It’s about perfection. In dentistry, the work is exact. There is no room for error. The quest is for perfect, and perfection is how one is judged in dental school, and the standard continues into one’s practice.

I don’t even mind the intense focus. At least, I used to like the focus. Now I can’t focus on any one thing. I don’t know that I can focus on anything. The future is as impossible as the past. It’s beyond my control.

I don’t know what I want.

I don’t know where to go.

Something has to give.

I just don’t want it to be me.

THREE

I reluctantly park at Napa Estates, and even more reluctantly walk to the entrance, feeling like a horrible human being for dreading spending the day there.

I don’t want to spend the day here today.

I want Dad, not the retirement home. It’s depressing being surrounded by so much old age and decay. Not that Napa Estates smells like decay, but you see it in the older seniors’ faces and bodies, the ones whose bodies have shrunk, the frail seniors who are in danger of disappearing.

Dad’s waiting for me in the main hall. He’s sitting in a winged arm chair, holding court with a half-dozen men and a lone woman.

I watch him for a moment, astounded. Dad, the introvert, suddenly seems to be an extrovert. I know he’d told me yesterday that he takes all of his meals in the dining room with everyone else, but it’s jarring seeing him surrounded by people. Dad and Mom weren’t social. Dad and Mom pretty much just stuck together.

I greet Dad and he introduces me to his circle—Harold Zuss and Bill Malone. Walter Jordan and Graham Durkee. There’s a Floyd and maybe a George, and the woman, LuAnne somebody. I thought I was doing all right with the names in the beginning but by the end, I know I won’t keep them straight.

Then as Dad gets to his feet, he invites everyone to join us for lunch.

I blink, shocked.

He’s not the dad I know, which makes me wonder if I ever knew him. Was Mom perhaps the introvert? Would Dad have enjoyed more social activities when they were married?

I walk next to him into the dining room. It’s open seating. He chooses a round table set for ten and as we take our seats he leans towards me and says under his breath, “A couple of the guys are having a hard time. This is good for them. They need to belong.”

I nod and sit, thinking, since I obviously don’t know him, perhaps it’s time I did.

• • •

I return for dinner and “game night.” Apparently we’re playing bingo later. Dinner is another group date. Harold and Walter join us. So does George. But Graham is having a real “dinner date” with Eleanor Babcock, and Bill Malone was rushed to the hospital earlier in the day. He had a heart attack and is in ICU now. The men are subdued.