Page 55 of Twice
“That you’ll do something stupid.”
“Yaya!”
“Like I did!”
“Yaya. What do you think I’m going to do?”
She waved her fingers dismissively. We sat in silence. I heard the sound of someone vacuuming the hallway.
“I’m sorry, Alfie. I’m old. This is what being old is. You worry about the young.”
I didn’t know what to say. She looked so frail.
“Yaya?”
“Mmm?”
“Why don’t you go back a few years? Just to be healthier?”
“Oh, Alfie, I already have. So many times.”
She gripped the photo album. “At some point, you get tired of reliving the past. You’re ready for what comes next.”
The finality in her words frightened me.
“I don’t want to lose you, Yaya.”
She looked at me tenderly.
“I want, and you want, and God does what God wants.”
“That’s what Mom told me.”
“Well.” She smiled. “Who do you think told her?”
Nassau
Alfie paused his reading. He leaned back.
“She died a month later.”
“Was she telling the truth?”
“About what?”
“That you can’t get someone to love you twice?”
“Yes.”
“And was she right about you? That you were bound to make a mistake?”
“I’ve made many.”
LaPorta chuckled. “You know, for people who get to do things over and over, you folks have a lot of regrets.”
“That’s true.” Alfie’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe because the second time, you can’t blame anyone but yourself.”
“Whatever.”
