“I’m sorry,” I apologized.

       “Don’t.  It’s not like you’re my mother. I don’t need to be watched constantly,” he chuckled. “In fact, I quite like the freedom.” His beamed a smile.

       “Don’t get ahead of yourself, old man. You might have a heart attack,” I laughed. He joined in and for a while, a storm of giggles could be heard through out the house. But like everything else that we did, it ended and soon the silence resumed its place.

       “Would you like something to eat?” Dad asked, breaking the silence once again. It seemed we were getting into a pattern.  Talk—Silence—Talk…

       With a crack of his back and a painful grunt, he slowly stood up.

       “Dad, let me help you,” I offered, quickly getting up and letting him grab onto my arm.

       “I never use to be this old, ya know?” He asked, turning to me. He tilted his head and took a deep breath. I smiled with reassurance that I knew.   It took us about five minutes to make it into the kitchen and then another two minutes just to get to the fridge. One of the drawbacks to living by your self was that your home always seemed ten times bigger than it already was.  He didn’t need so much space.

       “What would you like to eat?” I turned my attention back to him and held the door open.  In his left hand he held a packet of turkey and in the other, a jar of peanut butter, two of my most favorite foods.

       “How’d you know?” I played around.  I took the peanut butter and placed in on the marble counter while he put back the turkey.

       “Eighteen years of raising you came in handy, didn’t it?”  I nodded my head as I pulled the bread down from the top shelf and began to unwrap it.