Res in Cardine Est
 

FROHIKE:

Kids have been out there a long time. I turned off the video-why, I don't know-at a time like this, you would think my snooping tendencies would be maximally aroused.

They have. But I would like to show my respect for them, and they need to be alone.

So far I haven't heard any shrieks or death threats. A few raised voices, but for the most part, the volume moves back into the normal range on a regular basis.

Well, normal for my kids. Both of them have voices that could wake the dead. A legacy from Jan, from a huge family where if you didn't shout loudest, you weren't heard first, and if you weren't heard first, you were ignored, and if you were ignored, you suffered.

Leslie's voice is sharp as a deep freeze. Bell-like in its clarity and precision. Her words could have small points on them, all of them barbing your skin like a cat whose claws seriously need a trim.

Michael's has changed. It was a snarling, surly voice, rife with irritation, not even giving his speech necessary definition. He mostly muttered loudly in the early months he was here, refusing to answer anyone, never looking at anyone when he spoke.

Now he's cleaned up the slurring, added some vocabulary-school has definitely had some positive effects on him-and softened the edges. He's still not soft-spoken, but there's a sweetness there previously missing. And he still doesn't look at people enough when he speaks to them, but he's drastically improved.

Both of them have my green eyes. Leslie's are very beautiful. They're her best feature-large, clear, the color of shallow water in the tropics, ringed with heavy dark lashes.

There is so much hurt in those eyes. So much fury.

And I put it there.

Michael's never had the color or clarity of his sister's, but he's got the dark thick lashes, which I've heard strange women compliment him on, largely out of envy. And his are vulnerable eyes. Take a good look, and not only are they a window to his soul, they're a looking glass as well. He can try as he might to look impassive, and on rare occasions he succeeds with regard to his other features, but his eyes betray him always.

What do mine say?

I have no idea.

All I know is that when my kids look into them, they'll know I see them, and I care for them, and I will be there for them.

Better late than never, I suppose.

I don't hear anything now. I suppose I should check to see if they've killed each other, but I've grabbed the pint of J&B I keep in my workstation drawer, found a reasonably clean glass, and I'm letting the amber liquid soothe me. At least I know my kids drink; so long as I don't become completely wasted, I doubt I'll invoke their disrespect. At least in that area, anyway.

God, my kids ARE old enough to drink.

And they got that way without me.

Why am I such a fool as to think they need me now?

If I were honest with myself, I'd see that I'm the one who is needing here.

I stick with the J&B.
 

MICHAEL:

"Is there anything to drink here?" Les's thirsty, and she looks like she could stand a distraction from her emotional storm here.

"There's coffee in the office." Unless somebody forgot to buy it this week, which happens a lot. Then we raid the cupboards at Chateau Langly.

"I'd rather have something cold."

"Well, there's always stuff in Ally and Langly's fridge." I point my thumb at the house. "Langly lives here. It's his house."

"It's 1:45 in the morning. Don't you think they MIGHT be sleeping?"

"Doesn't matter. I got keys, and anyway, it's Friday night. Usually somebody's up late."

"Well, I could use a beer."

"I dunno what kind we got right now. The lady of the house, she's pregnant and she's not drinking, so I don't think she's buying her choice of booze right now."

"Poor girl. I'd hate to have to give up alcohol."

We let ourselves in the kitchen, and we don't even have to unlock the door, which means people are up.

Lights are on in the kitchen, and I can see that Kelly, Miranda and Langly are all still up, watching 'Scream.' Miranda's all-time favorite movie. Ally's there too, but she's like dead to the world on the sofa. I wonder if she's gonna fuse with that sofa, she's there so much lately.

Kelly's sitting there in my Atomic Fireballs T-shirt-God, it looks cute on her-and some running shorts, and she looks surprised to see me, but when she does, she jumps up and wraps her arms around my neck.

"I thought you left."

"I thought so, too."

"Movie's almost over."

"Kel, this is my sister Leslie. Les, Kelly, my girlfriend."

"I remember you." Les is looking her over like produce. Produce that might have a bad spot on it. Nice. "I thought you were a lot skinnier."

Kelly blushes, and I put my arm around her. "I like the way she looks now. I think she looks great." My sister is not going to be an asshole to the girl I love.

"And you remember Langly." Since you met him like two hours ago.

He's in the chair, sideways, got his long legs draped over one side, he's sort of slouched, drinking what's got to be the end of his second six-pack tonight. And he looks it.

"And that's Miranda, Ally and Langly's daughter, and that's Ally, she's the one sleeping on the couch." You can barely see her. She's bundled up in one of the millions of blankets they keep everywhere.

Someday I got to remember to return the red fuzzy one.

"Thought you guys went home," Langly's sort of slurring it now. He's definitely had a lot to drink.

Must figure, Ally can't drink, he's got to drink her share, too.

"Well, since we're in your kitchen, I think it's safe to say we're still here." I state the obvious.

"Your dad still out there?"

"Uh-huh."

"Cool." Langly gets up-rather, he tries getting up out of the chair, didn't remember his Docs were unlaced, and almost kills himself in the process.

He's gonna pay tomorrow for this one.

And for once, I feel sorry for him.

Miranda's looking at Les now like SHE'S produce. I know Miranda. She's thinking 'fashion victim.'

Les and me, we're both fashion victims, but hey, I think I'm doing a little better than Les.

"Don't you guys have a home you can go to?" It's Miranda, and I think she's kicking us out. Or would like to. "It's kind of late, you know. And my mom's asleep, just in case you didn't notice."

"Doesn't look much like she's gonna wake up," I say. I mean, we all piled in there, nobody's keeping it down, and Ally's like dead meat on the sofa.

"Everyone. Out. Now." Miranda would have made a good dictator. She even snaps her fingers to punctuate her instructions. "And tell Langly to get his ass back in here so he can get my mom to bed."

"Yes, your Highness," I bow to the little bitchy princess. I kiss Kelly goodnight, and I give her a real kiss-fuck it if my sister's watching.

Not my fault if she gets jealous.
 

FROHIKE:

I hear the door unlock, the familiar tones of the security system being entered. The kids have returned.

Well, not my kids. A kid. Of sorts.

Langly. Looking like he's tied a few too many on. He sits down and puts his feet up-seems to be standard in this office to put your feet on your desk. Even Byers will do it periodically. While he's sitting down, he almost knocks half the contents of his workstation to the floor.

"Bad day, huh?" I say to him. Restating the painfully obvious.

"Uh-huh."

I want to tell him everything will get better, everything will be all right, this is just a terrible day, and has no implications for tomorrow.

What a lie. And he'd see right through it.

So I don't say it. I just nod at him, and he looks at me, pulls off his glasses, and rubs his eyes.

"Things are not going well." He says this with a heavy dose of sarcasm added to it.

"I'm sorry about your sister."

He buries his face in his hands. When he removes them and folds them under his chin, he looks shockingly old.

"How's Allison?"

"Nauseous. Tired. Bummed about not being able to do much."

"That'll pass." Of that I can be certain.

"Hope it's soon. Fro, do me a favor, could you?"

"All right."

"Like can you look at Joanie's records? I mean, I just...lately, I'm kinda out of it, I don't trust myself too much. And you're better at reading that stuff than me. You mind?"

I give a negative nod. "No, not at all."

"Thanks. I'd better go. I think your kids are coming back." He stumbles as he gets up. I notice the boot laces are untied.

When I met Langly, twelve years ago, he had the face of a sprite. There was anger there, to be sure, and discontent, and mistrust, and hostility. But still a child's face lived there.

Looking at him tonight, I can't believe that only 12 years ago, he was the same age Michael is now.

He's grown up a lot, but there's a difference between growing up and aging.

Tonight, the latter is winning.

There's a daytime soap opera I happened to catch when I was in the hospital. I couldn't follow the story line to save my life-I think you had to be watching it back in the Dark Ages in order to get the gist of it-but I remember the title. 'All My Children.'

Sometimes, I wonder how I ended up with so many of them.
 

Kids are back. They aren't screaming at each other, or slugging each other.

I think for a moment, there may be a god.

"You two ready to go home?" I ask.

"I'm starving," Leslie announces. "I didn't have any dinner."

"What, you didn't have anything on the way down, or before you left?" In view of the hour of her arrival, I just assumed that she would have eaten...

I just violated the first rule of parenting. Never assume anything.

You'd think I'd have figured this out, but I keep lapsing.

I'd love to impress her with omelets a la Frohike, or some blueberry-buttermilk pancakes-a dish I make according to my own recipe, and one that Michael goes absolutely wild for.

However, it is now after 2 a.m., and I don't feel like cooking.

And so far, it doesn't appear as if she's leaving.

"You do have Denny's here, don't you?" she barks.

"The Greeks are better," Michael is referring to the Green Comet Diner, which is owned and run by a Greek family. They're the sort of people who tell you what you're going to have when you get there. Listening to them behind the pass-through window, shouting at one another, barking out orders, is a little like the Olympia Diner routine in an old 'Saturday Night Live.'
The one where all you can get is a cheeseburger, Pepsi and chips.

The Green Comet has more variation in its menu, but I'm not certain Leslie would be willing to go with the French toast if she really wants a cheese omelet. And one has to maintain a certain flexibility at the Green Comet.

For myself, the idea of battery acid coffee and grill food drowning in grease that probably hasn't been tendered in fifteen years, well, my stomach isn't really up for it. But Leslie is hungry, and Michael seems amenable to the idea. Of course, Michael is usually amenable to anything that involves food. I have a sneaking suspicion that his love affair with gustatory
delights is what inspired him to start swimming again.

Rumor has it that the untendered grease is what gives the food in the place its unique, and generally delectable, flavors.

I think I'd rather be home, have a nightcap, and fall into my own bed and be unable to sleep there. There's a certain comfort in one's familiar surroundings.

Of course, one of them will be sleeping in the living room, so there will be no visits to my virtual ladies tonight. I can do it with the laptop, of course, but the screen in the living room is a high resolution 21-inch monitor...the better to see you with, my dear.

And we only have one VCR in the apartment. Chez Frohike is shockingly low-tech in some aspects. This sad state of affairs rules out the possibility of any adult entertainment.

On the other hand, it's already after 2 a.m., the kids have not indicated that they'll be sleeping anytime soon-ah, youth-and it appears that this night could go on a long time.
 

May 20, 2001 (actually been that for a couple of hours)

We arrive at the Greeks, better known as the Green Comet, and it being a Friday night-Saturday morning, the place is crawling with bikers, truckers, punk rockers, and other questionable life forms.

Mulder is to blame for this. He introduced us to the place. He, of course, loves it here.

We actually manage to get a table-in the back, where we can see all the action. My stomach protests. Like legislation and sausage making, one should never observe one's meal being prepared in a place like this.

I should've taken them home and cooked for them.

It's not lost on me that Michael, in an extremely proprietary fashion, slides in next to me with a speed that would make Al Unser envious. Leslie's on the opposite side.

The two kids watch each other like strange cats, poised, ready to strike, uneasy but posturing that each is superior. They may have shared some conversation, and it appears that they each had a beer, but they have not broken their sound barrier.

Michael places his arm loosely over my shoulder. Ordinarily, I cherish these gestures from him, but tonight, it's a gesture of possession, designed to make his sister feel very much the outsider. I believe I'm not too tired to detect a smirk on his face.

I feel like smacking him.

I've been here before. When Michael was first in Virginia, I witnessed this sort of behavior from Langly, and to a lesser extent, Byers. It's as if each feels compelled to latch on to me, believing there's not enough of me to go around.

Tonight, they'd be right.

"I want waffles," Leslie announces, loudly, when the server appears. I was going to refuse the coffee-in this place, it has a tendency to do little things such as destroy your stomach lining-but the server pours it, as if I will do as I'm told and I won't argue about it.

I don't.

"Yeah, well, you can order 'em, but don't be surprised you get something else," Michael warns.

He's loving this. He's playing with his sister, and having a field day. The revenge is all over his face. She knows it, and responds by glaring at him in the inimitable style that only older sisters possess.

I'm getting too old for this shit.
 

Leslie is telling us about her academic program, what she is doing at this point in time. She's not enjoying it. She has a new program coordinator, and she hates her. We're treated to a rant regarding how this person's therapeutic perspective, in Leslie's mind, is off-base and wrong-headed.

I'm trying to listen. I'd forgotten how totally irritating my daughter can be.

I do want to know her...but not at 3 in the morning, when she's hungry and overwrought, and I'm dead on my feet.

Personally, I question her choice of endeavor. Leslie as a family therapist?

The thought frightens me. Leslie, in my opinion, is distinctly unsuited for a life in the counseling arts. She is a poor listener, opinionated, difficult to get along with.

And her family background hardly recommends her with any sort of practical experience.

I wince when that thought passes over me.

I hope she's not going to attempt to practice on us this weekend. I've become accustomed to the 'dysfunctional' Frohikes, and I really have no desire to upset that.

So why did I invite her down here? I had to know that bringing her here would change the equation forever. Whether or not she ever returns, even if she had only stayed five minutes and decided this wasn't for her, all the future would be different because of it.

The future is looking frightening enough as is.

Yet I am grateful she is here. In certain moments, I actually see her listen to her younger brother, when he talks about his academic endeavors. He still has no idea what to declare as a major, and this brings rolled eyes and chiding from Leslie, but she also does make some suggestions that could even be useful to him.

And what's truly amazing is, in those moments, he pays attention to her.

One thing they don't discuss is Leslie's...relationship. At least not in front of me.

I'm not certain I'm ready for that.

I have a difficult enough time with Michael, who is avowedly heterosexual and painfully normal for a young man of his age. Having to deal with the issue of my daughter's...sexuality is beyond the scope of my knowledge, and, at the moment, what my nerves can handle.

I wonder if I'll ever come to the point where I can talk about it with her. How would I even begin? What would I say to her?

The kids have excluded me from their conversation, and right now, this suits me fine. I'm content to be an observer, which is what I do best.

I'm uncomfortable, though, when the topic shifts to their mother. It seems that Leslie and her mother have become terribly alienated from one another, and it rapidly dissolves into Jan-bashing on both their parts.

I don't care what has happened to Jan and me. She is their mother, and I won't have this.

I intrude on their conversation, and inform them in no uncertain terms that they will not show disrespect to their mother in my presence.

They both look utterly astonished at this, and resentful.

I realize in that moment, I may have unwittingly given my children a common ground for breaking down the walls between them.

I would have far preferred to have given them a better hammer.

Score one for Melvin Frohike, again.
 

We end up being there for a long time. I'm finding it hard to stay focused.

I keep expecting them to lapse into open combat at any moment. The dialogue strays pretty close to the edge of it at times, but there is an instinct in both of them to pull back, which I am grateful for.

I don't think I can handle fisticuffs at this hour of the night.

We depart, and we have two cars with us. Michael asks Leslie if she wants to go with him.

"I think I'd prefer to get there alive, thank you very much," she sneers at her brother.

"Hey, how do you know how I drive?" he shoots back.

"Michael, you hot-wired your first car at 14...or doesn't Daddy know about this?" She looks momentarily smug.

I'm utterly weary by this point. "Yes, Leslie, I know, and it's history, and I'd like to get home, so if you don't mind, can we put this away for tonight." I am disgusted with myself that my voice is so impatient with her.

I'm trying to reestablish my bonds with my daughter, and already I'm chewing her out.

She looks chastened, though, and to my surprise, she goes with her brother.

I hope they make it back home without killing each other.

END OF PART 13