It’d been ten years, but nothing had changed all that much. And though there were certainly no Internet coffee houses, there was, thankfully, a public library, small though it was. And, lo and behold, there was one computer tucked neatly in the back of the place. Not surprisingly, because life is never that easy, I quickly discovered that there were no local Beau Pellinghams on Facebook or LinkedIn. None on MySpace or Twitter, either. Those that did pop up were long dead, found only in obituaries, or lived many states away or were clearly the wrong age. Still, I sat there and scrolled through it all, alone in my corner, heart racing when that last name appeared. Like a whistle, it blew in my head each time I came across it. Pellingham. Oddly, the name sounded vaguely familiar, only, I couldn’t for the life of me remember why. It was like it was tucked away, cobwebbed in the farthest recesses of my brain, unwilling to break free and reveal itself. Turned out, as I was soon to discover, it was a name with deep southern roots, all the way back to the early South Carolina settlers.
