Y'all continue to be the best. If you've decided to backtrack and read this chapter even as it was posted out of order, thank you.

If you don't already know, my Mrs. Curtis is named 'Katie' :)

Chapter 8: The Embers

Tulsa 1973

"When I look at the stars, I feel like myself." Soda declares with conviction, and though it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, I think I get it. "They teach you about any of these stories up at your fancy school?" He passes me his stog after a hard drag. His exhale of hazy, gray smoke distorts our view of the constellations and their glittery patterns for just a moment before it's swept away with the breeze. I shift my back a bit against the roots from the oak tree just behind us, putting me a little closer to Soda and his warmth. That boy's body runs hot no matter how cold it is outside.

I let my smoke out away from us through a crooked lip so we don't lose the stars again. "We had a brief unit in Mythology in one of my classes, but nobody tells those stories like Dad did."

"Mhm."

"In fact, when I mentioned in a personal essay that I'm a Cancer, my peer revisor thought I was talking about the disease. Told me I was a hero for attending college nonetheless."

Soda bursts out laughing. That signature snort of his defies any passing of time and maturity. As much as we've all grown and changed, that snort is one of the few things that has the capacity to remain constant after everything. "Guess we were never meant to be normal, huh?"

I like that he marks me and him as one and the same, as odd, because lately I've been feeling a normal, stereotypical phony is exactly who I'm turning into, up there in those lecture halls, trying separate which life I should be leading- that of city boy, or that of country boy. I guess a part of me lies in both, but they don't go hand in hand so well. "We were branded freaks on day one when he named us."

"Hell, even Darry's got a couple of screws loose, and he's the most normal of any of us- name and all." Soda declares, wiggling his fingers towards me for another puff just as Darry's in earshot from his back patio, making his way towards us. Because he follows it up with a slap on the shoulder, Darry doesn't wrestle with him playfully right then and there.

"It takes a real hero to grow up with clowns like you two and make it out with only a couple of screws loose." It's a joke, but it's certainly not untrue. With Soda always betting with the wildest of wildcard and me with my head in the clouds, Darry never was short on brothers to reign in. He lies next to me so I'm smooshed shoulder to shoulder between the two of them.

"What was that, Dar?" Soda's voice carries a little louder now that it's nighttime, and he sits up so he can watch Darry's reaction. "What I heard was 'it takes a real clown to grow up with heroes like you two...'" Darry launches a clod of dirt over me and Soda lets it smack him right between the eyes simply for the comedic value.

"Did Jackie fall asleep okay?" I ask. As an only child, Jackie has struggled a bit not being the center of her parents world, ever since Debbie got pregnant with baby number two. A boy this time. With the upcoming due date, we're all a little nervous to see just how the three-year-old will cope once they bring that new baby home.

"We been working with her on staying in her room at night. She comes crawling into our bed about 2AM every morning claiming she's scared of the dark, but she ain't never been afraid before. Deb says it's common for the first born to act out when the second baby's coming." His hands go sturdily behind his head. "So if it's anyone's fault I got some screws loose, it's yours, Soda, for ruining my perfect life as an only child." Soda blows a raspberry and Darry's chuckle is hearty. "Deb and I have got a system, we switch off who goes and tucks her back in- we want this period to be as short as it can, for all of our sakes."

I'm much more interested in the stories of the constellations than the accuracy of anyone's Zodiac sign, like Dad, but Darry is a full on Capricorn with all his perseverance and determination.

And Soda as a Libra sweeps in with his two cents. "So she's just got to cry herself to sleep all by her lonesome?" he tsks disapprovingly, which he hardly does to anyone. "I don't think I'd be able to handle hearing that without feeling the need to swoop in and cuddle the thing."

"There's a little something called delayed gratification, Soda. Ever heard of it? It ain't easy, but it's got to be done." Darry reaches across my chest to pluck the cigarette from off of Soda's limp lip where he'd forgotten he'd placed it and takes a puff himself.

"Why would you ever settle for anything delayed when you can get it right here right now?" Soda laughs at himself, but even if he's been clean a whole year now, it's still a touchy subject with Darry, and my oldest brother shifts a bit at Soda's comment. Some things take a while to be funny again, or at least they should. Not to Soda, though.

"How're your grades, Pony?" Darry asks without looking at me. Even in my solace of spring break, he brings up grades. It used to drive me up the wall in high school when I was under the careful inspection of Darry and his microscope, but now I see the truth. I know he checks in the way he does, persistent and critical, because he wants to know I'm doing my best with what I've been given. Just like the two of them have.

"So far so good." Okay, maybe that's sugar coating it a bit. Now that I'm paying my own tuition, he has no cause to get upset with me, so I throw in some honestly. "Chemistry is kicking my ass. Some chump I was thinking it okay to save my least favorite intro course for my final semester."

"I would've aced that class." Soda pipes up, and I hope he doesn't catch the surprised look on me and Darry's faces as we ponder how he figures that. He reiterates, "I had a lot of practice with Mandy Carlile and Patricia Parker." He bobs his eyebrows.

"Yeah? And what's Gracie got to say about you and all that?" Darry asks, "How long you two been dating now, anyhow?"

Soda's teeth gleam as he looks up at the moonlight just at the thought of her, so ridiculously dreamy that I wonder if it's actually possible someone could be so enthralled with someone else even after they've known each other so many years. The Cancer in me has me feeling a bit jealous that he's got someone like that and I don't, and all at once I hate that I go there. It doesn't help that I don't totally take to Grace as easily as I have Debbie. I find her a bit hard to reach, whereas Debbie opens her heart up to anyone. You get a bit defensive when your siblings start finding people. I don't think Grace is good enough for Soda, but I pretty sure Darry thinks Soda's the one who fished out of his league.

"Lil' over two years." he says without the shame Darry's trying to place on him for not having her roped in entirely yet.

"You know Deb and I got married a year after our first date, right?" Darry reminds, but it's more playful than anything. Darry may always be the best at everything, but he doesn't actually like to rub it in. "We weren't foolin' around."

"Grace and I do lots of fooling around." Soda never passes up a crude joke, but launches right back into his response before Darry can get on his case for it, "But I think you'll be relieved to know, I've already asked." He turns to look at us, his eyes full of fire and mischief as he digs into his pocket and pulls out a golden wedding band, one that was clearly bought on a mechanic's salary and free of the stones on Debbie's, but it couldn't be any more perfectly Grace and Soda.

"Soda, you should've led with that!" I can't help but laugh, all the jealousy from before gone because this is what Soda has wanted for a long time. In fact, this may be all he's ever really wanted. "Why isn't it on her finger?"

His smile doesn't even flicker, "'Cause she said no." And he shoves it back in his pocket for his version of safe keeping, looking back up at the stars like he didn't just say exactly what he said.

This doesn't exactly score any points for Grace with me.

"What?" Darry scoffs, mainly at Soda's carefree reaction and not Grace's turn down.

"It's okay, boys. I've asked a few times now. She'll say yes one day, I know it." he blinks in complete bliss, something he's mastered in all his chaos, then turns to face me. "How 'bout you Pony? How's Kathleen?"

Her name alone sends a shiver up my spine. If crazy can wrap itself in the form of a name, well then, Kathleen could send me to the looney bin tonight. I shudder, and not from the cold. I haven't exactly been lucky when it comes to women the way my brothers have.

"We broke up." Now I'm the one to grab the cigarette from Darry like I'm some kind of a boss.

Darry's head whips towards me, "Why?"

"I ain't saying I'm any kind of treasure or nothing, but she started wanting more and more... asked if I wanted kids and stuff when I'm still trying to figure what I want for lunch every time noon rolls around."

Cue another one of Soda's snorts.

Darry shakes his head, "You'll find someone soon enough, Pony, don't worry."

"I wasn't."

"'Course not, Pone." Soda steps in between what could easily turn into another argument from Father Darry who doesn't always see there are other ways to live than ticking things off your to do list. "What did you in when it came to Debbie, Darry-Berry?"

Darry's brow furrows in seriously, but his exhale is full of contentment, something he seems to be gaining more and more of, and it makes me happy that the guy is finally getting a break.

He chews on the question as he does like something big is on the line, he's far too thoughtful and calculated for talking without thinking. "She was real with me. She wanted to grow and she was okay doing it with me by her side. You gotta find someone who you're okay being with in the quiet moments." That's as poetic as it gets with Darry, and it's pretty damn good the more I replay it in my head. "What about with Grace?"

I watch as Soda closes his eyes and inhales every scent this night has to offer like it's some kind of gift, "I don't got no kind of an answer for you, Darry. I just looked at her one day, and she was the one. Not many people are okay with this pretty face being all kinds of trouble like it is."

I elbow him in the ribs, wishing he'd quit ragging on himself all of the time. "You can do better than that, Soda."

"No, I can't. It's just like one day life was like 'here's your person, you better take care of her 'cause she's better than the real thing', and she is. I'd walk through fire for her with a smile on my face, 'cause you know what? Not everybody gets the chance to have something so special." When his face falters a bit, I know it's because he's thinking of those war buddies who didn't come home. His mind goes there a lot, yet somehow it still has the capacity to catch him off guard from time to time.

"You okay, Soda?" I can't stand his silence after that.

He nods, looking back at me with a smile, "I'm just real glad you two are here and you're safe." He says decidedly, a bit off-beat, and I don't know why but Darry shifts uneasily next to me.

"What was that song Dad used to always put on for Mom on their anniversary?" Darry finally says, moving us right along in the conversation. "The one about the guy with a stutter in love with the prettiest girl in town? I'm pretty sure one of us has got the record somewhere."

Soda and I start singing in unison like a well-rehearsed performance. "K-K-K-Katy, beautiful Katy, you're the only g-g-g-girl that I adore." I'm at normal speaking volume, but Soda knocks it up about a hundred decibels just because, throwing his hands out in front of him and up at the sky like he's a professional singer and the stars his sold out arena.

Darry plucks the cigarette from my mouth and places it in Soda's to shut him up, but not without a giant grin on his face.

"That's the one," He smiles.

"Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad!" Soda screams up at the sky, at the stars stuck up there gracing us with their sparkling light, as if Mom and Dad are among those twinkling lights waving right back.

Tulsa, July 1976

"Darrel! Call waiting for you." Carol's ancient and angry voice infused with years of cigarette glory refuses to be ignored. I give her as polite of a wave as I can muster so she'll get off my case. I don't let anybody talk back to me, but Carol has a free pass any day any time because nobody in their right mind would mess with that old woman. I'm not looking for a death wish.

I pick the phone from off of the receiver. "Officer Curtis?"

"Is this the Darrel Curtis, Jr.?" the voice is familiar enough to spark curiosity but not cement an identity.

"Speaking."

"It's your old greaser pal. Remember us from the dark side? From before you got all high and mighty?" My eyes close. Leave it to Curly Shepard to be so invested in being a picture of trouble and danger that he'd think it an actual game to call a police station in the very county he rules in drug dealing. The lines between stupidity and fearless are always a bit obscured with him.

"What can I help you with today, sir."

There's a watery spit of his tobacco from the other end of the phone, and he sucks what didn't repel back down his throat, all in the space of a second. "Calling to let you know my silence ain't been out of laziness towards our deal. I ain't talked to your brother in weeks."

I pause to think, wondering if there's any way Soda's caught onto me spying on him. Wondering if he was able to bribe Curly into turning the table right back around on me. Or if maybe he just up and found some new dealer I don't know about. Soda's always been able to cleverly execute any type of con, and I'm not sure I'd put it past him to pull a fast one over me too. "Any way he's got a different contact?"

Curly's congested laugh is aimed to tear me down, and maybe it does a bit when he treats me like any other cop who doesn't know anything about being a street boy. "Ain't no way in hell. Not in my territory."

My sigh of relief is long and jammed full of a thousand little things I've been holding onto lately regarding him and his stumbling. To know he's been as clean as he looks since baby Marley is the clarity I've been seeking out for a long time. "Good." Carol looks over from her secretary's desk at the front, eyes narrowing in on mine, maybe because she's catching suspicions, but most likely because she just doesn't like a damn thing about a damn thing and there's nothing much else to see in this office.

"So, we still got a deal?"

I think on it. Not quite ready to revoke what I've got, just in case Soda tries to get secretive again. Plus, it's not like Curly has actually needed my pardoning since the deal was made anyways. He's too smart for that, he's too careful, too good at what he does. "Yeah. Thanks for calling, I'm drafting a report right now." I feign cordiality to divert Carol's glare.

"I sure hope not, that'd be a sealed fate for us both..." he starts though he knows my angle, but I don't hear the rest as I place the phone back down. Even with this elation that no unholy transactions have been made under my brother's name, I don't ever forget that mine only continues to be tainted with all my untruthfulness.

"Who was that?" Dave's voice booms from behind me suddenly, enough to knock the phone off the receiver as I try to hang it up.

I catch my bearings pretty quickly, though. "Just some guy calling in information. Thought he might've seen a drug deal go down by the park. Pretty standard."

He hesitates, but he nods eventually. "Okay."

I know time alone doesn't have to power to heal all wounds, but it's good to have as much of my Soda back as I can all things considered. I worried so much over bringing that baby into a world drowning in Soda's addiction, but it was that little baby that near erased it away. Not like it never happened, but erased enough that a new beginning can be drafted, and the pen lies in steady hands and a future that lies in eyes exploding with a newfound love.

I always knew he'd be a one-of-a-kind Daddy, because he's a one-of-a-kind in everything else that he does. The first couple of weeks, he'd spring out of bed at every little coo or whimper that came from her crib. And even now, at three months, he's still just as happy to cuddle her back into slumber... even if now it's more of a sluggish, exhausted shuffle over to her crib, hand wandering with no destination through his disheveled hair. Sometimes I have to tell him that I want a turn at getting up in those early hours to lure her back to sleep.

He doesn't stay up later than I do, doesn't try and hide things behind my back anymore. He even comes to bed with me, the couch a distant memory of a time that feels a bit like a didn't happen, yet still has enough voice to chime in if I think too long on it.

We're finding our way back to each other, I think. He tells me more. He lets me sit there in silence with him when he can't sleep, now, instead of escaping off on his own like some lone soldier who doesn't have anybody. He remembers he's got me, he's always had me. I know some of those memories he keeps from me still, and for now, I wouldn't dare complain over it, because at least I'm granted a spot next to him when those memories sink their teeth into him.

It must've been the labor. There was something about the way that night shook us in our core, jostled us around into seeing clearly. Just the two of us. I didn't have any doctors or nurses to project my lean on, just him in the middle of his high, and he didn't have anyone else to trust but me. There was so much fear in the unknown, but when we came together, our partnership rediscovered even for a moment, it all seemed possible. He told me I could do it, and I did it.

I don't know how Marley's birth ended up being as seamless as it was. But I do know, even if I'd been around all the best doctors in the world, doped up on all their fancy painkillers, I wouldn't have been able to do it without Soda there. Even as all our unsteadiness starts with him, it's from him that I seek my security. I can see that now. If only I'd remembered it always.

"Nobody ever loved me like she does..." He sings to me passionately with Lennon on the radio behind, and Marley held against his shoulder. I keep stirring the green beans, hand on my hip and giving him a glimpse of a smile.

"Pass the salt."

He nods briefly just in time to catch the chorus, raising the salt shaker as a microphone, "Don't let me down!"

My jaw clenches suddenly at the desperation in the voice screaming from the speaker and the words they're crying out, and the green beans don't sound so good anymore with this heavy water balloon of guilt residing right in my stomach. Sometimes I forget what I still have to tell him, that while life seems to have found its correct course, there's all this swimming around underneath that he's yet to hear about.

It's moments like this that I just want to scream along with Lennon and confess it all to him, rip that weight from off my chest because it's getting awfully heavy. But I can't, he's too fragile, still, even as he's fought his way back to being clean. But clean doesn't mean 'fixed'. And with Darry still treading the outskirts and Pony starting to back off, too, I can't be the last brick wall that crumbles on top of him.

I'll tell him, just not yet. I can't do him in twice, I refuse to be the reason we lose what we've gotten back, so I'll keep carrying all this around until the time's right.

Marley starts to fuss in Soda's arms because he's getting too caught up in his singing and dancing. He shushes her sweetly, adding some soft bounces, but she's already fed up with his unstoppably high energy that never quite gives her a chance at the adequate shut eye she needs.

I set the spoon next to the stove and beckon him to pass her to me. Maybe he's the only one who can get her to crack a smile, but he never did figure how to calm her back down after working her up.

He gives me a sheepish look, I think because he wishes he could do it all and be everything she needs, but that's why she's got us both.

"She's just hungry." I give a half smile, assuring him that maybe that's the real reason she's upset, but he turns the dial down to the radio nonetheless.

"I'll keep an eye on the beans." He says, snapping the strings of my apron so it comes off in his hands and ties it around his own waist, plopping his hand on his side in imitation of me.

As I start to leave, he gently puts a hand around my waist and tugs me closer to him, pressing his lips against my neck and working his way down to my collarbone. When he pulls away, tears start to make their journey from deep in my stomach to my eyes, and I've almost let them spill out onto my cheeks even before I'm able to swallow them back down at the last second.

He doesn't get to see the tears, but he catches the gulp, and he cocks his head to the side. "Hi." He says with a curious, crinkled brow, voice so soft and tender as he comes down off his cloud. "You okay?"

I fight the honest, panicked scream that tries to bubble up from my lungs, this lie that nips at my heels as I drag it around all over the place like a ball and chain. I just want to tell him, but he's getting better, and I can't risk that now.

I get up on my tippy toes to press our foreheads together, "Don't let the beans burn, I'll be back in a jiffy. Think you can handle it?"

He's not buying it, but he's knows with me a lot of things have to be timed right, so he lets it go and salutes me. "I won't let you down."

"Eight ball, corner pocket." Darry leans forward, flush with the table, always biggest biceps out on display. His pool cue eases through his fingers gracefully, the chalk kissing a fine, blue dust on the black shine of the ball. It glides across the table, right on its way to stealing my win, but at the last second, bounces off of the corner of the table by the pocket and it repels back so it runs along the straight edge, complicating my shot, but at least I've got a chance. "Damn." He stands upright, just barely missing the yellow glow of the low hanging lamp, and shakes his head at himself the way he used to at me when I was fourteen. Only recently have I put it together that the expectation he held me to is the same one he would've had for himself if he had the chance to do what I've been able to do.

I lean forward, threading the cue through my pointer and middle finger, ready for my turn to be one with the green felt.

"That's not how you're meant to hold it, Pony..." Darry begins before he can stop himself, but I snap my shot, and the eight ball whips across the table and disappears into the hole. I flip my eyes up at him and he's staring at the corner pocket, all surprised. Studying isn't the only thing I did in the big city.

"Looks like the next round is on you." I say, trying to contain my pride as best as I can, because glee is one way to revoke your power in Darry's eyes. At least with me, it is.

I stand up tall, roll my shoulders back for a bit more height and work my way towards him.

He bobs his head, narrowing his eyes as if he has the power to undo my win. He even hesitates as he licks his lips, like he's lost for words before he smacks me with, "You didn't call it."

I clench my teeth, still trying to remain stoic, even as he claps his hand on my shoulder like I'm a sorry kid who's dropped his ice cream. A technicality?

"But I'll buy since you've got all those student loans you're still workin' on paying off." And he jostles me around a bit under his grasp playfully at that before marching over to the bar.

I think about telling him he can piss off because it's not just my fault I ended up going to a school with tuition that cost us everything that first semester. No, he signed me up for that fate just as much as I rolled with the punches. But I know it'll sound ungrateful to his ears, and I'll be damned if I ever give him that impression after all he's done for me. At least we've found the capacity to bite our own tongues when it comes to our arguments, at least from time to time.

I watch him order two Buds from Martin at the bar, stuffing a whole dollar in the tip jar when nobody but me is looking. Darry's budgeting has no loopholes or days off, but he's a generous man, hardly ever to himself, but always to everybody else.

"Success and excess ain't the same thing, Pony." He had said, and it made a whole lot more sense when my degree started earning me more than peanuts. "Now if we can just get your brother to quit buying fancy cars."

"How're the kids?"

Darry shrugs, and though the strength of his love for them continues to grow tenfold each day, not every little thing they do is as cute or innocent as it used to be. I guess when love grows, so does imperfection. "Mrs. Mulberry threatened to take Jackie's recess away yesterday, but Jackie went off on a whole argument that convinced her otherwise. Woman's either going to be a demagogue or a saint, I think she's still figuring. Junior almost fell out of the peach tree in the backyard on Monday when he was climbing, near cracked his head open. And we're still trying to figure if we should be pushing Maddie to talk more or if it's something she'll grow out of on her own." His updates are like bullet points on a checklist.

"She's still not sayin' much, huh?"

"No. It's hard enough Deb and I don't know what she needs half the time when she gets upset 'cause she won't tell us. But the doctor just about called Deb a refrigerator mother. Damn, I near took him out myself when he said that. Deb's been chewing on that one for a while. Of course it ain't true, maybe for other moms, but not Deb, she shows that little girl whatever love she can, but I think it really got to her. Sometimes I think we just gotta let kids be kids, let the girl speak whenever she feels like she wants to. I mean, we all three turned out just fine and we never got any type of special treatment."

I take the opportunity to bite my tongue when I think about Soda trying to sound out words at the dinner table with mom, or Darry staying up way later than he needed to trying to get his homework completed 'just right'.

"'Cept maybe we should've gotten your nightmares checked out."

"You weren't so perfect, yourself." I remind. "You still checking in with Soda?"

"Every Thursday night, I give him a call."

"How's he doing?" It falls off out of my mouth with hardly any sound as I get a bit insecure halfway through.

"Haven't you two been talking?" he sets his beer down harshly.

I shrug, but then shake it off a bit, tired of trying to look like I'm passing, "Trying to."

Sometimes I can forget that Darry's got this side to him that knows exactly what to say more than anyone else. "Whatever he's not saying, he's just figuring out how to say it."

"What don't I know, Darry?"

He fiddles with his beer a second, "It ain't my business to share, it's Soda's."

"How am I supposed to be any kind of help if nobody tells me the lay of the land?"

He shakes his head, this time at me. "He'll tell you when you need to know."

"I don't think he will. Don't you worry we haven't really been there for him lately?"

"Look here, Pony. I know you two got your own little telepathy thing going on, and it throws you off thinking you don't have as strong of a signal with all this. But he's getting better. I think the space did him some good. Sometimes you gotta push someone away to remind them to come back, and maybe that's what's happen with the two of you, too. He's been sober a couple months, now, Pony. He's a father now. We're almost over the hill."

"But how do you know he's been sober? How do you know it ain't a front, like it was before?" I don't much like playing the part of skeptic, especially when it means I'm questioning Soda and challenging Darry. Darry's reigns as the realist of the family, not me.

"I just know." He shuffles a bit uncomfortably.

"But how?"

"I just do, Ponyboy." And Darry's never been all that great at making himself and his secrets inconspicuous. At least I don't have to work at figuring out that he's hiding something now as well.

"You too, huh?" I say, finally, feeling my lip curl up like I've tasted something bitter. "What, do you two just share all your secrets on those Thursday night calls? Tell each other all the things you don't tell me 'cause you think it's funny?"

All he does is raise his eyebrow at my tone for me to feel like he's missed my point entirely, even as it shuts me up like he wants.

"You done?" He quips with zero patience, like I'm Junior. Like I'm not twenty-four with a steady job and degree, like I didn't ace every single achievement he'd laid out before me.

I'm much too old for storming off in a huff, but it doesn't mean I don't still feel like it from time to time.

He looks like he's biting his own tongue now, keeping the peace because he can see maybe I won't be doing it much longer. The subject changes, and I know we won't be looking back on it anytime soon. "Met any women since you been back, Pony?"

Author's Note:

'Don't Let Me Down' by The Beatles (1970) is John's song for Yoko. When asked about this song, John said "When it gets down to it, when you're drowning, you don't say, 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream"

'Katy' sung by Billy Murray (1918) is just a wonderful song, and I have cherry-sodas to thank for pointing it out to me.

'When I look at the stars I feel like myself' is from 'Stars' by Switchfoot (2005) obviously that's not what Soda's quoting from, but it is what I'M quoting from ;)

S.E. Hinton owns it all!

Thank you for reading, and as always, for those reviews that just bring me all of the joy.