I was on Facebook, weeks later, finally having mustered something in me to read all the condolences, when I found Dad.

I read his obituary at the funeral, but the one my aunt shared had a different thumbnail of him, one I'd never seen before. He seemed to be at the edge of his and Mom's property. It was where the soybeans gave way to a thin line of dirt and a thin line of trees. Dad would take me there to fish. I remember the naked summer sun etching into my neck as much as anything I caught.

But this photo felt mirrored. It was winter, and Dad was with his buddy Jim. The snow was high. The pines on the property line were thick and full, and so was Dad's mustache. He and Jim had cut a circle into the pond's thick ice and stuck lines in it. The two of them held up fish, grinning like kids in their snowsuits.

The fish were iridescent. Jim looked like he did before his death a decade ago. And my dad looked as old as he did last month, but more whole, unstricken.

I told myself I was misremembering things. Then I told myself the picture was edited. But neither statement was thought with any confidence. I knew what I saw. 

I clicked the link. It took me to the State Line Observer, the small paper for the small town I grew up in at Michigan's edge. The obituary was largely the same as the one I read at the funeral: where Dad grew up, what he did, his preferred watering holes for beer and angling, who survived him. Then I got to the end:

I immediately called Mom. She was incredulous until she looked the obituary up. Then we both cried. I made more calls. My aunt didn't write it; the funeral director didn't either. The paper, turns out, closed two summers ago.

I clicked the Observer's home page. It was filled with obituaries, a new batch each Tuesday. All of them had singsong words from the dead. My old barber woke up to air that smelled like barbicide. The old mayor plucked cigars that grew like asparagus. 

I drove the hours down to Mom, almost delirious.

The next day the TV news came and a week later we knew everything. But that night, restless in our beds, Mom and I got up and drove the few miles to town. The Observer's storefront was curtained but its recessed door was not. We peeked in, holding our breath to keep the glass from fogging. Everything was nothing-black except for one computer screen.

 

 

About the Author: Beau Brockett Jr. spent his live living in small Michigan towns and now calls its capital, Lansing, home. His story's italicized paragraph is is inspired by the Harry McClintock song "The Big Rock Candy Mountain." The newspaper referenced in the story is a real one: It ceased publication in 2020 but continues to publish obituaries online.