Page 67 of Twice
“I’m a little busy, Alf—”
“If you want to make sense with Gianna, you’ll need to finish.”
“OK, lover boy, thanks for the tip.”
Sampson glanced over. LaPorta made a face, as if to sayThis guy is nuts.
“Why don’t you concentrate on confessing, Alfie? Let me worry about your ex-wife.”
“She won’t understand,” Alfie said.
“Oh, I’ll be very clear. Especially about the two million.”
“She’ll say she doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That won’t surprise me.”
A pause. “Something else will.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Keep reading, Vincent.”
He hung up.
The Composition Book
My father died nine years ago, Boss. Remember when we were working in Morocco and I asked for some time off? I actually went home to Philadelphia. I never told you, because I didn’t want you feeling sorry for me. You didn’t know my dad. Not in this life, anyhow. There was an earlier time when you met him. Spoke to him. Even laughed with him. But I had to undo those moments, and you’ll have no recollection of them. Revealing this might make you rack your brain. Spare yourself. When I wipe a slate, I wipe it clean.
Dad died from a stroke, or the complications of one. He was with his second wife, Monica, in a New Jersey supermarket, when his legs buckled and he thudded to the floor. The stroke made his left hand involuntarily lock around the shopping cart handle, so his limp body was hanging on with one arm, like a lost sailor grasping a buoy at sea.
By the time they got him stabilized at the hospital, he couldn’t move his appendages, his speech was slurred, and his eyesight was nearly gone. Monica called me in Morocco and told me the doctor said the next twenty-four hours were critical. I couldn’t take a chance on getting home too late.
So I time jumped back eight days and flew to my old hometown and the house where I grew up. And I spent what turned out to be the final week of my father’s life sleeping in my childhood bedroom, taking him out for breakfast everymorning, playing a few rounds of golf, and having a final conversation that I’d long wanted to have.
?
“You feel like getting a root beer, Dad?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
We had just finished eighteen holes and were passing an old drive-in fast-food joint named Burt’s. It had been there forever. We ordered through the window: two root beers and four hot dogs. Then I parked in the back, away from the other cars, and with the doors open and the sun beating down, we shoved the doughy rolls into our mouths and sipped noisily on the sodas through straws. Off in the distance someone was mowing grass.
“We haven’t donethisin a long time,” my father said.
“Not since I was a kid.”
“You know, once you retire, you have more leisure time than you thought you would.” He paused. “It’s nice of you to take a week off, Alfie. Nice to have you around.”
“Thanks.”
I watched him cradle the hot dog. His hands shook slightly. It had been two years since I’d seen him; he’d aged considerably. His close-cropped hair was white above his eyeglass temples, and the whiskers on his jowls caught the light like sprinkled salt.
“Dad?”
“Hmm?”
He took a long, slow bite.
