My grandson called me at 5 a.m. “Grandma, please… don’t wear your red coat today.” His voice was shaking. “why?” i asked. “You’ll understand soon,” he whispered. At 9 a.m., i went to catch the bus. When i arrived, i stopped cold — and realized exactly what he had meant.

My grandson called me at five a.m. and said, “Grandma, don’t wear your red coat today.” I asked why, and with a trembling voice, he said, “You’ll understand soon. At nine.”

The phone rang at exactly five in the morning. I know because I was already awake, sitting in my grandmother’s rocking chair by the window, watching the darkness slowly surrender to the Montana dawn. At sixty-three, sleep comes in fragments, scattered like puzzle pieces I can’t quite fit together anymore.