My Father Texted Me at 2:43 A.M. to Say I Was Dead to Him

see your car in the garage.”

My old Honda. The embarrassing one.

“Tell him the car is mine and I’m not home.”

A pause. Then Hatch, drier than I expected: “Yes, ma’am.”

He came back ten minutes later. “He’s gone, ma’am. He asked me to give you this.”

It was a piece of paper, folded twice, with my name on it in my father’s blocky handwriting. The handwriting continue reading …