"She's still calling around to find half an hour.
She'll always have a place in my mirror.
She's got no more time, now she wants mine
but I'm all out too."
Emily Haines, "Detective Daughter"
Rachel's high school is situated along a busy route next to a pizzeria that will go out of business in 1988, to be replaced by a car stereo shop. Juliet is jittery from too many cups of coffee as she fiddles with the round plastic sunglasses in her hands, wondering when the fashions stopped looking so ridiculous and dated, and just became... their stuff, no big deal.
The parking lot's already half full, and James turns off the car but she doesn't move, watching families making their way to the football field where the ceremony will be held. Rachel and Juliet will be with their mother, and their father will arrive separately, all of them converging in this place for one of the last few times before her parents have some kind of blowout and they meet only for subsequent graduations.
And then, well. Juliet squeezes her eyes closed. And then her parents will die all over again, she supposes.
Her eyes still closed, she feels James reach over and cup her elbow in his big, warm palm like he knows exactly what she's thinking, or not, but god, he had to live over the day of his parents' deaths, too, and obviously his were so far worse it's unimaginable, and suddenly she feels a little ridiculous sitting here frozen like this, and she forces her eyes open.
"Hey," she says, blinking in the sunlight.
"Hey to you, too." He reaches into the back seat for her floppy sunhat, and Juliet can't keep from smiling a tiny bit. The disguise is a little ridiculous, considering even if her family saw her, it's not exactly a given that they'd assume she's a time-traveling version of their 15-year-old.
Trying to shove down her fear, she raises her eyes to James' as she takes the hat from him. "Thanks."
"You ready?" he asks her gently. It's obvious that he doesn't ask again if she's sure, doesn't offer her an out, and Juliet's glad for that because she'd be tremendously tempted to take him up on it by this point.
The ground seems to rock under her feet, and Juliet digs her shoes into the gravel of the parking lot, her heart slamming in her chest, convincing herself this is really, really, really real. It doesn't take that long to convince herself, though, all things considered, as she slides the hat onto her head. Because when she straightens up, she sees her father striding across the parking lot, toward the football field. He's wearing a brown tweed jacket she doesn't remember, but she'd recognize his gait anywhere.
Something like a whimper escapes her then, her hand shooting out to grasp James' elbow. "That's... That's..." Juliet can't even get the words out, but James glances across to where she's looking.
"Your dad?" he supplies quietly.
"It's like..." Juliet wants to close her eyes again, this is too much, but all the same, she can't stop looking. "It's like seeing a ghost."
"Where'd you an' Rachel an' your mom park?"
Juliet finally drags her eyes away as her father's retreating form grows too distant. "Over there, I think." She gestures toward the far corner of the lot. "We're not here yet, I guess."
Ain't that the truth.
And then she remembers that first night after she and James had returned from their extended hippie road trip, the note on their door in Miles' handwriting. A phone number. Miles and Jin now had an apartment around the block, and a phone, and not much else.
That night the four of them had sat around their living room, Miles sprawled in the papasan chair, Juliet with Jin on the couch, James in a backwards-facing kitchen chair. They'd all acted thrilled to see each other, but by the time they'd gone through a couple of six-packs, the room had gone silent and suddenly no one was looking at each other anymore.
"So... now what?" Miles finally asked, tilting his head at James as though, as the leader of their merry band of time travelers, Jim LaFleur as supposed to be the one with all the answers. But James had glanced over at the look on Juliet's face, and gazed stonily right back at Miles, taking a long sip of beer. Juliet started working on peeling the label off her beer bottle.
"I think..." Jin began, and the three of them instantly turned to him. "I think, we get jobs, and we... we go on. Like before."
Juliet felt her mouth go dry. Here they were acting like sullen teenagers, and Jin had lost more than any of them in this. Far, far more. And here he was, this man who'd lost everything, who had gotten so close only to lose it again. And Jin says they just go on.
So they did.
It was easier for the guys; after a few days of searching the classifieds, the three of them got jobs with a landscaping company. No one wanted to work apart, not after three years together. The work was hard, laying sod, digging by hand around pipes, and James would come home exhausted, sore, caked in dirt. Juliet remembered all too well how he'd call her greasemonkey, how he'd smirk at her when she complained about never being able to get her hands clean, but she just left him alone about it. Miles and Jin didn't come over a lot at first, too tired from the hard work, but eventually they adjusted.
Meanwhile, no one at any of the auto shops Juliet visited seemed all that keen on hiring a female mechanic. She couldn't get office work without knowing shorthand, and even waiting tables failed when no one wanted someone past teenager-hood with zero experience. Fancy important research physician? At this point she was looking at a glamorous choice between cleaning lady and baby-sitter.
"I thought second-wave feminism was supposed to be going strong here," she muttered into her pillow one morning, watching once again as James got ready for work.
He'd paused, looking around the room like he'd always looked for his jumpsuit, and after a moment she realized the habit really had been that ingrained in him, because James grimaced a little, glancing back at her. They shared a sad smile, both of them realizing what he'd been looking for. He'd been amazing as a leader; was that really all over now?
James sat down on the bed next to her, running his hand over the bare skin of her back. "S'OK. I got your back here. Go to school for something. Or, shit, I dunno, maybe now's the time to have a baby."
Did he just say...? Her breath froze in her lungs for a minute, her heart thumping.
"Shit," he muttered. "Go figure..."
"James." Juliet somehow managed to sit up, clutching the sheet to her bare front.
"Nah, it's just, I meant to... Well, damn. Hold that thought, blondie." James went around to the far side of the room, opening his top drawer and pulling out a pair of socks from near the back. "It's just, I, leave it to me to just..." He ran his free hand through his hair, agitated.
What the hell did socks have anything to do with this? Was he panicking? Had he just said...? Was he trying to take it back? Except... Amy had told Juliet he'd ordered a ring, months ago now, but Juliet had forced herself to stop wondering about it.
But instead he started digging around in those balled-up socks, and his hand emerged clutching a small velvet box. "So, um," James began uncomfortably, shifting the box from one hand to the other, and her heart turned over in her chest. But oh god, the expression on his face, he looked terrified. And all of a sudden, the only thing Juliet wanted to do was giggle.
"Want to come sit with me?" she asked, trying not to laugh because that wasn't at all what James needed right now.
James had nodded, looking a bit green; once he was next to her, she realized he was shaking a little, and her urge to giggle faded, looking at this man she loved more than anything. Wishing he wasn't so afraid because why should he be, and didn't he know by now she loved him more than anything?
"Guess I got a little bit ahead of myself there a minute ago," he choked out, fiddling with the box. "Juliet, I, uh... I just was waiting, I wanted it to be nice, and..." He rubbed a hand over his face, his jaw clenched. "I ain't so good with..."
"I think you're just fine."
He looked directly into her eyes, his full of fear, his forehead creased.
"Do you just want to give me what's in the box?" Her heart was still thumping.
"Yeah," he finally got out, and the lines in his face smoothed as he started to grin at her, and he opened the box, and that was that. They got married a month later in downtown Ann Arbor at the Washtenaw County Courthouse, just as their first real winter began to take hold. Miles and Jin attended, of course. Jin gave them a camera as a wedding gift and Miles gave them a box of condoms; Juliet laughed until she cried. The day was no big deal, and yet at the same time it was everything.
We just go on, Jin had said.
The stage is set up in the middle of the football field, folding chairs grouped around three sides of it. Juliet's not sure whether they should just take seats up in the bleachers, the crowd is big and she feels guilty about taking good seats from family members who are... well, family members who are attending this for the first time.
They pick seats, finally, at the edge of the left side. Near the front. She's pretty sure she and her parents had sat nearby, but closer to the center. Is she supposed to be watching them? Rachel? Herself? She wishes she remembered more specifics about the day, and suddenly Juliet's wracked with guilt. She has decades still to seek out glimpses of Rachel, only about a decade for both of her parents. But this is her first time doing this, and what if it's the only time?
And she knows that what she needs from this, right now, today, more than anything, is Rachel.
She wonders what her boys are doing right now. And then... Oh, for god's sake. "There I am," she murmurs to James, trying to sound indifferent, probably failing miserably. In a life full of weird things, this is probably the strangest yet, and if she hadn't seen baby Miles and adult Miles in the same room together on multiple occasions, she wouldn't have even thought something like this is possible, but right there...
It's her, but also not. Tall, of course, too skinny, all chest at this point and trying to dress to hide it, no hips. Curly hair halfway down her back, a round baby face, a shy smile, her same eyes. Her dad is leaning over to tell her some stupid joke, judging from the look on her face, the slight eye-roll, the way she punches him softly on the arm before looking away, glancing toward the stage. The younger Juliet is anxiously clutching her handbag, the bag she'd thought Rachel's present was in before it turned up in the car.
"Damn, blondie," James mutters. "You were kinda hot for a nerd."
She's not sure what she'd expected from seeing her own self, but it wasn't this. This feeling, this knowing, everything that's going to happen, the good and the bad, to that teenage girl ten rows over across the aisle. "That girl is the same age as your daughter."
James practically chokes on nothing, glancing back at the version of Juliet that's his wife. "Forget I ever said anythin'."
"Mm-hm." But then the next addition makes Juliet suck in her breath. "There's my mom. She's... she's a year younger than I am now." Her mom has this shoulder-length haircut that's reasonably new right now, a light-blue dress. The teenage Juliet darts her eyes quickly between her parents as they greet each other.
James looks back over, takes Juliet's hand. She can't do anything but lean against him heavily, pressing her lips together as her sinuses flood. "It's OK, baby," he whispers, petting her hair. She just nods, over and over, under his hand.
The graduates are lining up now, in the front corner at the side of the stage, and suddenly this is all happening way too quickly, her parents are right over there! There's two of her on this field right now! Her kids were born seven and nine years after she was, and none of this makes any sense! Panic panic panic and she's clutching at James, and Rachel is right there, oh god, Rachel in her black Rayban sunglasses with the hot pink edges. And her short hair, so much darker now than it will be after the chemo, and oh god, what if she said something, what if Rachel had gone to the doctor earlier, would she have had a better prognosis, would she have beaten the cancer the first time, would she have stayed healthy, but then would that mean Juliet didn't stay on the island, but then she would never have met James, and Andrew and Seth wouldn't exist, and and and... no. No no no no, it doesn't matter. Whatever happened, happened. She says that to herself, over and over and over again. Whatever happened, happened.
This all always happened. But then... does that mean she was always here, at this graduation? That when she was fifteen years old, she was standing maybe fifty feet away from a grownup version of her own self? And her future husband? Why hadn't she considered that before? And now Juliet's wracking her brain, trying to remember if she'd noticed any thing strange, like a blond stranger wearing a hat looking over at them far too many times, but she can't remember, and why not, what's she supposed to do, is she supposed to try something, what if she always had, and to whom, would anyone know? The crowd is loud and antsy, people getting impatient for the ceremony to start.
I'm here, she thinks, trying to send a mental message to Rachel. I'm here. I was here, I was here, I was here.
Rachel just grins and waves across the field toward her family.