Author's Note: Welcome back! Man, I hope I can keep this update schedule up, but we'll see.

This chapter begins the telling of Dallas's summer adventure in Tulsa that he briefly mentioned in chapter one. His story will be woven into the one he's already telling, and there will be updates on it every fifth chapter, in five parts. This section is exposition, as all early parts are, so bear with me! It's all going somewhere.

Thank you all for your continued support. It means the world to me,

Happy reading :)

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Dad was at breakfast the next morning. Showered, dressed, and bright-eyed. If it weren't for the obvious weight loss, everything would've felt…normal. If I allowed myself to suspend belief for a minute, I could imagine it was say…1992. When I'm fifteen years old, Mary is seventeen, and Lisa is eleven. It's a weekday, so back then, it would've been a school day. Mom would've already been up for about an hour and a half – an early riser. Mom made a good housewife; there was always breakfast on the table, and dinner was a family affair each night. That was all her doing. If it were up to Dad, we'd be late every morning and probably order pizza every night from that place a couple blocks over that we all liked. But back then, I don't think any of us kids would have complained about that.

"Look who it is," Mom drawled, eyeing Dad skeptically, like she was expecting him to keel over at any second. But she was trying to hide it behind a smile and a kiss to Dad's bearded cheek (Dad has been growing a beard on-and-off for as long as I could remember. With his long, greying hair and beard, he was certainly the most granola dad in the neighborhood).

"Yeah, yeah. What's cookin', good-lookin'?"

All of us kids groaned, and yeah, that felt like old times. Dad just laughed, and Mom shook her head. Everyone ignored me as I checked my blood sugar and stuck that fucking needle in my stomach, like I've been doing every day of my life since the fourth grade. And every day, no one said anything about it. That's just how it was. We talk in this family, but we don't always talk. Not about bad things. So Dad's failing health was definitely the elephant in the room.

The only difference between then and now, really, was that Sam was here, shoveling sticky, too-big bites of pancake into his mouth, getting his mouth and fingers covered in maple syrup. Dad chuckled when he saw him and sat between him and Lisa (Lisa had sorta taken Sam under her wing. Maybe she just needed him for the moment). "Good stuff, kid?" He asked, and Sammy nodded his head enthusiastically, sucking syrup off his thumb. Dad laughed again.

Mary shot me a look, but I had no clue what she was trying to say to me, so I shrugged. But I had a feeling she was gonna ruin our little domestic moment. She sighed and set her coffee down on the table. Dad and Lisa looked up at her. Sammy kept eating. Mom kept flipping pancakes. "I got another call this morning, from Soda."

Dad raised an eyebrow. "Sodapop? What was he calling about? And Jesus, that early?"

"He's kinda up at the crack of dawn each day, Dad," I deadpanned, referring to my horse-crazy uncle's job caring for – you guessed it – horses. Dad waved me off.

"They're flying out here today. They'll be here tonight."

"They will be?" Dad asked, looking between all of us. "Why?"

"Just a guess," Mom called over her shoulder from the stove, "but it might have something to do with your health."

See? Had to avoid that word. You know. That word.

"Oh," Dad sighed. "Right. Well, it'll be real good to see them."

Every unspoken thing hung heavy in the air. This time, it was the unspoken for the last time. But that was the truth! Dad, however, moved right past that and had instead occupied himself with attempting to wipe off Sammy's hands and mouth. Sammy didn't say anything, but he scowled the whole time. "Dallas, you aren't eating," Dad observed instead.

"Neither are you," I shot back. It's a weird thing – when something's bugging me, I don't eat. I've always done that. It frustrates Mom and Dad to no end, especially considering the whole you're fucking diabetic what part of needing to keep your blood sugar steady do you not fucking understand, you dumbass? thing. We both knew why the other wasn't eating, but I knew Mom would eventually force us to.

"Dallas Mathews, you are not going to sit at my table and not eat." There it is! Mom set a plate in front of me and gave me a look that said I had better start eating or she'd start scolding me, and man, that'd be embarrassing, so I started picking away at it. "Keith, that goes for you, too."

Ooh, bigguns. Mom never called Dad by his real name. Whenever she did, Lisa snorted. Every time, without fail. She thought it was the funniest thing, and this time was no exception. Dad shot her a pretty nasty look, then cut his eyes back up to Mom. "Don't exactly see the point, babe. Not hungry, anyways."

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to fight night! In one corner we have Mom, coming in about five-foot-four and a hundred and thirty pounds. And in the other corner, we have Dad, and he's comin' in at roughly six-foot-two and…well…I can't tell how much he weighs anymore. But he could still probably pile-drive Mom through the floor and into the basement. But he's not gonna do that, because that icy stare Mom's fixing him with right now? Nothing and nobody can beat that. (And because my father would never pile-drive my mother. That'd be nuts.)

"Keith."

"Bridget," Dad shot back, looking proud of himself. More people call Mom by her real name than not, but she's still more commonly referred to as Bee. Dad christened her that decades ago. Bee 'n' Two-Bit.

"Anyway," Mary cut into the silence, and Mom and Dad unwillingly tore their eyes away from each other's, "they're all going to be here tonight. So are we gonna pick them up, or…?"

"They've been comin' up here for thirty years," Dad said, instantly dismissing Mary's attempts to try and plan everything out. "They can get themselves here."

"Alright," Mary drawled. "Um –"

"Do we have any old notebooks layin' around, honey? Or legal pads?" Dad asked, directing his question towards Mom. As if their disagreement hadn't even happened. Mom scrunched up her nose.

"Why?" She asked. But I knew why he was asking.

"Dal and I have started a little project," he explained. Lisa narrowed her eyes.

"What sort of project?" She asked, but Dad just smirked and shook his head.

"That is top-secret, classified info, girly-girl. Anyways, Honey Bee, do we got any?"

Mom shrugged. "Maybe. I guess there might be some in the basement. Check there."

Guess where Dad sent me after breakfast.

XXXXX

"Alright – I raided the basement, and this is what I was able to find."

I dropped three spiral-bound notebooks, two composition notebooks, and five yellow legal pads on Dad's lap. He coughed for a moment, but I wasn't exactly sure if it was because of the dust or the dying.

"Ace work, kid. This should, uh, this should be enough."

I smirked and sat down next to him on the sofa. Dad was thumbing through all of them, I guess checking for any writing of any sort. I had already checked, of course. These notebooks were to be dedicated solely to this little project of ours. I could give him that much.

"How exactly are we gonna start all this?" I asked. I guess as willing as I was to do this, it still hadn't quite sunk in that I was gonna have to be doing a lot of writing and recording. Which, gross. But I figured it might be a nice distraction for all of us. I just didn't know how much time we had. But for now, Dad seemed stable enough, like he was hanging in there for now.

"Well, I thought we might wait until my buddies get here."

I nudged him. "You excited to see 'em?"

Dad let himself smile. The five of them were such a unit. Over the years, I can't think of many days going by where Dad didn't speak to at least one of them on the phone, or sent them stupid letters. All of our families shuttled annually between Manhattan, Chicago, and Tulsa to see each other. It was all because of the five of them sticking together nearly their whole lives. They had something special, that was for sure.

"Yeah, I am. I mean, I…" He sighed, clearly frustrated. "I guess this is the last time I'll see 'em, ya know? Because if they stay until…"

This was the first time since I'd come home that I'd seen Dad get anywhere close to emotional. Dad wasn't a crier, not like Mom, but he occasionally got choked up. He hadn't cried yet about saying goodbye to us, hadn't cried yet period, but he got really close just then. So I nodded to spare him the grief.

"I know, Dad," I said softly. It was weird, being the one to comfort him, when my whole life it was the opposite. Not to ignore the fact that I could've used some right now, too. He cleared his throat.

"Anyways," he huffed, plowing ahead, "this is good."

"It is," I agreed. "I'm glad you're doing this for him."

Dad smirked. "Yeah, well, I know the ramblings of an old man aren't exactly the best gift to give a five-year-old, but I'm guessin' he ain't gonna be the only one who's gonna wanna read 'em."

I shook my head. "No, he's not." I patted his knee, maybe a bit gentler than I would've in the past. "I was thinkin' about all this last night, and I was kinda thinkin' – well, it needs a framework, ya know? They all need to be coherent. The order they're in needs to make sense, and there needs to be, like, a theme, ya know?"

Dad raised an eyebrow and looked at me like I was nuts. "You're the prof, kid, not me. If you say it needs it, then you go right on ahead, Dal."

Well, I went right on ahead with my plan. While Dad was sleeping, Mom was out working in the yard with Lisa and Sammy, and Mary was making scores of frantic phone calls, I snuck into the old library (well, it's more of an office, 'library' being more of a joking term, but shit, there are books piled all over the place and stuffed into shelves, so it kinda feels like one. The books are mostly Mom's, by the way), opened up one of those old composition notebooks, and made myself feel like I was in tenth grade again, writing a theme of some sort, and started this story in the only way that made sense to me.

XXXXX

Entry #1

1999

Before I tell you about my time in Tulsa, there are two things you need to understand.

One: I'm diabetic. Have been since the fourth grade. And there was a time when I was younger and having it felt like a major disability. I know that sounds stupid – we live in a world of advanced medicine, after all – but I was a kid. I'd heard too many horror stories. My Uncle Steve's mother had died from complications with her diabetes. So when I tell you that a big part of my soul-searching had to do with being a juvenile diabetic, I know it sounds stupid. But trust me, it's an important part of this story.

Two: I had this acquaintance in college named Katherine. She killed herself our senior year. My best friend, Tony (the one who lived next door to us), and I found her strung up in her closet. I met Katherine during, of all things, one of my really bad insulin reactions. She helped me out. (See? I told you it was important). When she died, we had just graduated from Syracuse. I was supposed to be going home.

I didn't go home.

I think it was Katherine's death that made me do it. I dunno, Katherine wasn't some great friend of mine or anything. But she was a friend, and I knew her, and Tony and I were the ones who found her hanging in her apartment. And that fucked me up. My parents didn't know about that. In fact, they didn't even know Katherine existed. Maybe that's okay. Kat would probably give Mom an ulcer, and Dad...

I dunno about Dad.

Dad's an interesting case.

But so was Kat.

She was sad. She was interesting. She was someone that my best friend Tony told me to avoid. But I couldn't. I thought I could save her, but I couldn't. And when I finally realized it was too late, when I got the note that she was going to kill herself, I called the most stable person I know:

Darry Curtis.

"Whaddya mean she's gonna kill herself?" He asked. I sobbed.

"Exactly that!" I cried. "She's probably gone already! Darry, what am I s'posed to do?"

He sighed. "Kid, Dal, calm down. I...I would call 911. Get an ambulance. Then go get her."

I didn't want to go get her, but I did. The whole time Tony and I walked to her apartment, I was crying and thinking about my best memory of Kat, something I could maybe eulogize.

All I could think of was how she saved my life, but I had failed to save hers.

I've had diabetes since I was nine. Freaked my parents out pretty bad when that happened. I didn't mean to. I myself didn't know anything was really truly wrong. Just thought I was sick. That's what they thought too. Probably what any normal person would think.

My Mama sometimes says that it's her fault that I'm this way. She thinks I'm really sick, and that it's all her fault because, ya know, she gave birth to me. Dad always tells her I'm not really all that sick, I just have to do extra things to make my body work right (even though this all hits a little closer to home than you might expect, what with one of his best friend's mother having died from it). Then Mom says OK and they go back to being my parents. I'm really not all that sick, I know that now. But I understand her concern.

I think some of that concern rubbed off on me.

My Dad is the complete opposite of my Mom, never concerned about anything. And I think that drives her nuts. I know they say opposites attract, but sometimes it's amazing just how opposite they are. He's funny and talks all the time, and is just this real blue collar guy that grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Mom grew up on the right side. He was poor, she had a lot of money. His mom was a barmaid, her parents were teachers and socialites. He'd been to jail twice by the time he'd met her, and she'd never spoken to a cop in her life until she met him. If that weren't enough to separate them, they have completely different personalities, too. She's quiet, he's loud. She's strict, he's lenient. She was a hippie; he never quite got over being a JD. Mom hid her emotions away; Dad told you right off the bat if you were pissing him off. They have stuff in common, sure. I mean, they both detest George Bush and love Bob Dylan, but that's kinda small stuff. You wouldn't think the two of them would go for each other, but they did. They're in love. I know that. I still know that to this day.

But me?

Well, in 1999, I was Dally Mathews, stuck in the middle at age twenty-two. Son of Keith and Bridget, brother to Mary and Lisa. I lived and breathed baseball, liked making mixtapes, and was (still am) pathetically diabetic.

That's a story.

Some days, you wake up, and you know something is just wrong. You can feel it. And man, did I feel it that morning. That slow, lethargic, sorta-nauseas feeling settling in my stomach. But I'm a trooper, the old man says so, so I bucked up and went to school like the tough-kid ten-year-old I was. I don't think Mom and Dad were too happy about that, but not much can stand between a dumbass kid and whatever the hell it is he's trying to do. And I was a dumbass kid.

But your parents are almost always right. And I should've listened to them that morning and just skipped.

Because it was later that day that things started really feeling wrong. In my stomach. That's the worst place for things to feel wrong. It usually means you're gonna hurl, and throwing up at school is just about the most embarrassing thing there is. I should know: at about two in the afternoon that day, I threw up right on top of my desk. While my teacher, Mrs. Lane, was talking. It was gross and embarrassing and everyone looked at me, but I just took a deep breath and went down to the nurse, and they called Dad at work to come and pick me up. So Dad got there, and he signs me out and tells a couple jokes to try to help me feel better. It worked some, but I still felt like crap. Plus, the whole fourth grade was probably talking about how I threw up in class. You just can't live shit like that down when you're a kid. And that doesn't make anyone feel too great about themselves. Dad looked at me funny as we left the building.

"Why wouldn't you tell us this morning that something was wrong?" He asked. He wasn't mad; just sounded curious. I shrugged. I was a man of few words for about a week there. Not my norm.

"I dunno," I sighed. "I just didn't feel that bad."

I knew Dad didn't believe me, but he didn't say anything. He just dropped it, and drove me home.

Being sick really sucks, but Dad at least tries to keep you entertained for the duration. Or he does whatever you want with you. That day, I made him watch True Stories with me on the couch and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Those are my two favorite movies, and you can never get enough of your fave. That's what Mary would say. It was going pretty good for a while there. Dad told me about how he and mama saw Holy Grail in theaters and he laughed so hard they almost kicked him out. But then I got sick all over again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And…you get the picture.

It was exhausting, to say the least. For the both of us. Dad didn't know what to do to get me to stop. Eventually, we just sorta sat in the bathroom and waited until I would throw up again. And in between, you know what Dad did? He just started talking. Because of course he did. He just started telling stories. So I listened to him tell me all about the time he and my Uncle Sodapop got jailed for doing flips and cartwheels and stuff out in public. It was a pretty funny story. They'd just been kids then, and their parents had to come and bail them out. It's nice hearing Dad talk. He's from Oklahoma, and he's got a really thick accent that just screams southerner to you. If Mom was a Yankee socialite, then Dad was an Okie cowboy. He's got the boots to prove it. When he talks, his speech is full of y'all's and slurs and stupid sayings that you never would've heard if you didn't know him. I've been hearing it my entire life, and it's rhythmic and it can put you to sleep like that. Maybe that was Dad's plan. I dunno. But I was out, just slumped against the bathtub before I knew it.

You know how they say that the sooner you get to sleep, the sooner it'll come? Mom was that it, and she came sooner than I expected, pressing her hands against my cheeks and my neck and my forehead. Dad was standing right next to her, staring down at me with this real serious look on his face. That's not real normal.

"Hey Mom," I said, kinda smiling. Face it: both parents hovering over you like they were can look kinda funny.

"Hi, Dallas," she said back, sounding kinda distracted. She looked at Dad. She whispered something. He nodded. A stellar example of parental communication. They left after that, and I think I must've fallen asleep, because I woke up in my room the next morning.

I went downhill from there. Long story short, that's how I ended up in the hospital for a week, the doctors telling us it was good they got me in when they did because shit, diabetes is the deadly sort of illness, with my Mama crying a lot and my Dad swearing. Dad's a good cuss.

That's Keith Mathews for you. Cussin' all day long.

So I'm thinking about all this as the coroner takes Kat away. I remember not being sad so much because she was dead, but because of what I realized about human beings.

We're all terminal. We only have so much time on this earth, and that's a scary thought. And with my diabetes, I could die...or at least get a limb chopped off. Then I couldn't play baseball anymore. God, my life would be over even though I would still be living.

Maybe that's why I was in Tulsa. My mortality. Maybe that's why I was sitting in Gramma's kitchen, listening to Dad yell at me over the phone.

"Goddammit, Dallas! Jesus fuck...You should've seen your mother when you didn't get here today! God, what do you have to say for yourself?" He shouted.

I looked at Gramma, who just shrugged her shoulders and set another piece of pie in front of me. I sighed.

"Dad, I'm sorry, but I just need to figure some things out. And I think, for some reason, that this is the place to do it," I reasoned. Dad laughed humorlessly.

"Dear god," he sighed, sounding defeated. "Ya know what? Okay. Okay! Fine. You've got two weeks to...figure it out, Dallas Mathews, and then I'm coming down there myself to fetch your ass. Get it?"

"Got it."

"Good. Now listen, your Mom is in the shower right now, but you better believe me when I say that you better call her soon -"

"Or you'll come fetch my ass?" I cut in. Dad laughed for real this time.

"You bet." He paused before continuing. "Dallas," he continued softly. "Kid, I love you and all, but what do you have to figure out? And why is it in Tulsa?"

He asked that like maybe he already knew, but I can't read minds, can I?

"Just...just a lot of things, Dad," I said. "Things."

"Things?" He repeated. "Fine. Talk to you later, kiddo. Love ya."

"You too. Bye, dad."

"Bye."

We hung up.

Gramma stared at me with a mischievous look in her eye.

"What?" I asked. Gramma just laughed.

"Nothing, sweetheart," she said, leaning over to kiss the top of my head. Gramma is Italian, and her accent rolled over me, a comfort. I raised my eyebrows, but she just waved me off. "Finish your pie. I'll go get your room ready." She started to head for the kitchen door, and I started in on my pie.

"Which room will I be in?" I asked with a forkful of pie in my mouth.

I swear I could hear her smiling when she said, "Your father's old room."

XXXXX

I set the notebook aside, leaned back in the desk chair, and heaved a huge sigh, running my hands down my face. Writing is hard. Usually. Academic papers? Not fun. Articles for academic journals? You've always got something to prove with those. But this? Writing about my family? Came so easy. I could remember those days vividly – throwing up all over my desk, and the entire fourth grade talking about it for what felt like an eternity. Tony and I finding Katherine, just hanging there, swinging. For the first time, I could sorta remember what my parents looked like back then – Mom, her skin smooth; peasant skirts and sweaters and old jeans the only things she wore, like some sort of pottery instructor. Dad, his hair not grey but red, his body not failing him yet. I could even see Mary and Lisa as they were when they were kids. Mary almost always insisted that her hair be braided all through sixth grade, and when I was diagnosed, Lisa was just five years old and was missing her two front teeth. I remember so clearly Tony and I back in college, sitting around in our apartment, listening to R.E.M. and Talking Heads and Nirvana and They Might Be Giants, caring more about baseball and our upcoming game against Georgetown than schoolwork most of the time.

Those were the days, man. This whole thing with Dad was making me realize just how much I missed them, how I shouldn't've been so eager to get out on my own. I'd give anything to have all of that back.

Anything.

The sound of the office door slamming open and Sammy's pitter-patter of feet broke me out of my reverie, and suddenly he was on my lap.

"Oof," I grunted. "Careful, kid."

"Sorry," Sammy whispered, but he was grinning. I smiled back at him.

"What's got you so happy?" I asked. "Just glad to see me?"

Sammy shook his head. "No, Daddy. Gramma sent me to get you."

"Yeah? How come?"

Sammy could barely contain himself. "Your uncles are here!"

XXXXX

AN: Sorry to leave you hanging like that, but the boys – our boys – will be appearing first thing next chapter! Yay!

Thanks so much for reading!