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It's always a complicated process, trying to jibe the various timelines he has to deal with, but Charlie's determined. This is his third Milliways-based Lent, and he's not going to let it slide just because it's summer in San Diego. Sometimes a bloke needs a time of contemplation and discipline. Even this bloke.

So. Doorway in from California early this morning, out to Las Vegas for Mass, and back to the Bar again.

For a guy with ashes on his forehead, he looks pretty peaceful.

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"It does indeed," Charlie says with a slight frown. It sounds a little too familiar.

It's a fact of life for her - she's not quite old enough to realize that parents aren't supposed to tell their kids that they're stupid, or a mistake. That'll change soon enough... but not yet.

"But I'm really smart, I read lots of books."

"Oh, that's very good. What's your favorite?"

"I like A Little Princess and Rilla of Ingleside and the Narnia books."

And yes, she's read all of them.

Ah . . . girl books.

"I look after a little girl whose favorite book is The Giving Tree. It reminds her of her papa."

"I've never read that, who's her papa?"

"Her papa's name is Jack and he really likes trees."

Also a god, but she's young and just learned about angels. It would be confusing.

"It's about a boy and the tree who loves him."

"Is it a picture book? I don't like picture books, they're too short."

"It has words and pictures. Do you know who Shel Silverstein is? He wrote it."

She shakes her head. "I know who Louisa May Alcott is! She wrote a book called Little Women, but Miranda took it with her to school, so I haven't gotten past the first chapter."

"Well, sometime, read Shel Silverstein. He writes poems, too--about picking your nose and taking the garbage out."

She wrinkles her nose. "That sounds like boy poems."

Boys still have cooties.

"Some of them are very boy poems. And some of them very girl poems."

He adds, since he's the Adult here, "I'm Charlie, by the way."

"I'm Rilla. Mommy named me Sasha, but I don't like that name."

Apparently she's not Princess Sarah Marilla Lucy Pevensie Blythe at the moment.

"Rilla is very pretty. The little girl I look after is named Georgia, and she's got a brother called Keiran. And there's another little boy I take care of sometimes named Aaron."

"It's short for Marilla but I don't like that name as much, but Rilla Blythe is my favorite character in my new book that I found under Miranda's bed when Mommy made me help her clean it out."

All in one sentence.

Charlie laughs. "Breathe! Remember to breathe.

"Sasha's a pretty name, too."

Rilla makes a face.

"I don't like it. 'Cause Mom and Daddy are always yelling it. I don't like when they yell at me."

"Well," he scratches his beard, "I can't blame you for that. I never liked it when my dad yelled, either."

"What did he yell at you?"

She's curious, and sees no reason why she shouldn't ask.

"Oh . . . well, let's see. Because I would play piano when he was hungover, or I'd bring home bad marks from school, or my brother and I would be playing too loudly . . . my dad wasn't a very nice bloke."

Perhaps TMI for one so young, but too late now.

"My daddy yells at me 'cause I'm a mistake and I ruined his and Mom's plans."

Said with the matter-of-factness of a young child who doesn't even know she should be hurt by that.

Charlie blinks at her. "Christ," he mutters, and wishes for a moment that he could whisk her away to live safely with Jack and Gil, with people who know how precious children are.

He kneels down so he can look into her eyes. "You want to know something true? Whatever plans they had, they are not as important as you."

She looks wary at that, as if he's encroached on some fact of her life, saying it's not true.

Which... he has.

"Nuh-uh," she protests. "There's lotsa things more important than me. Like Daddy's work and Mommy's clubs and Miranda and Aaron and Tony."

"No. Not at all. Mommy's clubs, Daddy's work, your brothers and sisters . . . they're just excuses."