Page 30 of Twice
“I was checking out the elephants.”
He shook his head, exasperated. “Elephants?”
“Yeah.”
“To wait this long, I could have stayed in Disney World.”
“Sorry.”
He looked away, his face scrunched in anger.
“Hey, Dad?”
“What?”
“I’ve been thinking. Maybe I do want to go to college.”
His expression changed. So did his voice.
“Oh, yeah? Well. Good.”
Then he asked, “Where?”
“Boston,” I said.
Three
The Composition Book
I’ve noticed something about dying, Boss. When you come into this world, you have all these people who want to take care of you, and you don’t know any of them. Then, when you’re leaving this world, you have all these people youdoknow, but few of them want to be bothered.
I went to a facility last week. It was recommended by my doctor. Plenty of windows. Good light. But sad. Sad in that dreary, dragging manner of old folks’ homes, with their carpeted hallways and low-volume conversations and lingering smells from the last meal cooked, like fried fish or macaroni and cheese.
I’ll be heading there soon. I have no choice. This disease I have will render me immobile and noncommunicative. They’ll keep me fed and hydrated (sounds like a plant, now that I write it). And pretty soon, I’ll be gone.
It’s OK. I’ve accepted it. To be honest, I think I’ll miss walking more than talking. The only person I enjoy speaking to anymore is you.
I hope that doesn’t embarrass you, Boss. This all ties back to the story. You see, before we left Florida, my father and I went to visit my grandmother in a nursing home, much like the one where I’ll soon be heading. It was in a town called Hollywood, which I expected to look like the California version. It did not. Back in the 1970s, Hollywood, Florida,was a sprawl of ranch homes, palm trees, a pink-cement ocean promenade, and an Indian reservation.
My mother’s Mom, Nina—who I always called “Yaya Nina”—was born in Greece but immigrated to America with her family when she was young. She grew up in the Florida heat and, the story goes, married the first man to ever take her to an air-conditioned movie theater, my grandpa Billy. They moved to Virginia, where he worked as a fisherman. They had one child together, my mother, and not long after she became the first in the family to go to college, Grandpa Billy died. Heart attack. I never got to meet him. He was buried at sea. Yaya Nina moved back to Florida. She never left.
Before my mom died, we used to visit Yaya a lot, but after that, there wasn’t much contact beyond birthday cards and a phone call at the holidays. The last time I’d seen Yaya was at my mother’s funeral. She’d stayed at our house and baked me shortbread cookies filled with orange jam. At one point we were in the kitchen together—she was smoking, which she often did—and she said something curious. She was holding one of the framed photos we had put around the house, a picture of my mom in Kenya, reading the Bible to the village kids.
“She didn’t have to go all the way to Africa, you know,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“She could have helped people here.”
I thought about that. Maybe if she had stayed in America, she would still be alive. This was before I understood that all the magic in the world couldn’t delay death.
“Did you ever tell her that, Yaya?” I asked.
“No.” She looked away. “But I will.”
?
It was my idea to visit Yaya Nina, seeing as we were in Miami and so close. My dad agreed without much fuss, I’m guessing because he was happy about my college news.
