My sister called at 6:30 in the morning and told me our father had died during the night.
The problem was that Dad was sitting three feet away from me, wearing his navy robe, drinking my coffee, and stealing bacon from my plate.
For several seconds, I simply stared at Vanessa’s name glowing on my phone.
My older sister almost never called before noon.
She especially never called me that early unless she wanted something, so when the phone started vibrating across the kitchen table, I assumed there had been some kind of emergency.
I had no idea the emergency was going to be completely invented.
Dad reached across the table for another strip of bacon while I answered.
“Vanessa?”
For the first couple of seconds, I heard nothing but a car engine and the steady click of a turn signal.
Then she said it.
“Natalie, Dad died last night.”
My hand stopped halfway to my coffee.
Across from me, Dad stopped chewing.
We looked at each other.
He slowly lowered the piece of bacon in his hand.
I put the call on speaker and set the phone beside the sugar bowl.
“When?” I asked.
“Sometime during the night. Harold found him.”
Dad’s expression changed.
Harold Pike had been his closest friend for more than forty years.
They had fished together, watched football together, helped each other through bad marriages, health scares, layoffs, and the kind of mistakes men start admitting only after they have known each other long enough to stop pretending.
Harold had also owned the local funeral home before retiring.
For one uncomfortable second, Vanessa’s lie almost sounded prepared enough to be believable.
“What happened?” I asked.
Vanessa sighed.
She did not cry.
