Assisted Loving by Bob Morris

in a house in the Hamptons—the sacred and elite area I can only visit as a renter or houseguest. But then I see him slurping his tea at breakfast and dumping salad dressing over our pasta at dinner. I see myself rushing past him to get to the phone before he answers it and proceeds to have inappropriate conversations with any one of my dates, friends, colleagues, or harried editors.The fights, the odors, messes to clean up! Pills overhead and underfoot. Never!
    â€œThanks, but I don’t think so, Dad. I’ll live my own life, if you don’t mind.”
    It sounds harsh. But neither of us has ever been much good at protecting the other from our feelings. So why can’t I just tell him that I want to go home, back to the city, right now? Instead, I take a deep breath and sit back down, and we play Scrabble. He wins. Then, while I scoot around trying to clean up the monumental mess he has made of his apartment, he turns on a ball game. I have been trying to teach myself not to feel so anxious around him. But I can’t help it. I’m just so bored here, and for a moment I find myself dreading all the relentless years—plodding, dutiful, strained—of this ahead of me. I don’t want to be here another minute. It’s ten P.M . I’ve done my time. But just as I’m about to say good night for real, he pulls out a copy of Jewish Week and thrusts it at me. It’s opened to the Personals page.
    â€œBefore you go,” he says, “there’s something I want to ask you.”
    â€œOkay. What? I have to catch a train. Speak!”
    â€œI wonder if you wouldn’t mind calling the ads I’ve circled here.”
    He places the newspaper in my hands. It is stained with tea.
    â€œWhat? I don’t understand.”
    â€œI would do it myself, but it says here that you need a landline to get through to the 900 number that’s listed, and I only have a cell phone.”
    â€œYou’re kidding, right?”
    â€œIt’s two dollars a minute, but I’ll reimburse you.”
    â€œI don’t get it, Dad. You’re not making any sense.”
    â€œYou’re such a contemporary person,” he says. “You know the dating scene.”
    â€œI know it’s a nightmare, that’s all I know.”
    â€œI thought you could show me the ropes a little, get me started.”
    â€œBut, Dad, does it occur to you that these ads are called Personals for a reason? This is absolutely none of my business.”
    â€œOkay,” he says, as he takes the newspaper away from me. “Just thought I’d ask.”
    I stare at him a moment. He looks so anxious, so needy, as if he’d just been let down by the only person with the keys to the kingdom. I take off my jacket, throw it down on the couch, and sit back down. This cannot be happening. I grab the newspaper.
    â€œOkay. All righty. I see you’ve circled some here.”
    â€œTwo in particular are alluring.”
    With a little derision, I read aloud in a thick New York accent: “‘Attractive, youthful widow, slim and petite, incurable romantic, seeks active kindred soul, seventy to eighty, to share life’s joys and whatever. Should be refined, intelligent, interesting, and secure.’
    â€œâ€˜Whatever,’ Dad? What’s that about?”
    â€œWho knows, Bobby.”
    â€œDad, she says she’s looking for refined. Is that you?”
    He shrugs and says, “I can be refined when I have to be.”
    â€œOkay, you circled this one, too,” I say, moving on. “Let’s see what it says: ‘I most definitely do not snore! Amusing Jewish lady seeking nice Jewish lad fifty-seven to sixty-eight…’ Dad, last I checked you were eighty.”
    â€œPeople mistake me for seventy all the time. And I wouldn’t mind a younger gal.”
    I hand the newspaper back to him and stand up.
    â€œCome on! Mom died, what, seven months ago? Okay, so