Page 123 of Tito

“Just a figure of speech,” he replied. “I feel like shit.”

My father turned toward the kitchen. “Look like it, too.”

My father disappeared, leaving Tito and me in the living room. I set my beer on the end table and faced him. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m worried about me, too.”’

“Why?”

“I just.” He shook his head. “I just need to make some changes with the club, that’s all.”

“Are you having problems with your friends?”

“Not so much. It’s. I. We need to dissolve the club. We’ll be looking into it this week. Maybe that’s what’s bothering me, I don’t know.”

“Did something happen?”

A worried look overcame him. “Sometimes men in the club do things that I don’t agree with. Instead of standing up to them, I often just let it happen. Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty, but I wish now that I would have stood up to them a few times. In the past.”

I put my hand on his knee. “You can’t dwell on the past. All you can do is make sure you learn from your mistakes and live tomorrow knowing that you won’t repeat them.”

“That’s sound advice she’s giving you, Silva,” my father shouted from the other room. “You should listen to her. Repeating the mistakes of your past could prove disastrous.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Tito muttered.