Early on July 17, 2020, Preston Harp’s cellphone rang. It was his sister, Natalie Harp. Come over immediately, she told him. There was an emergency with their dad.
Over several years, Preston had grown estranged from Natalie and their mother. But he had remained close to his father, Bob, a professor at a Christian university, and knew that the social isolation imposed by the coronavirus pandemic had left him despondent.