The admiral called me on a Thursday night, just after nine-thirty. I was sitting alone in my grandfather’s cabin, the silence pressing in from all sides the way it does in old houses after someone has died in them. His coffee mug was still on the kitchen counter. His boots were still by the door. The whole place smelled like him, old leather and something faintly metallic I had never been able to name, and the combination was making it difficult to think clearly.
I almost didn’t answer. The number was unknown, and I had spent the better part of two days fielding calls from people who knew my grandfather only well enough to offer condolences they didn’t quite mean. But something made me continue reading …
