My father renewed clips.com every year for twenty-seven years. None of us knew he owned it until the afternoon we buried him.
I found out at 4:10 p.m., in his kitchen, holding a plate of ham sandwiches nobody wanted. The reception had thinned to the stage where only cousins and casseroles remained. My brother was on the porch, on a call. My sister was labeling the casseroles.
"So people know whose dish to return," Teddy said. She held up her label maker. It printed a strip that read LINDGREN — TUNA — DO NOT FREEZE.
"Nobody returns dishes after a funeral," I said. "That's the one perk."
My name is Maren Brekke. I'm forty, I appraise property damage for an insurance company in Duluth, and I put a price on everything. I don't do it on purpose. It happens the way other people hum.
The Lindgren dish, for example. Pyrex, mid-eighties, chipped lid. Estimated value: six dollars.
Our father was Walter Brekke. He was seventy-nine. He ran Brekke Hardware on Main Street in Asker Lake, Minnesota, for forty-one years. He sold keys, paint, and advice, and he only charged for the first two.
Our mother, Ingrid, died when I was thirteen. She was forty-three. After that it was Dad, three kids, and a kitchen table with a burn mark shaped like Ohio.
Teddy was seven then. She's thirty-four now, a sound engineer for a public radio station in St. Paul. She labels everything.
She says it's because she likes to know where things belong. I think it's because she was seven.
Gunnar was eighteen. He left for college two weeks after the funeral and mostly kept leaving. He's forty-five now, an orthodontist in Phoenix. He has a tan that looks expensive and a phrase he uses on everything.
"Let's be realistic," he'd said that morning, about the flowers. Then about the casket. Then about the weather.
At the cemetery, Aunt Solveig had caught me looking at the casket handles. Brass-plated, not solid. Maybe forty dollars a set. I hadn't said a word, but she knew my face.
"Maren," she'd whispered, "you're your father's daughter."
She said it the way you'd mention a stain.
The only other person who hadn't said anything sad all afternoon was Otis Fairweather. He was Dad's Thursday chess partner. He'd spent the reception in the corner by the stove, steadily eating the Lindgren tuna casserole.
"Your father hated this casserole," he told me, when I brought him a napkin. "I'm finishing it out of respect."
I didn't ask what that meant. In Asker Lake, men over eighty are allowed one unexplained sentence per funeral.
I had gone into the den to find Dad's homeowner's policy. Nobody asked me to. I just knew it would be the first thing someone needed. I knew I'd be the one who knew where it was.
The den smelled like pipe tobacco, though he'd quit in 1991. His computer sat on the desk, a beige tower older than Teddy's car. The monitor was still on. His email was open.
The newest message sat at the top in bold.
Action required: clips.com expires in 9 days
We were unable to charge the card on file. Renew now to keep clips.com. If no action is taken, the name will enter a redemption period and may become available to others.
— Nameplate Registry
I read it twice. Then I went to get my sister.
"What's clips.com?" Teddy asked.
"I don't know. It says he owns it."
"Dad didn't own anything with a dot in it. He called the internet 'the computer place.'"
She leaned over me and typed it into the browser with two fingers, the way he used to. The page loaded instantly.
It was white. Completely white. No logo, no photo, no "under construction" sign with a little man and a shovel. Just a blank page with clips.com in the address bar, like a frame with nothing in it.
"It's not even a page," Teddy said. "It's a page-shaped absence."
"He paid for this," I said. "For a while, I think."
There was a yellow sticky note on the bottom edge of the monitor. It was in Dad's block capitals, the same ones he used on the paint-mixing cards at the store.
PASSWORD: THE USUAL
"The usual what?" Teddy said.
"I have no idea."
"Did he have a usual?"
"Coffee, black," Teddy offered. "Everybody's usual is coffee, black."
"He took so much cream it was beige," I said. "Like the computer."
We considered this. Dad ate the same breakfast every day for twenty years, but neither of us could remember what it was. That told you something about breakfast in our house. It mostly happened while someone was looking for a shoe.
I typed theusual into the registrar's login box. It said the password was incorrect. It said so in red, which felt personal.
Teddy took the label maker out of her cardigan pocket. She printed a strip and stuck it to the monitor, under the sticky note. It read MYSTERY.
Gunnar came in from the porch still holding his phone. He was in a black suit that fit him the way suits fit people in magazines. His hair was cut so precisely it looked like it had a dental plan.
"What are you two doing in here? Aunt Solveig is telling the potato salad story again."
"Dad owned clips.com," Teddy said.
He frowned at the screen. "Dad couldn't attach a photo to an email. He used to print them and mail them."
"He renewed it," I said. "Every year, apparently. Card expired. It runs out in nine days."
"It's a scam," Gunnar said. "Somebody got an old man to pay for a website. Let's be realistic."
I almost agreed with him. Then I saw the binder.
It was on the shelf above the desk, between the 1987 Farmers' Almanac and a jar of loose screws. Two-inch, three-ring, navy blue. The spine said CLIPS in the paint-card capitals.
I took it down. Gunnar and Teddy came around the desk to look.
Inside were invoices. One per year, each in its own plastic sleeve, filed in order. The first was from October 26, 1998.
Registration of clips.com, one year, thirty-five dollars. Paid by check.
Then 1999. Renewal. Then 2000. Then every October after, all the way to last year.
Twenty-seven renewals. The price drifted up and down with the decades. The handwriting on the check stubs got shakier but never once got lazy.
"October 1998," Teddy said slowly. "Mom was still alive."
"She got sick that winter," Gunnar said. He said it to the binder, not to us.
The appraiser in my head did its thing without permission. Twenty-seven renewals, average thirty-eight dollars. Total outlay: about a thousand. For a blank white page.
That was the number I was holding when I turned to the last sleeve.
It wasn't an invoice. It was a letter on heavy cream paper, from a company called Corvane Digital Assets. It was dated March 2019.
Dear Mr. Brekke,
Following our several conversations, I am authorized to make a final offer for the domain clips.com in the amount of $2,400,000.
Warmly,
Sloane Achterberg, Senior Acquisitions Director
Across the middle, in red marker, our father had written four words and his initials.
NO. NOT FOR SALE. —W.B.
Gunnar read the number out loud. Then he read it again, in case it had changed.
"Two point four million," he said. "For a blank page."
"He said no," Teddy said.
"He said no in 2019." Gunnar's voice had gone very calm. In our family, that's how you know a man is about to say something he's rehearsed.
"Let's be realistic," he went on. "That was seven years ago. Names go up."
I wasn't listening anymore. Under Dad's initials, much smaller, in pencil, there was a second line. I had to tilt the sleeve toward the window to read it.
If I'm gone, ask Otis.
I looked up. Otis Fairweather was standing in the doorway of the den. He was eighty-one, holding a thermos and a plate with most of the Lindgren tuna casserole on it.
"Ah," he said. "You found the binder."
Up next: The Executor
Continue to Part 2 →