Terry, thank you for writing this story — it was incredible and just so well-written with such obvious reverence for the characters. Not once did it feel like you were torturing Clark for sheer entertainment value or allowing Lois to die for shock and awe. Instead, you gave us a gut-twisting, fully realized "what if" scenario that brought tears to my eyes more than a couple of times.
If I started quoting my favorite haunting passages, I'd just end up posting your entire story here all over again. But suffice to say that nearly every line was an emotional sucker-punch, in the best of heart-wrenchingly possible ways.
And for some reason, Sam Lane's retreat to a tiny island in the Caribbean got me right *there* — how his rare letters would be signed, "Sam, from Margaritaville." In that small aside, you gave us a glimpse of a broken father — one who can't bear to confront the death of his oldest daugher head-on, and instead dulls his grief by tending bar and drinking to forget, hundreds of miles from Metropolis and his memories of never being good enough to and for his family. I can see Sam in a garish Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts, leaning against his open-air bar on the beach, surrounded by laughter and paradise but tormented by thoughts of Lois' death and how it's so unnatural, children dying before their parents.
Yikes. I really need to stop rambling. So, the point is: Thanks again for writing this, Terry, and for sharing it on the boards.
