed his daughter's hand and followed her lead, knowing the parting with his wife and sons was only temporary and that they would all meet again in the future.
The worst day in Salem's life—his third life, actually—was when he was expelled from Hogwarts.
