I watched the odometer roll past twenty-eight miles before the green sign for Canton Senior Care showed up beside the highway.

The lobby of the care home smelled of lemon polish and stewed peaches.

A tall clerk wearing a brass name tag slid the black vinyl visitor binder across the high counter without raising her eyes from her paperwork.

“Room fourteen’s at the end of the south hallway, on your left,” the clerk said.

I flipped back through three calendar years in the sign-in book.

Beside John Vance’s room number, the column for family signatures held long empty stretches and two entries from a volunteer at a local church.