We heard a tap at the door and then a voice: “Murray?”
My father rarely troubles to lock his apartment when he’s at home. His friends drift in and out, looking for a card game, checking to make sure he’s up and about, or bearing the latest gossip. Or, in the case of Jo Ann, who walked into the living room juggling several containers, bearing food.
Jo Ann (she’s asked me not to identify her further) lives two floors up from my dad in a N.O.R.C. — a naturally occurring retirement community — in Vineland, N.J. She and her husband Fred, who are both 68, moved in eight years ago. She was operating a deli at the time, and Fred was in construction, so at first they were too busy to pay much attention to the cluster of people in their 80s who gathered in the lobby every afternoon, awaiting the mail.
But then Jo Ann retired, and the folks in the lobby started asking her to sit and chat a bit. She listened as they compared utility bills, shared news of sales at the local ShopRite, bragged about their grandkids. She realized most were widows or widowers whose children lived far away: “I thought, ‘My God, they need help.’ ”
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