My stomach dropped so suddenly that I thought I might collapse from the shock because that voice belonged to my son, a voice I had not heard in four long years since the day he disappeared on the waters of Lake Michigan. I pressed the phone harder against my ear while my throat tightened painfully and whispered the name that had haunted my memories since that terrible summer.
“Grant, is that you?”
The voice answered in a trembling whisper that sounded weak and desperate as if the speaker was fighting exhaustion and cold at the same time.
“Please Dad, just open the door because I am freezing out here.”
The line went d.ea.d after that sentence, leaving nothing but the ticking of the grandfather clock and the distant creak of old wood shifting quietly in the dark. My son, whose full name was Grant Halvorsen, had been declared dead after a boating incident four years earlier when his empty vessel was discovered drifting near the rocky shoreline of Lake Michigan with his wallet, jacket, and shoes still inside while his body was never recovered despite weeks of searching by the Coast Guard.