Epilogue

July 10, 1972. Tulsa, OK.

He covers his head with the pillow and tries to block out the phone's incessant ringing, but it just won't stop. He finally forces himself out of bed, shuffles into the adjoining room, and picks up the phone.

"What?" he grumbles.

"Tim?" Angela asks. "You better get over here."

He's suddenly wide-awake. "Angel? Where are you? Get where?"

"To ma's, dummy. These night shifts are really messin' with your head."

"Yeah, no shit. Especially since I'd just been in bed an hour before you woke me up."

"Well, then you ain't missin' out on much sleep. Just get here."

She hangs up without saying goodbye. Tim splashes some cold water on his face, swishes around some mouthwash, and starts toward the house he grew up in.

XXX

His mother is in tears when he gets there. She holds a piece of paper and some 3x5s out to Tim.

"Your brother," she sniffles. "He's alive."

"Is that all?" Tim says, trying in vain to keep the irritation out of his voice.

"We haven't heard from him in five years, Tim, for all we knew…" his mother starts.

"He's to stupid to die, ma," Tim says. "Fell off a telephone pole when he was thirteen, got hit by a car when he was fifteen, got shot when he was seventeen. The kid is an idiot, and also indestructible."

His mother sighs and dabs at her eyes. "Just read the letter. Look at the pictures."

He skims the letter. Driving, working, farm, California, Napa, grapes, wine, our own place are the words that stand out to him. He starts flipping through the pictures. Curly sitting on top of a cow, Faye Louise pointing to a tumbleweed and looking way too excited, the two of them at the Canadian border. Faye Louise in front of a trellis of grape vines. Curly with a plant that his mother thinks is tomatoes, and Tim doesn't have the heart to correct her. And then the last photo.

"She's gotten fat," Angela says. She's wearing a smug smile.

But the shape of her dress, the glow in her cheeks, and the way that Curly is smiling tell another story.

"She ain't fat," Tim says. "Goddamn it. I might've known she'd be…"

XXX

July, 1972. Napa Valley, CA.

"You're waddling," Curly teases.

"Shut up, I am not," a very pregnant Faye Louise replies.

"Make some duck sounds."

"I am not going to make fucking duck sounds." She pushes her bangs out of her face.

"If I dropped bread crumbs on the floor, would you eat them?" Curly asks.

"If I could bend over far enough, I'm damn sure I would," she replies.

She flops down on the couch next to him and then lies down, using his lap as a pillow. "Fucking starving. And also so fucking full."

He picks up her hand and kisses it. She groans.

"God, get this thing out of me."

"That thing is our kid. And you know it'll be here any day now," he replies.

"Not soon enough," she mutters. "And, shit, once it is here, the grapes…"

"You've taught Joaquin and I well," Curly replies. "We can handle it."

She sighs and nuzzles at his thighs, trying to get closer to him. "'Member way the hell back when, when I told you that you weren't dumb? You just needed to get out of Tim's shadow?"

"Yeah," he says. He starts rubbing her back. "Who'd have thunk I'd be almost as good at looking after plants as you?"

"Tim couldn't even keep a cactus alive," she mumbles.

He laughs. "Bet you're right."

"What 'cha thinkin' 'bout, Curly?" she asks after a few minutes of silence.

"Just the letter we sent my folks," he replies. "Maybe we should've left a return address."

"We talked about this. We agreed it'd be best if they couldn't find us," she says. "'Sides, if they get really desperate, they can find the winery. Glass Houses seems like an obvious enough name."

"I know, I know," he says.

She giggles. "Glass Houses Vineyards and Throwing Stones Merlot. Probably the most creative thing you've ever come up with."

"What can I say? I ain't half as dumb as I look."

She smiles and kisses his callused palm. "Nope. You sure ain't."

"I love you," he says after a short pause. It's not weird at all for him to say it any more.

It's not weird for her to hear it any more, either, and she almost instinctively replies, "I love you, too."

Le fin.

And that's all she wrote! Literally ;)
Thank you so much for sticking with me through this story, and for the reviews! I really appreciate all of you! 3