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Chapters (31)
  1. The Long and Winding Road
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. Prologue: Or, Where Bear Answers the Door
  6. PAST
  7. 1. Where Bear Makes the Wrong Assumption
  8. 2. Where Bear Finds Out
  9. 3. Where Bear Makes a Decision
  10. 4. Where Bear Learns the Art of Breathing
  11. 5. Where Bear Has Bro-Time with Creed
  12. PRESENT
  13. 6. Where Bear Attends the Most Awkward Homecoming Ever
  14. 7. Where Bear Tells Tyson Everything
  15. 8. Where Bear Makes a Promise
  16. 9. Where Bear Goes to Lamaze Class
  17. 10. Where Bear Gets Advice About His Sex Life
  18. 11. Where Bear and Otter Role-Play at a Hotel Bar
  19. 12. Where Bear Faces the Reality of Married Life
  20. 13. Where Bear Sees Everything Change
  21. FUTURE
  22. 14. The Long and Winding Road
  23. Epilogue: Or, Otter’s Perspective, As It Were
  24. Coda
  25. No. Absolutely not. No way.
  26. More from TJ Klune
  27. Readers love the Bear, Otter, and the Kid Chronicles by TJ Klune
  28. About the Author
  29. By TJ Klune
  30. Visit Dreamspinner Press
  31. Copyright

A tear spills over her cheek. Just one. She looks up at me, and even before she says it, I know. Somehow I know. And in the darkest corners of my heart, there is only relief, and I can’t be bothered to feel any guilt because of it. Maybe that’ll come later. But right now, it’s just relief.

“She’s dead,” Isabelle McKenna says. “Mom. She’s dead and I have nowhere else to go and Ty said if I needed help to find him and I need help! I need help so bad.” Her chest hitches, and it’s that, that little action, a little girl on the verge of tears standing in front of me, looking up at me like I’ll have all the answers that causes my knees to buckle.

And for the first time in my life, my little sister launches herself into my arms. The weight of her reminds me so much of Ty that I can barely breathe around the lump in my throat. She sobs bitterly against my chest. The blood roars in my ears.

You and me. That’ll never change, Papa Bear.

But it will, won’t it?

It’s already happening.

“Twins,” Otter says from somewhere behind us. He sounds just stupid with awe, and through the haze, I am barely grasping what he’s saying. “Jesus Christ. We’re having twins?”

DO YOU remember how it all began?

I do.

And this is where it begins again.

One last time.

PAST

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

—George Santayana

1. Where Bear Makes the Wrong Assumption

I PARKED in the driveway, massaging my head, trying to curb the headache that’d been threatening all day. It probably hadn’t helped that I’d spent the day standing in the front of a classroom populated with the minds of the future. (Read: pubescent, hormonal teenagers who didn’t understand why they couldn’t have their smartphones out when Mr. Thompson was talking, and you can’t just take it away from me and put it in your desk, wait until my father hears about this. It was so hard not to snark right back that I couldn’t wait until his father heard about it, but since I was the responsible educator, I merely smiled and said the phone could be collected at the end of class.)

The sky was starting to streak, but it was unseasonably warm, the air already muggier than I had ever hoped it would be. For a moment, I allowed myself to miss the Pacific Ocean, but I pushed it away. This was our life now, and by choice. If I had to do it all over again, I’d be in the same exact place. Being here wasn’t about me, not really.