June 25, 2032

So, I've been busy. No idea if anyone will ever read anything I've written in this book, but just in case someone is reading it, you should know I never intended to wait two years to make an update. The thing is, sometimes real life gets in the way of writing about real life…

So I guess I should update you on what's been going on these last two years.

We still own the diner. John Frye runs it and he and his wife live upstairs in our old place. We'd outgrown it pretty quickly after the girls were born. Now we live in a little house on the edge of town, not far from where Aaron and Betty live. We have a yard and two bedrooms. The girls love our new place.

Maisi and Dixie are amazing. First of all, they are beautiful. They look a lot alike but are very different. Maisi is silly and Dixie is more serious. They both adore Bass and Miles, following them around like those two guys hung the moon. It's pretty adorable, really. Miles pretends to be a tough guy, but those girls are his weakness. Truth is that they are also Bass's weakness and mine too.

You should have seen them when Maisi needed to have her appendix out. This was a couple months ago now. Luckily, she was playing with Stephanie when the pain started. Mama Steph (as the girls call her) knew right away what was wrong. She yelled for help and it wasn't long before she and Betty had my baby in emergency surgery. I was a mess, but Bass and Miles? They were beside themselves. This was not long after we'd learned the truth about…well, everything, and that definitely had an impact on Miles.

What truth? Yeah, I'm getting to it.

You know, when I was a child, I remember sitting with my Dad at bedtime. I had this Hello Kitty bedspread and we would sit on the edge of my bed while he read me stories. It was always him reading and never my Mom. In her defense, she did try. It just didn't work. She didn't have the story telling skill that Dad had. He would use different voices and he would make faces and he told every story with so much emotion that I always felt like I was in the middle of each tale.

My favorite book when I was little was The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. It was this story of a little boy who loves a tree. He never stops loving it. The story follows him as he grows old and so does the tree. In the end the tree is cut down, but the boy (who is now an old man) loves what is left of the tree just as much as he loved the tree itself. That book is about love and sacrifice and the older I get, the more I can relate…not just to the boy, but to the tree too.

I know. I know. It's weird.

Anyway, Bass found a copy of that book at a traveling flea market near Austin last year. As soon as he brought it to me, I started reading it to the girls. It's now their favorite story too.

The reason I even mention that book is that I was reading it to the girls the night everything changed. It was dark out and they were sleepy and cuddled up close at my sides. Bass was in the other room reading a book of his own. He always lets me do the story time and then he goes in and gives the girls a kiss before bed. I hadn't really gotten that far into the story when Miles came in. It was weird for him to visit so late. The girls squealed when they saw him and they crawled up into his lap and asked him to finish the story.

And he did. His voice was unsure at first. I could tell he hadn't read aloud in a long time, but after maybe two pages, he was really getting into it. His voice was perfectly soft but full of emotion. The girls were rapt.

So was I. There was something in the way he read to the girls that was so reminiscent of my Dad reading to me…well, I was fighting back tears. He helped me tuck them in and then we left the girls' room. Bass was in the kitchen. He looked…emotional, which was weird. I went to him and asked what was wrong. He didn't say, but asked if the girls were ready for a good night kiss. I just said yes. He squeezed my shoulders and then went back to their room.

"What was that all about?" I asked Miles.

He sighed and suggested we go outside to talk. We settled into the porch swing and I waited. I could tell he wasn't going to talk till he was good and ready. Finally, he reached into his coat and pulled out a little leather book. "Found this today." He handed it to me.

I took it from him, curious. "What is it?"

He leaned forward and stared into the darkness. "It's a journal, Charlie. Your Mom's journal. Found it when I was going through some of Gene's stuff."

I felt a pang. Grandpa died just a few months ago, and that pain is still fresh. Miles and Stephanie are clearing everything out so that they can move in. Miles had been bringing me things for days. Up till then, the things he'd brought had mostly been old photos and keepsakes.

He'd found a stack of love letters written by my Grandma Charlotte. Those letters has been eye-opening to say the least. Evidently writing down the details of one's sex life was a pastime that she and I shared. I closed my eyes, holding the book tightly in my fingers without opening it. I prayed that the interest in writing personal sexual accounts had skipped a generation, because reading about my parents…that was too much. I was scarred enough, knowing what I now know about my grandparents.

"So, you should probably read it." Miles didn't sound sure at all. I could tell there was something he wasn't telling me.

"Why?"

He shook his head. "Just read it, okay? Start on the page where I have the corner turned down."

I felt my heartbeat start to ratchet up. Something was wrong.

I opened to the page that he'd marked and I started reading. "Wait. What?" My voice sounded shaky suddenly. This couldn't be. "Miles?" I was staring at him, but he still wouldn't look at me. "MILES? What is this?"

He looked at the page I was reading. "Shit. Not that page. The other one…"

I shook my head in the negative. I was not reading anymore.

He sighed, "Listen. Your Mom and I were involved before…a long time ago."

"Yeah, I get that." I dropped the book like it was made of fire. Evidently the generation skipping thing had been wishful thinking on my part.

"Well, did you see the date?"

I looked at him blankly for a minute. I was still trying to process the fact that I'd just read vivid details about my Mom screwing my Uncle, and he was worried about dates? "Wait. What?" I was repeating myself, I know.

He picked it up and opened it to the page he wanted me to read. He pushed it in front of me and pointed at the date at the top of the page.

"March 2005?"

He nodded. "Your Dad was in Massachusetts for a stint in a lab at MIT that spring. Your Mom was lonely and I was back on an extended leave. It was after I got shot in Fallujah. They wouldn't re-deploy me till I was recovered. I was staying in Chicago. Things…" He put his head in his hands then and his voice was muffled. "It shouldn't have happened."

"But it did?" I asked. "In 2005?"

"Yeah."

"My mind was spinning. I was born in July 2006."

"Yeah."

"So, you are my…" I couldn't say it.

"Maybe." He shook his head. "Probably. Probably, yes. Yes. Yes, I am."

I could feel tears building. "How sure are you?"

"Well, I always wondered. I'm not stupid. I knew there was a chance. She told me you were Ben's. Told me she got pregnant when he came home for a weekend visit."

"Maybe that was true?" I wasn't sure what to think. On one hand, the idea of Miles being my father was kind of nice. On the other hand, my heart ached for my Dad – the only dad I'd ever known. Images of Ben Matheson filled my mind. Hugs and late night snacks. Teaching me to ride my bike. Consoling me after Johnny Hoyle broke my heart in first grade. Making me root beer floats while we watched Bugs Bunny. Building forts for me and Danny using bed sheets and kitchen chairs…watching him die, his last request for me to find Miles…

Miles reached for my hand. I jerked away from him. "Maybe that was true?" I asked again, my face was wet with tears. "Maybe Ben was my Dad?"

"I also found this." Miles handed me a folded paper.

I took it. My hands were trembling. "What is this?"

"It's a letter from your Mom. She must have written it before she left for Bradbury. You should read it, She wrote it to me and there's a lot of stuff that doesn't really matter, but when it comes to your father… well, she's very clear. Ben was your…"

"My Dad?" I stood then, feeling unsteady.

"Your uncle." Miles whispered. "Ben was your uncle."

I collapsed onto the floor of the porch. This was too much. Miles reached for me, but I couldn't let him touch me. Seeing him. Knowing who he was. It all felt like a betrayal to my real dad. Ben.

Miles staggered back, his face torn with regret. Bass appeared, kneeling next to me. He was speaking quietly, soothing me as best he could.

"You knew?" I asked Bass.

"Not till he showed up tonight. He told me just before he went in for story time." Bass sounded sad and also worried. I knew that even though this was probably very tough on him too, he was worried for me. I crumpled into my husband's arms and I cried. I cried for a long time.

I know what you're thinking. A bit dramatic, right?

Yeah, I know.

Here's the thing. It wasn't until two days later, when I was eating pickles out of a jar with a fork, and still not talking to Miles no matter how many times he came by…that it dawned on me. "Oh hell. I'm pregnant." I ran my hand across my jaw, doing the math. Yeah, there was no escaping this particular truth. "Well, shit."

The girls were sitting at the kitchen table just a few feet away from me, nibbling on slices of brown bread smothered with apple butter. They both looked up at me with surprised eyes.

Maisi grinned. "Oh hell." She said, repeating my own words.

Dixie (always the more serious one) frowned at her sister. "Well, shit," she said with a little nod.

I rolled my eyes, put the lid back on my jar of breakfast pickles and shook my finger at the beautiful cherubs with the dirty mouths. "Don't use those words, girls. Mommy should not have said them either."

"Fuckin A." Dixie said, frowning. "Those are bad words."

I groaned. That was something she'd picked up from her Great Uncle Miles. No. I shook my head, correcting myself. Grandpa. She's learned that from her Grandpa.

It was time for me to talk to him. Time for me to talk to my father.

That was four months ago. Miles and I are doing better now. I can't call him Dad. I just can't. He understands. The fact that the girls call him Grandpa is more than he ever expected anyway. He dotes on them even more than he used to. He and Mama Steph still watch Maisi and Dixie for several hours two days a week, just like they always have. If I'm honest, it was probably one of those lazy child-free afternoons where Monroe Baby number three was conceived.

Bass and I never have let being parents get in the way of our love for each other. He remains my best friend, my partner, my love. Okay, so maybe I'm getting overly emotional again.

I blame the hormones.

I'm due in a couple months. I'm pretty sure this baby is a boy, but we'll see. I'll be happy either way. Bass is nervous because that's how he is, but I think after the girls' entrance into the world; he's thinking we can do anything.

As long as we're together.

He's right. We can. We can do anything at all.

A/N: That's it. Well, there will be an epilogue, but this was the last true 'entry' in Charlie's Journal. I hope you enjoyed this story. It's been a lot of fun to write. Please leave a comment if you have a moment.