James hears the sliding door open behind him. He knows it's Juliet before he sees her. He can smell her lotion or shampoo or whatever it is that makes her smell like that. You'd think he would've gotten it figured out after all this time.
She sits next to him at the pool deck, rolling up her yoga pants, dipping her feet and calves in the water. Before she even looks at him, she hands over a bottle of rum. He chuckles. "Memries. . . light the corner of my mind . . ." he sings to her, and she rolls her eyes. He takes a drink, hands the bottle back. She drinks.
They've been wondering about tonight for more than thirty years. Wondering if they'd ever have to come clean. Wondering if they'd be believed. Wondering if their kids would hate them, forgive them, understand them . . .
Juliet says, "Rachel called. She's home, and Anson was there." James nods, reaching out his hand for the bottle. He takes another sip. Juliet continues, "Apparently, her big concern is that she was an accident."
James snorts. "Yeah, well, his worry," he uses his thumb to point back at the house, indicating Jimmy, "was that I cheated on you." He hands the bottle back. Juliet takes a swig. They stare at each other, shaking their heads in wonderment.
James slaps his hands on his knees. "What the hell's wrong with them? Jesus! We're motherfuckin' time travelers . . ."
"Well, you are," Juliet interrupts, smirking, handing over the bottle.
That doesn't even make sense . . .oh! Heh heh. "Ain't you clever. How long you been thinkin' up that line?"
"About thirty years, I guess."
He gives back the bottle. He rolls up his pants, sticks his legs in the water, too, resting his right foot over her left.
She takes a drink. She isn't looking at him when she says, "I think we did it. I think they're OK. They're going to be all right. I think we did it."
"Did what, exactly?" he asks, taking back the bottle, taking one last swig, and setting it behind him, out of easy reach.
"We wanted them to be normal, be well-adjusted. So, that time travel business, that doesn't concern them. No big deal. They just want to know their life is the same. That we're still who we always were . . . to them, not to anybody else."
"Still, come on . . . time travel! You'd think they'd be a little more excited about that."
"Maybe we should've led with the flaming arrow attack," she suggests.
"Yeah, or Hugo in that van." He hears her giggle at that suggestion. He continues, "Or when we took out those guys at Amy's picnic." Silence in response to that suggestion.
"I don't think I want them to know I . . . we . . . killed anyone," she whispers.
"So you ain't goin' for complete honesty, then?"
"I don't want them to know." Decisively. No doubt. That's that.
He's OK with that decision. More than OK. He figures he's not completely done bridge repairing with his kids, and the less the bridge gets busted down, the better.
He takes her hand, bringing it to his lips to kiss. "We did a good job with them, Blondie," he says.
She looks over at him, cocking up an eyebrow. "You haven't called me that in years," she says.
"Yeah, well, I's gonna go with 'Granny,' but didn't wanna ruin the mood."
"Oh my goodness, can you believe it? Grandparents? I. . ." she loses her voice.
He grins. "How the hell are we old enough? We ain't even s'posed to be forty yet. Still though . . ."
"Yeah," she smiles.
"Now, not that I ain't excited about this, but . . . still . . . that Anson boy? I'm well aware of what might or might not've been goin' on behind closed doors," he shudders. "Now, though, I gotta admit that it has happened, for real, honest-to-God evidence, right there in my face. That sonofabitch. Messing around with my daughter like that. You know he's gonna be all proud of himself, like 'Yeah, yeah, my boys can swim.' Fucker."
Juliet squints at him. "I'm sorry. I thought you liked him."
"I do like him, I just don't like the idea . . . well, least he had the decency to marry her first."
Juliet blinks at him a few times, mouth hanging open. "Are you trying to be a hypocrite?"
"Naw. I'm serious. Why? What? Why're you lookin' at me like that?"
She shakes her head. "Oh, I'm just thinking about how pleased my father would've been at this situation I've managed to get myself in."
He snorts. "Yeah, but you gotta admit, it all turned out pretty great in the end."
"It turned out mostly great," she amends.
"Mostly, yeah," he sighs. He steels himself for what he wants to ask next. He reaches back for the rum bottle he hadn't put quite out of reach. He takes a swig. "Now the truth's out, you gonna try to see your sister?"
"You gonna try to see your daughter?" she challenges.
"See her at least once a week, sweetheart."
"You know what I mean. Are you?"
"I asked first."
"I . . ." she trails off, She looks down into the pool, swishes her legs back and forth. "I don't know . . . I mean, look at me."
He does. The moonlight shines on the water, reflecting on her face along with the shimmery pool lights. She looks beautiful, he thinks. And not with that "for her age" amendment he uses most of the time. He knows she uses it for him, too. They do look good – for their age. Right now, though, he thinks she looks beautiful. No matter what her age.
He remembers the shock that first night back in Dharmaville. She smiled at him and agreed to stay, and holy shit, he thought, she's gorgeous. He hadn't noticed till right then. Really. Not because he thought she was a bitch (or had once thought that). He was more than capable of separating looks from personality. Plenty of women he couldn't stand who also happened to be knock-outs (Shannon, to name one). Just, not Juliet. He simply . . . hadn't noticed. Too busy? Preoccupied? Who knows what. But she looked at him with that huge smile, and . . . Jesus, how had he not noticed?
"I'm lookin' at ya now, and I think you look beautiful," he says.
She smirks. "Thanks." She doesn't seem to believe him, explaining, "I have a head full of gray hair, and old lady hands."
"Your hair is silver. And gorgeous." He smoothes a hand over her head. She leans into him. "And, hate to point out the obvious, but you are, in fact, an old lady."
"You sure now how to charm 'em."
"Wanna know when I thought you were most beautiful?"
"I'm almost scared to hear," she says.
"Give me a little credit. I don't got my mind in the gutter all the time." He hands the rum back to her. "It's a tie. One is watching you sleep that first morning I came back from the Island. Jesus, I thought, 'If I play my cards right, I can wake up next to this every morning.' Second is . . . remember when Rachel walked for the first time?"
"Of course I remember."
"God, she walked over to you, and you looked up at me . . . this smile. . . I . . ."
"Really?"
"Yeah, really. Why?"
"I mean, I was excited and all, but mostly I remember I was trying desperately not to barf. Ugh."
He laughs. "Oh, yeah. What was it? Potato salad?"
"Jimmy more than the potato salad, but yeah, that's right."
Rachel was a late walker. Thought that meant they had a cautious one on their hands. Wrong. Not cautious, just late for everything. She was practically walking already, just always holding someone's index finger in a tight grip, never quite letting go. They were loading up the car for some kind of Fourth of July shindig.
"Dammit. Forgot the potato salad," Juliet said. James offered to go up to the apartment and get it. "No, no. It's OK," she said.
He stood at the car, Rachel's death grip on his finger, waiting. Juliet came out, and Rachel let go and went toddling over to her. Juliet held out her arms for her, looked up at James and smiled (he'd of never guessed she was trying not to barf). This enormous, genuine, proud smile. One of those moments where "I don't deserve this" practically came out and whapped him over the head.
The worst of those was his forty-seventh birthday. The absolute, most-perfect day ever. Jimmy and Rachel arguing over who got to help Daddy blow out his candles. He let them both help, blowing spit all over the icing. Juliet giving him an autographed copy of Of Mice and Men. Even Miles got in on the act, giving him some cushy new patrol shoes (just what he needed, and no, that's not sarcastic). The four of them sang Happy Birthday to him, and Jesus . . .
In bed that night, he was flipping through his new book when Juliet sidled up in some sheer silk number. "Anything else you might want for your birthday?" she cooed in his ear.
"I . . . I don't deserve this," he murmured.
"I haven't agreed to anything yet," she said.
He pushed her away, and sat up to look at her. "No, no I don't deserve any of this. You know how . . . what . . . you know what I did, who I was . . . I don't . . . I don't deserve this life."
She looked away from him, stared real hard at a toy lightsaber on the floor. "I don't think life is about getting what we deserve," she said in a quiet monotone. She looked right at him then, and what the hell was wrong with him, turning down a roll in the hay for some philosophical discussion? She continued, "Life is about what we get. Did you deserve what happened to you when you were eight?"
He ran his hands through his hair. Objectively, no, of course not. But that's not what he'd spent his life thinking. He'd spent his life thinking that somehow it was all his fault. He'd been too much of a coward to stand up for his mom. Or, maybe if he was a better little boy . . . easier to raise . . . minded better . . . maybe his parents' relationship would've been better . . . maybe his mom wouldn't of slept with another man. Maybe his dad would've been home more.
He said, "I always kinda thought . . . I don't know . . . somehow some of it had to be my fault."
She put a hand on his cheek. "I know you did." She traced circles on his face with her thumb. "I used to wonder how in the world you could think that way. It seemed so illogical. Now I think I've got it figured out."
"Yeah? How so?" He leaned his head over to rest his cheek more fully on his hand.
"You were eight. I don't think eight-year-olds are the world's most logical people."
Rachel would be eight in a few months. The thought that something like that could happen to his sweet, sassy, precious little girl . . . he almost started crying right there. Instead he closed his eyes for a little bit. When he opened them, he composed himself, and threaded his fingertips under the spaghetti straps at Juliet's shoulder.
"Why do you even bother with this?" he asked. "Ain't the whole point just to take it off?"
"Well, I . . ." she started to answer him, but he slipped the strap over her arm, dipped his head to kiss her shoulder, and she shut right up. That night he started to think less and less about what he deserved.
Two years later, the summer Jimmy was eight, James let it go completely. His skinny, happy, innocent little boy. He cried when his team lost a Little League game, but a trip to the ice cream parlor with his dad made it all better. He still let his mom kiss his away his boo boos. He spent a good part of the summer digging for dinosaur fossils in the backyard. He was eight, and it astounded James how young an eight-year-old boy actually is. How trusting and naïve and loving . . . The thought that an eight-year-old boy could've had anything to do with the horror James experienced, could've done anything to stop it . . . Jesus Christ, no wonder the rest of his life had been so fucked up.
The anniversary of his parents' deaths, he climbed to the top row at the Big House, stared down at what looked like football players in miniature running drills.
If anything even remotely close to what happened to him happened to his kids . . .
How could they have done that to him? His own parents? Mr. Sawyer was a sleazy, evil, sonofabitch, but he didn't pull the trigger. James' dad did that. James' mom was the one who made the choice to cheat . . . he'd spent his whole life blaming the wrong people – himself, Mr. Sawyer, when maybe his own parents were to blame.
It was the last night he ever questioned what he deserved.
His life now - amazingly well-adjusted, happy, normal adult children, still in love with his wife, fancy house, tons of money . . . who knows if he deserves it, but he's worked for it, and it's just about perfect.
Except Juliet's never seen her sister again, and he's never met Clementine. "I wish our life could be perfect, instead of just 'mostly great,'" he admits, holding out his hand to take back the rum.
She considers that before answering, "I don't know . . . too perfect, and I'd start to worry it's not real. It's all a dream I'm gonna wake up from and find myself trapped back on that Island again. Or worse." She drinks again, and hands the bottle over.
"What could be worse?" he asks.
"Good point," she smiles at him, and, God, she IS beautiful. In this watery, dim light, she could easily pass for early 50s. In any light, she looks ten years younger than she actually is. But, ten years younger is still twenty years older than she's supposed to be, and there's the rub. Her older sister is closer to Rachel's age than she is Juliet's.
And if she's too chicken to see her sister? How can he not be scared shitless to try to see his daughter?
All this craziness, Rachel and Jimmy seem to be taking it in stride. Maybe they'll forgive him. Seems like they will. Of course they will. He wiped their butts and their noses. Rocked them to sleep, carried them on his shoulders. Took their training wheels off, taught them to swim. Ferried them to games and lessons and recitals. Laid down the law when they were teenagers. Cheered at their graduations.
He's spent their lives banking goodwill. Clementine, though . . . who knows what shit Cassidy's told her about him? Nothing good, if she's bothered to talk about him at all. And what, he's just supposed to show up out of the blue, a time-traveling old man ex-con deadbeat dad?
Fuck, if Jules don't have the guts to show her face to her sister, how the hell's he supposed to have the guts to meet his daughter?
She puts her head on his shoulder. "We'll figure it out," she says, reading his mind, maybe.
I realize this "side" of the story has totally slowed down, but there had to be some fall out/rehashing. You don't tell your kids you are a time-traveling doctor/felon duo, and then just move on with life! But, now that it's all out, we can move along with actual plot. Like, you know, do they or do they not reunite with Rachel and Clem?