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.
She did not pause to steady herself.
