The alarm still rings at four every morning

Dear Delyara, My father was a baker, and for forty years his alarm rang at four in the morning. He died two weeks ago, but nobody remembered to turn it off. The first night after the funeral, the alarm sounded from his bedroom and my mother screamed. Since then, I have been waking before four and standing beside his phone so I can silence it before she hears. I could delete the alarm. I know that. Instead, I wait for it every morning in the dark. When it begins, the screen lights up with the label he wrote himself: “Wake up, the dough is waiting.” This morning I pressed stop and went downstairs to the bakery. His apron was still hanging near the oven. I mixed flour, water, salt, and yeast the way he taught me, but the dough felt wrong under my hands. Too cold, too stiff, too much of something I could not name. Customers will arrive at six expecting bread and condolences. I can produce both. What I cannot do is explain why I need his alarm to keep ringing, as if somewhere he is still being called back to work.