Dad sighed and dropped into his recliner. “You are the hardest person to talk to, Jack. You were a great kid, but now you’re a stranger. It’s like you don’t want to know me or me to know you. You’ve got this wall around you. Is that my fault? Did I do something…?”

This was painful. Jack could see the hurt in his father’s troubled eyes.

“Absolutely not. It’s me. It’s just the way I am.”

“But it’s not the way you were.”

Jack shrugged. “People change. You must know that.”

“No. I don’t. Most people don’t change. Kate didn’t change. And Tom didn’t—although it might not be such a bad thing if he had. But you—you’re a completely different person.”

Jack could only shrug again. He wanted off this uncomfortable topic.

“Enough about me. How about you, Dad? How are you getting on down here?”

His father gave him a long, baffled stare, then shook his head.

“Me? I guess I’m doing pretty well. I like the climate enough, but…”

“But?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I made a mistake moving down here. Sometimes I wonder why I ever left Jersey.”

“I’d wondered the same thing. So did Kate.”

“I’ve never been the impulsive sort, but this was an impulse. A Gateways South brochure came in the mail one day and that was it. I took one look and had to be here. The graduated care aspect and the idea of never being a burden appealed to me…appealed to me so much it became an obsession that took hold and wouldn’t let go. I couldn’t get it out of my head that this was the place for me. I sold the old house and reinvested some of the money in this place and…” He spread his hands. “Here I am.”

“From what Anya told me while you were in your coma, it sounds as if you’ve gotten into the swing of things down here.”

“I have. I’ve had to. I had it in my head that Kate and Tom would jump at the chance to gather up the grandkids and come down to Florida to visit. But only Kate did that. And only once. Everyone’s so busy these days. So I made a choice: I can sit before the TV and ossify, or get up and about and do things while I still can. I figure I’d rather be a moving target than a stationary one.”

Target, Jack thought. Helluva word choice, Dad. If you only knew…

Dad was shaking his head. “But as nice as it is, I still can’t believe I sold the family home and left my kids and grandkids up north to move down here. I know not being a burden was a big part of it, but really…what was I thinking?”