And now without Mom, we struggle to communicate.

“You look nice,” I tell him, trying to fill the silence.

He’s wearing a plaid shirt, blue and burgundy, and his thinning hair is combed neatly, the medium brown fading to gray, but I could see his scalp if I stood above him. I don’t want to see it. It makes my heart hurt. I wish Mom were here to take care of him. I’m not going to be able to give him the love he needs. I’m not able to do much other than make small talk and maybe play some cards and kill some time before I head back home. Unless he comes to live with me. And then I could be there every day. I could make dinner for us and plan outings . . . movies or a visit to a play or museum.

Not that he ever wanted to do any of those things.

What would he do in Arizona, living with me?

The thought is uncomfortable and I push it away.

“I should have ordered soup,” he says a few minutes later, dropping his fork and irritably tossing his napkin onto his plate. “Or pudding. Pudding would have at least stuck to the spoon.”

• • •

Dad seems tired by the end of lunch and we head to his “apartment” with its miniature living room, where we settle onto the small couch and Dad turns on the TV. For the next couple of hours we stare at the small flat-screen TV, watching a program neither of us cares about, letting the commercials and show fill the silence and provide entertainment.

I see Dad wince a couple times as he shifts position. “Are you hurting?”

“I’m fine.”

I lean forward, concerned, but can tell from his expression that he doesn’t want to be babied. Dad served in Korea before finishing school to become a veterinarian. I know he saw combat but he’s never talked about it. And I actually have no idea of what he did in Korea. Or what he was.

We watch the next show and when that ends I look at him. “Do you like it here, Dad?” I’m desperate to find something we can talk about, something to bridge this distance between us.

“If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be here.”

Good enough. “You don’t miss the house?”

“I don’t want to be there without your mom. And I can’t be there without her. I need assistance, and so here you go.”

I hesitate, choosing my words carefully. “You wouldn’t want to come live with me?”

“We talked about this already.”

“At Christmas, but it’s been a while and I thought maybe we should revisit the discussion.”

“No.”

“Don’t you want to be near me?”

“I’m a native Californian. I lived in Washington for a number of years, raised you there, but it was my dream—and your mom’s—to return to California one day. I have no desire to live in the desert.”

“But you’d be able to be near me.”

He shoots me an odd glance. Hard to decipher his expression. “You could always move here. Be a dentist here.”

I picture Dr.