At 6:30 on a freezing Thursday morning, my sister called to tell me our father was dead.
There was just one problem.
Dad sat three feet away from me in a navy flannel robe, sipping coffee and stealing bacon off my plate.
I looked at the name glowing across my phone.
Vanessa Cole.
My older sister treated mornings like a personal enemy, so a call before sunrise usually meant someone had been seriously hurt.
I never imagined she’d be reporting a death that hadn’t happened.
Dad reached over and stole another strip of bacon.
“What?” he whispered.
I answered the call.
“Vanessa?”
For a couple of seconds, all I heard was a car engine and a clicking turn signal.
Then she said flatly,
“Natalie, Dad died last night.”
Dad stopped chewing.
I slowly turned toward him.
He looked right back at me.
I tapped speaker.
“When?”
“Sometime overnight. Harold found him.”
That choice of name was deliberate.
