Last Miles' centric chapter. . . Say goodbye to the Miles POV:


The first few weeks after. . . after . . . well, after Thanksgiving is what Miles ends up calling it. The first few weeks after Thanksgiving are kinda shitty. No, not true. Not kinda. They are shitty. Just out and out shitty, no way around that.

Jim takes a few days off, and then after that, if he shows up at all, he's late and hung over. He falls asleep in his car. He jumps down some frat boy's throat for crossing against a light. Miles has to pull him off the poor dude. Their shift commander gets a complaint. Jim kicks a chair and storms out. Miles finally tells Lieutenant Dolan what's up, and that mollifies him enough that he doesn't write a citation for LaFleur's personnel file.

Next day, though, as Miles walks into the building to start his shift, outta nowhere, Jim grabs him and shoves him against the wall. "What gives you the right to go blabbin' my personal business to Dolan? Huh? Huh?"

Miles can't even answer, what with Jim's forearm pressed against his throat. LaFleur backs off a little, and barks, "His wife brought over a Goddamn casserole last night!"

Miles swallows the urge to say And that's a bad thing because? He knows enough not to bait the bear. Instead he chokes out, "I was just trying to help."

Jim lets go of him, but shoves him against the wall again for good measure. "I don't need your fuckin' help," he growls at him.

This time Miles decides to just say what's on his mind. To hell with baiting the bear. He says, "Sure didn't seem that way when you called me in the middle of the night."

"Fuck you, Miles."

As he thinks of his retort, he knows he's going to get punched, but he's had it. Had it. It's been 10 days, and Miles has been there every step of the way. Covering for him when he's hung over, checking in on him in the afternoons. What a huge asshole LaFleur is. What a huge fucking asshole. So he says, "No thanks, man. Last person you fucked ended up in a puddle of blood in the middle of the night."

The thing is, the actual punch doesn't really hurt all that bad. It's the anticipation and then the aftermath more than the actual punch. He cringes, and when it comes, right in the eye socket, Miles keels over with his hands on his knees. By the time Miles stands back up LaFleur is long gone.

Miles tells Lt Dolan he "ran into a door," and Dolan gives him a look like he knows it's a huge lie, but he goes along with it anyway. The eye's swollen shut for about 48 hours, then kind of mellows out, a huge gross mass of blue and yellow and purple and green. Miles thinks about stopping by the house, checking in on them, maybe when LaFleur's not there, but he can't show up with this thing on his face without having to explain. Even a week after, though, it's still a nasty purple shade with broken blood vessels.

He's sitting at the security monitors, fingering his cheekbone, which is sore, too, but not nearly as much as his eye socket. He's kind of zoning out. What's he going to do Christmas now that he hates his best friend? And smack! Just like that, a box of Dunkin Donuts Munchkins appears on the desk in front of him. LaFleur is standing there beside him, and takes a seat without being asked to sit down.

"What's this?" Miles asks suspiciously.

"Donut holes. What the fuck does it look like?"

"If this is supposed to be some kind of apology, it's gonna take more than just donut holes," Miles says, reaching in and taking out a powdered sugar one, then turning his attention back to the monitors.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Jim shift uncomfortably in his seat and run his hands over his face. Finally, Jim says, "Sorry, man. OK? Sorry. You were a big help, and I'm sorry I was such a dick."

Miles turns to look at him now. Jim winces a little, getting a full-on look at Miles' eye. Miles says, "Yeah, well I guess I'm sorry, too. About what I said. That was really out of line. I wanted to piss you off. I didn't mean it."

They stare at each other uncomfortably, neither at ease with too much sharing, too much talk of emotions. Miles is surprised that Jim is the one to break first and share. "I just needed someone to be angry at, Oda Mae, and you were convenient."

"My face thanks you."

"I ain't apologizin' for that. You deserved that."

"Yeah, OK," Miles agrees, then asks, "So, how're things?" They haven't spoken in about ten days. "How's Juliet?"

"Good," Jim says, considers, amends his answer to "better. We had a huge fight the night before last. Think that probably helped some."

Miles takes a cinnamon donut hole, hands the box out to Jim, who takes a plain one. "Fight over what?" Miles asks.

"Just, I don't know . . . I got tired of . . ." LaFleur fumbles for the words. "I'd say something like I hope it . . she . . .did I ever tell ya it was a girl?" Miles shakes his head, but keeps quiet, he doesn't want to risk saying anything stupid to make Jim mad or make him shut up or anything like that.

"Yeah, well," Jim starts up again. "I'd say something like I hope she knew we loved her or didn't feel any pain, shit like that, and I just got so fuckin' tired of Juliet and her damn facts. Stupid facts about fetal development and what the baby could possibly know and not know. So I said, 'Pardon moi, for just bein' a grieving dad. Must be nice to be so fuckin' clinical and not have any feelings about it.' So then she slapped me, and it was off to the races. Me givin' her shit for bein' a snooty goody two shoes smarty pants. Her throwin' my whole past back in my face." Miles keeps his mouth clamped good and tight, except to take another powdered sugar donut hole.

"Anyway, that lasted till about 3 in the morning. And . . ." he shrugs. "Turns out, everything feels a lot better now. She said it was 'cathartic.' Whatever the fuck that means."

Miles laughs and it feels good. He loves how there's this version of Jim LaFleur who has to pretend he doesn't know what 'cathartic' means, when Miles knows damn good and well that he does.

"So this new jolly mood," Miles asks, "that due to the fact you had some mindblowing makeup sex?"

"What?" Jim sputters, choking out donut crumbs. "No. . . We're not supposed to . . . You ask too many fucking questions, you know that, Miles?" He throws a powdered sugar donut hole at Miles for good measure, leaving a white smudge on Miles' uniform shirt.

"Asshole," Miles mutters, but in a good way. He thinks they're back on solid ground.

A few days later, he drops by the house for the first time in what seems like forever. Jim wanted him to bring over a Christmas light strand, and here's Miles, dutifully complying. Who's whose bitch, now?, he thinks.

He knocks on the door, and is surprised when Juliet opens it. He hasn't been here in while, true. But back before he got his shiner, he was over here every day. Sometimes he'd go three days straight without seeing her, and Jim would just point to the ceiling, indicating their bedroom. Sometimes she'd be there, just kind of hovering in the background, deathly pale, silent, materializing in rooms, then gone again, like some kind of ghost. It frightened Miles. Not the ghost thing – he knows ghosts, and it wasn't that. It was just seeing her like that, and a glimpse of what it could all be like if she wasn't here, with Jim drunk and grumpy and sullen and mean, the kids totally lying low, over at Mrs. Dawkins' half the time.

So, now, she waves him back to the kitchen. "Come on back. I'm working on something I need to get in the mail."

He follows along like a little puppy. She sits at the kitchen table, starts filling out some kind of form. It's very quiet here, but not the awful, ringing silence from that night a few weeks back.

"Where's LaFleur?" Miles asks.

"Which one?" she responds, without looking up from her work.

Miles stops short, perplexed. Then he laughs, getting it. Depending on how you look at it, either they're all LaFleurs, or none of them are. "The big, grumpy one," he answers.

"He's at the mall with Jimmy. They're Christmas shopping," she says. Then she adds, "Rachel's over baking Christmas cookies with Mrs. Dawkins."

Miles waves the strand of Christmas lights. "Well, Jim wanted me to bring these by." He sets them on the counter.

Juliet finishes what she's working on, folds up the paper, and puts it in an envelope. "I've made a decision, Miles," she says, and his heart hammers so hard he swears he can feel his pulse in his hands. What could it be? "I'm getting the San Francisco Chronicle delivered. It's $600 a year, plus postage, a package to be delivered every two weeks."

"Uhm, OK?"

"I've had it with that microfiche, and we've got the money. You can write a check for your half."

"My half? There are four of you, and only one of me. I'll pay 20%."

"Or, you can just take over your own investment portfolio," she says, looking to him with one eyebrow arched. It's that look. That look, and Miles feels it all lifting. It's all over. Everything is going back to normal. It's seemed like fucking forever, but it hasn't even been a month yet, and OK, everything is going to be OK.

"Fine," he snits, just because he can. He sits down, across from her at the table. He decides to test his luck. There's one more look he needs to see. "If you didn't want to make a pie, you should've just said so. Sheesh. Some people will do anything."

He looks, and . . . there it is. Thank God, there it is. The look that would normally turn his blood ice cold. For once, it makes him feel warm all over. He's probably also smiling, but you can't tell from her reaction. Still the death glare. Finally she says, "What happened to your eye, Miles?'

He looks down quickly, then back up again. "Ran into a door," he mumbles.

She nods. "Funny," she says. "I've got a door in my house with swollen and bruised knuckles."

"Weird how that works," Miles says. He hopes Jim didn't tell her what he said before he got the black eye. It was too awful. He shouldn't have said it. "I probably deserved it," he says. "But he's still a grumpy asshole."

"Maybe he'll be less grumpy after tonight," she says.

"Why? What's tonight?"

"Our anniversary."

"How is that going to make him any less grumpy?"

"Know what, Miles?" she says. "You ask too many questions."

He laughs under his breath. Heard that one before. "I'll let myself out."

She gives him her Chronicle subscription envelope to put in the mailbox, and he reaches down to hug her. "Welcome back," he whispers, then skedaddles on out before he has to say anything else, or deal with any sappy aftermath.

When he steps outside, he sees Jim in the driveway, pulling Jimmy out of his car seat.

"Lights are on the counter inside, man," he says, pointing back toward the house. "Congrats." He slaps Jim on the side of the shoulder.

"For what?"

"I think you're probably gonna get laid tonight," Miles shares, then walks on to his car.

He hears Jimmy start up. "Daddylay Daddylay Daddylay."

"Geez, Miles. I go into the house with him talkin' like that, I'm never gonna get . . ." Jim stops short, not wanting to repeat the words.

"He's a guy. He'll have to learn it sometime," Miles notes, and with that, is in the car, pulling from the curb.

He goes home and realizes he needs to actually get some Christmas gifts. Everything's going to be fine. He needs to get gifts. He can pull Rachel's Barbie Jeep out of the closet. He thinks that's OK, right? He can keep making that joke, can't he? If he doesn't, won't they know he's stopped making it out of consideration, and won't that . . . won't that kind of make it worse? Yeah. Miles gets out the Barbie Jeep.

And Christmas is just perfect. He goes over mid-morning, and they're all still in PJs, the kids bouncing around like lunatics, blueberry pancakes (saved some for him), and coffee, and twinkling lights, and it's all just fucking perfect. Somehow better than Christmases he had when he was a kid.

Until. . .

He's on the floor with Jimmy, rolling around a new fire truck. Jim's kicked back on the couch, flipping through new books. Juliet sits with Rachel, putting together her new Weebles tree house. Then Rachel, looking all around, at the tree, and the lights, and the crumpled wrapping paper, and full stockings (Miles gets a lump in his throat to see the one on the end: "MILES," it says) dirty, syrup-sticky breakfast dishes, and all the just too-perfect that Miles never got to have as a kid, Rachel has the nerve to ruin it all.

"I didn't get a baby sister," she says, sucking all the air right out of the room. Jimmy's fire truck siren blares inconsiderately. Miles hears Jim close his book. He sees Juliet take a big gulp. The perfect is all gone. Rachel's too young to realize, so she goes on, "I put it on my list to Santa. I was a good girl, right? Is it because I was a bad girl?"

Jim staggers off the couch and leaves the room. Fuck.

Then Juliet says, "Of course not, sweetheart. It's just, Santa makes toys, not babies."

Rachel asks, "Who makes babies?"

Miles hears Jim bark a laugh then. He's only gotten as far as the door to the kitchen, and the question in its sincerity and innocence turns him around.

"God," Juliet answers, in all seriousness. Then she clips one more piece on the Weebles tree house. "There you go, sweetie. All done. Weebles wobble but they don't fall down." She says the last while looking right at Jim, smiling a sad smile at him.

He nods and smiles back. "That's right. Weebles wobble but they don't fall down."

And by New Years, it's all over. It really is. New Years is always a weird fucking holiday for them. Has been from the very first they spent together. Face it, whenever you go (within reason), Thanksgiving is Thanksgiving with its stuffing and pie and football; Christmas is Christmas with gifts and lights and Santa; St. Patrick's with the green beer and clovers and leprechauns.

But New Year's? The whole fucking point is that it's . . . hello?. . . NEW year. That's what they even named the damn holiday, but 1975 wasn't a fucking NEW year, nor was 1976, 1977 . . . you get the point. It's going to be fucking 1982 . . . Still not a "new" year. New Year's . . . always weird and frustrating. Past years, it would be chilling: Can you believe we're still fucking stuck? It's not so much like that anymore. He's not sure any of them feel stuck, exactly. Until New Year's, that is. It's like a holiday whose sole purpose is to throw it in their faces.

So, they always get drunk on New Year's. It's just what they do. Damn, this will be their eighth one, and Miles can only remember twice that they didn't just get wasted. That first New Year's when they got off the Island. So, goddamn eerie being back, but . . . what was it Juliet called it? Seventiesland? So weird, and New Year's Eve he went over to that crappy studio apartment Juliet had. They all kind of sat around, and he felt third-wheely. Those two couldn't keep their hands off each other back then, and he couldn't much fault them for that, having been apart so long. Such a small little rinky dink apartment, too. So he had a drink, then said his goodbyes, and left. He bet they were doing it before the door closed shut behind him.

Then there was the New Year's before Jimmy was born, and Juliet was frickin' humongous (not that he'd ever, ever say that to her, NO WAY), and it seemed like Rachel had some kind of cold or strep throat, or who even knows what, and well, Miles had a date then, so he didn't even bother going over to the LaFleurs'. He regretted it, hanging out with all the people who couldn't believe COULDN'T BELIEVE! The Seventies were over! Yeah, he should have been at the LaFleur's, sore backs and sore throats be damned.

This year there's supposed to be some party Dolan is giving, but Miles can't find a date, and the LaFleurs can't find a sitter (so Claudia has plans to be out? He wants to ask, but doesn't), so it's a good old-fashioned time-travel drink fest, coming right up!

They celebrate and count down at 8, for the kids' benefits. WOOOO! Jimmy loves the noise, and the noisemakers, and hats, and everyone cheering and kissing and singing, so they do it a few more times for good measure, downing champagne as they go. Miles is feeling loopy before the kids are even tucked in and snoozing.

Then they break out the hard stuff, and Juliet dances with him, slurring that they have to practice for that Asian-American society meeting in March, and is she supposed to pretend she's his girlfriend or what? Jim breaks in, and then those two dance a bit, and Miles just collapses on the sofa. He rallies, drinks more.

They watch Dick Clark. "Now there's someone who's fuckin' ageless," Jim mutters. "Seriously. We're gonna catch up in like 2005? He'll be same old, same old, and we'll be fucking grey headed, bald, you name it . . ." Ageless Dick Clark. It adds to the creep factor. Miles drinks more.

They count down again at midnight, more drinking and toasts, and singing and hugging and kissing. 1982! Oooooh boy, never been here before. Then he notices Jim and Juliet are kissing just a little bit too long and too . . . too, like, sucky face, so he dumps some ice on them. All in good fun. All in good fun.

More drinking. More drinking. And more drinking.

And then he's just gonna . . . just gonna . .. like lean over on the recliner, or like, gonna . . . "Are you OK, Miles?" Juliet right up in his face. Yeah he's gonna . . . and he feels her hands under his arms, then hears, "You're a fuckin' pussy when it comes to liquor," and he giggles, 'cause Juliet's voice is so deep and profane, and oh yeah, duh, that's uhm. . . uhm. . . whatshisname. . .he's just gonna gonna. . . yeah, over on the couch here, yeah, thanks, couch. . . It's spinning. No, the room, not the couch, no Miles, not the room, or not the . . . Blackness.

He hears giggling, feels a weight on his chest, and he's dreaming, right? No. Passed out. Yeah. He cracks an eye. Juliet's eyes, huge and blue, and "OHSHIT CAUGHT" staring right at him, her forearm on his chest, and her chest brushing up against like his neck and chin, and this is kinda weird, but, oh yeahhhhh. . . nice, and, damn Jim is a lucky man, and what the fuck is going on? "Ehhhhhh" he kind of chokes out. Blackness again.

Now he hears the both of them giggling. Yeah, that's right. That's fucking right. He can hear Jim Fucking LaFleur giggling, so he knows this is all some kind of crazy drunk dream. Flashing lights, and more giggling. Then the both of them giggling and "stopit stopit stopit, he's right there!" And then low murmuring and low laughter, more giggling, and he's pretty sure some article of clothing landing on his chest, and more giggling, then their footsteps, creeping up the stairs, a door closing shut upstairs, and silence.

Blackness.

"Why'd you got on makeup, Uncle Miles?"

Oh fucking God, his head. What time is it? Where is he? His teeth . . his teeth, fuzzy and nasty, it's like they're wearing sweaters, and what? What was that question? He turns his head. Oh, don't be sick.

Rachel, standing and staring. "Why'd you got on makeup? Why's Mama's shirt on your lap?"

He puts a hand to his cheek, everything feeling kind of rubbery and numb. Rachel walks over to a pile of toys in the corner. Miles puts a hand down, picks Juliet's shirt off his chest, and how in the hell did that get there? And when? Rachel comes back with some pink plastic doll mirror, and hands it to him. Fucking-A. Fucking-A. He's got the whole shebang: lipstick, and eye shadow, and whatever it is they call that stuff that goes on the eyelashes, and the red stuff his grandma called 'rouge.' All of it.

"Go wake up your Mom and Dad, Rachel."


Happy Easter if you celebrate! It's also my birthday tomorrow, woot! First time in my life it's on Easter, and last, unless I live to be like 120 or something, which I'm not counting on.