It was a dark and stormy night. In the doorway of the cabin on the little hill in the big woods, I smoked a cigarette and watched the tempest. Lightning flickered and danced over the trees. Rain fell in great black sheets, and the wind howled around the cabin. I’d come here to find peaceful solitude, and this was not it.

“Strange weather, isn’t it, son?”

My heart skipped a beat at the sound of the voice. I turned to find my father standing behind me, looking over my shoulder out the door at the swirling storm. The yellow light of the gas lantern on the table by the door fell across his face, casting his wrinkled features into sharp relief. “Strange, indeed,” I said.

“Would you say the wind or the rain is the strangest?” he asked.

I looked out at the blustering storm, then back into his wizened face. “Neither,” I said. “The strangest part of the storm is you, here.”

Lightning flashed in his eyes, and the shadows on his face twisted into a smile.

“After all,” I continued, “you’ve been dead ten years.”