Author's Note: Hey, guys! We're back. This is the sequel to both Don't Think Twice and Sins of the Saints, novel-length stories that revolve around the romance of Two-Bit Mathews and OC Bridget Stevens. They are central characters in this story (as well as being Mom and Dad, which is what they're commonly referred to as), but you don't need to read either of those stories for this one to make sense, though it would help if you want to go back and read them.

Although this is a sequel to Don't Think Twice and Sins of the Saints, and those are romances, that's not really the focus of this story. This story is very focused on the boys, even though it's told from the perspective of a second-generation character. Lots of flashbacks, is what I'm getting at. :)

This takes place at an ambiguous point in time, but the flashbacks are very rigidly set into a timeframe. This is really an attempt to capture the feeling of a certain time period through the characters' eyes, so this is also a general disclaimer for any points of sensitivity. My apologies in advance.

Alright, that's enough from me. Let's get into the story!

Happy reading :)

XXXXX

My father is a grand storyteller. He has a way with words that no one else I've ever met has. He used to tell me and my sisters outrageous things; about Rhett Bulter-ish characters and giants and heroes worthy of the Round Table. That's what we loved about him. Dad would sit the three of us down - Lisa sitting on Dad's lap and me next to Mary - and he'd regale us with stories that only a man like him could come up with.

"That's not true," Mary used to say. Absolutely indignant. "That can't happen."

Dad would shift Lisa on his knee, who would have usually drifted off by that point and be sucking her thumb, and grin at Mary. "And how might you know that?" He would ask her. "Show me your evidence, darlin'!"

Mary never had any. She'd just say something like, "It's not true. It's just not."

Dad would play nice, and he'd let her go on and say it. I knew she liked it though. Listening to his stories, that is. Mary would lean up against his shoulder and look up at him, and anyone could tell she was into it. I was, too, and I would stare intently at him as he spoke with an animation that was beyond the reach of anyone else. He knew some actual, real stories. And he made up some of his own. And sometimes, he'd twist a real story to accommodate his mood, make it his own.

As we got older, and busier, and even little Lisa got jaded and caught up to Mary and I, he stopped doing this so much with us. Or at least, we wouldn't gather around him and listen like we used to. At night, though, when he was home for the day and settled down with a scotch or beer, he'd sit on the couch and talk to me and Mary lazily about when he was a kid. He told us about how he used to get jailed for silly things, like walking around Tulsa on his hands. Or maybe he was a little less sober, and when it was just one of us, he'd get sad and tell us something that he'd pushed back, like when his dad left. Then he'd stare off into the distance at something none of us could quite see. After a few minutes, he'd come back down to earth, smile, and say he was headed for bed. He'd lean over and kiss the top of my head, and lumber down the hall and up the stairs.

Mama was there always, lingering in the background. She was the one leaning in the doorway at bedtime, working in the kitchen as he spoke, the one calling him upstairs when he got too carried away and caught up. She'd wrap her arm through his, look him in the eye, and he'd stare back at her. Then Mom would gently take him with her, wherever it was they were going.

Yeah. Mom's always been there. She's still there, with him. Good thing, too, because I got the call the other day that the old storyteller isn't doing so well.

"Doctors say it's the goddamn cigarettes," she huffed through the phone. "There isn't anything left to do but wait it out, let him go on his own."

This was a hard blow. My Dad was easily one of my best friends - not just my dad. Not long after Mary was born, Dad supposedly quit smoking. For the baby. But I repeatedly caught him on the back porch when Mom wasn't home. Or, when I was older, he'd just walk into my room with one already dangling from his lips, and he'd blow the smoke out in perfect rings. A true talent.

"Our little secret, huh, pal?" He'd said to me on numerous occasions.

Yeah. Our little secret ain't so little anymore.

My eyes stung as she delivered the news. I wondered how much she had already cried. Or if the stoicism she'd adopted over the years had kept her from crying (Yet. My mother – she's a crier.)

"You sure?" I asked, clearing my throat and trying to sound nonchalant. Mom hummed.

"Yeah, I'm sure. The doctors are sure, too. They aren't giving him much longer. Please come see him."

"I'll come," I told her. Without hesitation. I'd be there. "Um. But…when?"

"When?" She repeated.

"Yeah. Like…tonight? Or do I have a day?"

"Well, I can't make any promises, but you do what you have to, honey. There's a rush, but…there also isn't. I'm sure he'll be here at least another day. But just…get here, Dally."

Her voice had such urgency to it. She didn't have to ask me again. Hell, I should've just dropped everything right then and ran for home. Screw the fact that it was the beginning of the term – I was needed elsewhere. And if he really didn't have much longer, then my students wouldn't have to be without me for very long.

It was practical, albeit morbid.

"I'll try to get there tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay."

"I'll bring Sammy. He'll be happy to see you guys."

I could picture Mom smiling a bit at the thought of her grandson. Not her first grandchild, but I think she and Dad had a bit of a soft spot for him. Probably because of all that's happened to him – not just to him, but to us, me 'n' him. I heard voices and what sounding like a faucet running, so I guess she was in the kitchen. I wondered who she was with. Probably Mary and Lisa – my sisters. "We'd love to see him, too. How is he doing?"

"He's…okay," I shrug, even though she can't see me. "Yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, then. So we'll see you tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow."

"Alright. I love you, Dallas."

I swallow hard and know I sound close to tears when I say, "Love you, too, Mom," and hang up.

I put the phone back on its cradle and then lean against the kitchen counter, just staring at the phone. Life isn't a fair game. Not for anybody, really. And I've had my fair share of hardships. And I'll tell you more and more about them as we go. But I'm not one to complain – I'm really not. I like to think of myself as a pretty happy guy. I can only take so much shit, though. And this? Hurt like a mother.

My father was dying. Of fucking late-stage lung cancer. Untreatable.

Fuck.

That's all that was going through my mind. Fuck. I couldn't imagine my Dad – Two-Bit Mathews – dying. Ever. He'd survived too much. And he's like me – a pretty happy guy – but I guess the same goes for him, too, that he can only take so much shit before he has to throw in the towel.

Dad doesn't talk much about his time in Vietnam. Nobody does. At least, no one in my family. But he has told me before that he almost died over there. When he'd told me that as a kid, I thought it was cool. That the scar and the story was cool. That he'd looked Death in the eye and told him to fuck off because he'd had enough of that dark inevitability's shit.

Dad was fuckin' cool. My sisters thought he was a square, but they're his daughters. I'm his son. He let me help him do maintenance on the cars and played catch with me and taught me everything I know about baseball and liked all the same stupid movies I did. We always got each other.

He always got me.

I wasn't like my mother or sisters, as much as I loved them. And I know they love me, I do. But soon enough, Dad was going to be gone. Forever. So even with my mother and sisters and best friend and son…

You know what I'm getting at.

XXXXX

My first memory of anything is actually of something that happened in Tulsa. That's where Dad is from. But we've never lived there. When Mom started to become more career-driven, Dad just followed her out to Manhattan without too many questions. At least, that's how the story goes. Dad's always been a go-with-the-flow sort of guy, so we could believe it.

(But we're about to learn that we maybe shouldn't've believed everything we'd been told.)

Anyway!

I think I was two or three years old. Dad's best friend, Darry Curtis, has a son, Lee. He's three years older than me, and a year older than Mary. There was a brief period of time where it was just the three of us; no other kids had been brought into the brood. And it didn't matter at the time that Mary was a girl, and that we were younger than him, or that Mary was my sister. It was the three of us against all the grown-ups, of which there was always too many, and one of the moms was always pregnant and grumpy those first few years.

Anyway.

I'm two or three years old, and we're visiting Tulsa. I remember Mom and Dad were all over the place, juggling visits with in-laws and grandparents and friends. Someone was pregnant, and Mom wanted to see them. Looking back on it, they had been so young. Even at thirty and thirty-two, they seem like kids, knowing all I know now. I don't remember everything that was going on, but I remember being in someone's living room with Lee and Mary, the two of them trying (unsuccessfully) to show me how to play Candyland, and there's a pair of deep, gruff, arguing voices in the next room. Don't ask me what they were arguing about. And don't ask me who it was – though, best guess was our dads. Or maybe it was somebody else.

It's vague and fading from my mind, but I can still feel the shag carpeting against my skin; hear the back-and-forth of heated voices in tense conversation; see Mary's braided black hair, a contrast to her lily-white skin and pink dress; see the upset look on Lee's face as he kept glancing at the next room, but he and Mary saying nothing and eventually ignoring me to play their game.

Funny, how I can remember something like that, a non-descript moment from my childhood, but couldn't remember my father's face without him standing right in front of me. I was already losing him.

XXXXX

Before we get too into all this, you need to know that I know everything. (Well, not everything-everything.) I know more about my family's past than my sisters do. The summer after I graduated college, I learned all the family secrets. Or, almost all of them. But it's important that you know that. Because for as many holes as I'd filled in for myself that summer, I was about to find out just how many I'd missed.

Family is a complicated thing.

I'll fill in the holes for you, too. Because family – all families – being as complicated as it is, means it makes for some pretty great stories. And nothing is more important to this group of people than a good story. Whether you're like Uncle Pony, who wrote his story down and was lauded for the insight he had as a fourteen-year-old when he finally published it at twice the age he was when he wrote it, or more like my Dad, where family history is an oral tradition. The way stories had (have, really) been told for thousands of years.

History began as an oral tradition long before we started writing anything down. But the message and the facts can get muddled either way.

As it turns out, we didn't have the facts as straight as any of us thought.

XXXXX

The night I found out Dad was dying, I put my kid to bed and then crawled into my own bed and cried. I felt lonelier than I had in my entire life. Even with my son. Because a guy can only take so much in such a short period of time. His wife can disappear from the face of the Earth for no apparent reason and he can handle it. He can handle raising his kid. But he can't handle losing his Dad on top of it all.s

But you don't get much choice in these things, so I was gonna have to deal with it, I guess. Sink or swim, right?

"Dad?"

I sat up. Sam, my son, was standing in my doorway. He was five years old and looked too much like his mother. Blond and fair and grey-eyed (the eyes are mine). Five years old and already somber. For the time being, at least. This family has a history of people getting left by their spouses, out of the blue. I was the fifth one it had happened to. It was the shittiest feeling in the world. To know that my ex-wife had probably never loved me, didn't love our son enough to even try. But I knew I could love him enough for both of us.

"What's up, kiddo?" I asked, wiping my eyes. "Why aren't you in bed?"

Sammy just shrugs and runs up to the bed, hopping in and flopping down beside me. He's been quiet lately. Too quiet. I should put him back in his own bed, but he pulls the covers over himself and burrows down, and the decision is made for me. And we're just sorta staring at each other, and I'm not crying anymore because I don't want him to see me like that. He's got his thumb in his mouth (really need to break him of that), and we're both wide awake now.

"Couldn't sleep, huh?" I asked. He shook his head. "Me neither."

"Why?" He mumbled.

"Just had a bad day," I whispered. "It's okay."

"What happened?"

I didn't want to tell him. But I didn't want to lie. "I got a call from Gramma. We're going to her house tomorrow."

Sammy's sleepy eyes lit up. "We're gonna see Gramma an' Grampa tomorrow?"

I nodded. "Yep. They're excited to see you. Are you excited to see them?" Sammy nodded. "Good. But you gotta know somethin', kiddo."

"Wha'?"

I steeled myself some and sighed, trying to figure out how to put this delicately. I had no real idea of the shape Dad was in, how bad off he was yet. If he was dying a horrible, painful death, or if he was just…going. And how to express all that to a five-year-old. "We're going because your grandfather is…sick. And he'd like to see us," I explained gently. "And so would Gramma and Aunt Mary and Aunt Lisa."

"Oh," he whispered. "Will he get better?"

No. "I hope so, Sammy."

XXXXX

That night, I dreamt a memory.

They were coming to me, all at once. I can't tell you why exactly, but I knew it all had to do with Dad dying. With going home.

Anyway.

Mary and I were…accidents. I mean, you should see how pregnant Mom was in their wedding pictures. Five months, I think. No woman would let that happen on purpose, I don't think. And then I just sorta…happened, apparently. But Lisa? Very premeditated. I was only four years old when she was born, but since then, Mom has told us that apparently, she just wanted to have another baby. And so, Lisa came. Neither Mary nor I wanted her. I remember their homecoming, Dad hovering close to Mom as she beckoned us into the new baby's nursery to meet our little sister.

"So?" She asked, a growing smile threatening to split her face in half. "What do you think of her?"

Mary and I leaned in. My big sister just sorta scowled at our new sister at first, then went for a disinterested look as she shrugged. Mom and Dad glanced at each other and shared some sort of look that only they could understand the meaning behind – something I could only describe to you as vaguely wry. I was even less impressed, announcing to the room that she looked like a wad of pink bubble gum (What? That's what she looked like to me! She was pink and wrinkly and…you get the idea). Mom's eyes grew wide, but Dad started howling, like that was the funniest thing he'd heard in his life. I could picture his broad shoulders and chest heaving, and my mother just shaking her head and biting back a smile.

"Dallas," she'd sighed, "don't say things like that about your sister," she gently reprimanded, but she had given in. I think she and Dad were just so tired at that point that the only thing they could do was laugh at their ridiculous four-year-old. I didn't get what was so funny because I hadn't been trying to be funny, but that's what everyone else was doing, so I got started, too. Mary – six years old and already with the attitude of an angsty teenager – just rolled her eyes.

I don't know why that was what my brain decided to give me that night, but I could feel myself smiling in my sleep. Everything was so vivid – my mother, with her big, curly, shiny black hair and sharp, kind eyes. Mary, with looks just like Mom's but her attitude the exact opposite – a little prima donna. Then Lisa, who at the time really wasn't much, but what baby is? Just a bundle of pink. And then, yeah – there was Dad, with his hair longer than all the other Dads and his wide grin and his stupid sense of humor.

I couldn't imagine losing any of them.

But I guess I needed to get used to the idea.

XXXXX

AN: So, this was essentially the prologue, or set-up. The canon characters will become more involved next chapter, and are the focus of the story, so don't worry. But I wanted to give you guys a chance to meet our narrator a bit :)

Alright, so as we get under way, feel free to let me know what you're thinking! Hearing from you makes my day. Thanks for reading!