Hey, I figured I'd make an Epilogue that leads everyone into the squeal which will be out in a few weeks. I wanna work on some other stories before I get started, and I'm gonna write some acknowledgements and author's note soon, so watch it for that. Anyway, here you go!
Epilogue
May 1979
It's me and Matty's wedding anniversary today, and it's been pretty busy. Later on tonight we're going out to dinner, but before that can happen we have things to do.
First thing to do was to get our daughter ready. Yes, daughter. Next to Matty she is the most beautiful thing I ever laid my eyes on and I love her to death. Her birthday is November 14, 1975. I say she looks a lot like Matty, but people say they see a lot of me in her. She defiantly has Matty's hair though, which I'm happy about. But she has my eyes, greenish-gray. She's 4 now, she's real smart, kind of like her daddy. Her doctor said she's smart enough that we can put her into kindergarten in the fall, even though she'll be a year younger then everyone else, like I was. We named her Evangeline Marie Curtis. We call her Angel though.
So Matty made her breakfast and got her dressed, then I drove her down to her cousin's house. She plays well with Laura and Darry's kids. James whose 8, Nathan whose 6, and Dahlia whose 3. She's also good friends with Two-Bit's five year old, Mickey.
After that, Matty and I had to go to the doctor's, Matty's pregnant again. Her due date is in mid-October, so she's four months along. We got to do a sonogram today, and they had some pretty big news. We're going to have twins! We don't know the genders yet, and we're gonna have it be a surprise anyway, but we're still so excited. Matty claims I started tearing up when the doctor told us, but that's cause her eyes were fogging up for tears and she couldn't see well.
After that we went back home, luckily we both had the day off from work. Like Matty wanted to, she became a social worker. She loves her job, cause she gets to help kids, but sometimes it's hard. There have been times when she cries at night because a kid has been beat or neglected in terrible ways the two of us can barley imagine how the kid can handle it. I don't know how anyone can purposely harm their own child. I look at Angel and I can't even let anything out in the world hurt her, let alone myself.
And I got a job as an author. I've written a few short stories and poems, and I have a few books that were on the best sellers lists. They're called Tex, Rumble Fish, and That Was Then, This Is Now .
The main reason we were staying home today before going out was to pack some things up. We're gonna move out to San Diego in the same neighborhood as Soda and Emily. They have four kids, I don't know how they do it. There's Xavier, Rachel, Wendy and Dane, whose a year older than Angel.
We're moving to San Diego not only to see Soda more, but because we've wanted to for awhile. Plus my publisher lives in California, so it would be easier on my job, and Matty has already found work there. We're gonna move in June.
We went up into to the attic go trough some things. See what was worth keeping or throwing out kind of deal. Matty was off going through some of Angel's old baby stuff and see what was worth keeping for the new babies. I was looking through some boxes. At the bottom of one I found an old assignment book, the pages were kind of yellow and the cover was a little beat. I recognized it but I didn't remember what I wrote inside. I opened it up, at the top was my name and under it the date said 1965.
When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.
This was the theme I had to write in 9th grade, the one after Dallas and Johnny died and I was flunking my classes. I filled up the whole book. It got my an A, I can't believe I forgot about it.
"Matty come here," I called to my wife. She semi-waddled her way over. She was only four months pregnant but since she was having twins her belly was already getting big. And her feet and ankles were starting to swell, which is one of the main things she hates about pregnancy.
"What is it?" She asked.
"Read this," I said handing the book to her. She had heard the story a thousand times, but she never actually read it. She only read the first couple of pages, but she stopped. "This is well-written Pone, I think it's some of your best.'
"It was just a school assignment, almost 15 years ago." I said.
"Yeah, but it was written from your heart, I can tell. Ever thought of publishing it?"
"You mean like a memoir?"
"Sure, or like a coming-of-age novel like your other stories, whatever you want." Matty said then walked over what she was doing. I flipped trough the pages and read little bits and pieces. I remembered everything clearly like it was yesterday, but at the same time; after all I've been through , it seemed like a long time ago. But who knows? Maybe it would make a good book.
