Three Days Before the Casket Was Delivered, My Son Asked Me to Sign a Document

Then Victoria’s footsteps came along the hall, fast and light.

“Julian,” she whispered.

“Julian, you have to listen.”

I tilted my ear toward the gap at the door.

The dispatcher’s keyboard clicked in my other ear.

A strip of hallway light shifted beneath the door.

“We have to clean this up before they get inside,” Victoria said.

The keyboard went quiet.