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up, either, which only would start another row.
    I thought of explaining to Dad how difficult the adjustment would be, for all of us. But the thought paralyzed me. If I did that, it would sound like a straight-out rejection of my father after losing my mother. After all he’d gone through, it seemed that he should do what he wanted at the age of seventy-seven. I really felt I had to help him. The long-term consequences of our plan were furthest from my thoughts—how would it affect the family, all of us, and especially my kids, to have their grandfather living with us? He would be there when they came home every day. My father would be there for dinner, when they did their homework, invited their friends over. I’d be spending time driving him around and caring for him during the day, and during the night. How was this going to work out? I had no way of knowing until I tried, and I was willing to try.
    Dad and I talked. It would have helped if we’d all tried—and learned—to talk about it together. But we didn’t. We couldn’t, because we didn’t know how.
    Dad sat in the dining room waiting for Stan the therapist. Dad wore three layers of clothes, like his Irish mother, from whom he’d inherited poor circulation. As a consequence, he liked to bundle up, whatever the weather. He simply would not be talked out of it. Humidity went right to his bones, and Florida was going to be damp, hot or cold.
    I made another attempt to test him, while I was also testing myself.
    â€œDad, it’s ninety-eight degrees in Tampa today, and it’s going to stay that way for at least three months. It’s hot and uncomfortable, and it’s humid down there.”
    â€œGood, I like hot weather; the hotter the better. What’s the temperature here?”
    â€œWell, it’s in the eighties, I guess.”
    â€œWe could stand it a little warmer.”
    I decided to take a different tack with him. “Dad, don’t you think if you go to Florida that it should be a family decision? Shouldn’t we talk some more about this?”
    â€œLook-it. I’ve never consulted them before, and I’m not going to start now.”
    â€œYou think this is a good thing, so soon after Mom’s death?”
    â€œI’m going with you.”
    â€œI know you love Florida.”
    â€œI love Florida,” he said. “And I love you. Whither thou goest, I go. We’re going to the cottage.”
    Yes, the cottage. The thought of it made me feel fine. I woke up from a dream and remembered in the night seeing my mother’s silhouette—and that of the Ex—both of them communing on the white beach under a blue-black sky full of stars in front of the cottage.
    â€œI want it all, and I want it now,” she yelled at the crashing waves.
    â€œAnd you have it,” said the Ex.
    She loved the Ex, loved manipulating him to do things for her that he didn’t mind doing in the first place, and then they laughed about it. They got a huge kick out of beating Dad and me at bridge, which they did regularly becauseDad was an outrageous gambler who thought he could make no-trump with twenty points after all, with just those two aces. He never listened to his own mother, my grandmother, “No-Trump Liz,” who said the cards have no home. Dad and I didn’t win often, but we loved the game.
    My mother played by the book, as did the Ex—at least at bridge. He was a sad person, my mother told me, and insecure, like she was. She understood him, while I did not. That was the implication. I resented that, and, that she compared herself to him with affection. I resented that he left me and her as well.
    Now they were both gone, and everything had changed. Running around all day, I could forget, but not when the dreams came. It was different then.
    In my dream, at least my mother was there again, and she was healthy and full of life. Things were as they once had been. Her