A short ghost story that left me a mess.
My dad mowed the lawn every Saturday morning—weather permitting—for seventy-two years. Vacations were scheduled around it, plans turned down, brunches skipped, because that lawn wasn’t gonna mow itself. When his heart started acting up, and I said maybe he could think about getting someone else to do it, maybe he could take a break, enjoy retirement, he looked at me like I’d suggested he take a bath with some morays, just for the thrill.
So, in retrospect, I don’t know why I expected death to be the thing that stopped him.