Respice Finem
 

LANGLY:

I'm real nervous about this appointment.

Never been to an ob/gyn appointment. It's not like it's a big priority if you're a guy.

Ally's been doing this for years, though, and she doesn't look a heck of a lot more relaxed than I do. She's kind of squeezing my hand right now, which would be nice if she wasn't cutting off my circulation. Which she is.

I don't think of Ally as a fraidy cat, but I think she's scared, and I'm not sure why. I mean, she's done this before, had a baby and stuff. It's not like it's a totally new drill like it is for me.

So I put my arm around her and pull in hard, I don't want her to be scared.

I hope she's happy. I want her to be. I mean, I hope she wants this as much as I do.

That's the thing that makes me most nervous. That she's only doing this because I want it, which Ally would do, because she's that kind of person. But I want her to want it, too.

She does love kids, and she's good with them. She's an awesome mom. Miranda is real lucky to have her. I wish I had a mom that was half as good as Ally, because even if she'd only been half as good, she would have still been great.

I haven't thought about my mom in a long time. Today I do, and I don't know why. It's not like she's ever been this huge part of my life. I mean, Joanie's more like my mom. She's the one that took care of me.

And it sucks not having your mom take care of you.
 

We survived this visit, but barely.

This particular obstetrician, Dr. Pierson, he's all right. Seems like a nice guy. And Ally seemed okay with him until he told her she has to not go to work.

Then she started freaking seven ways to Sunday.

I mean, it's not like she has to give it up forever. She might even be able to go back after her third month, if she's doing okay. And she can log in from the house. She's not like totally cut off.

But she's here, in the car, crying her head off.

Oh God. I don't do well with crying women. Particularly ones I love so much.

I try taking her hand, and she's like not even there. She's totally crying and upset.

It's not like Ally to go off on crying like this for so long. Usually she cries a good one for a few minutes, chokes it back, and she's ready to go again.

This time she's like not letting up.

She's real upset, too, because she doesn't know if she can start school in the fall. She might have to wait a year, and this isn't sitting real good with her.

I mean, I'm not real sure what the big deal is, but it's obviously important enough to her to have her totally going off the wall.

I feel so bad for her.

And as self-centered and bastard-like as it sounds, I feel bad for me, too. 'Cause this is not exactly a piece of cake.

What am I supposed to do for her right now? I haven't got a clue.

Why is it that to get what you really want, you got to go through so much shit?
 

BYERS:

It appears that Juliet hit it off with Luanne Russell, and she will be using her services.

She calls Frohike to thank him, and I think Frohike is relieved. He would like to do some work for Luanne, but not all the time. It's hard on him to both keep the magazine going and work a great deal of the time as a consultant. Frohike is still going to do some work for her, but much more part-time.

And I think this is positive. Frohike is not as young as the rest of us, he's had one heart attack, and he suffers from peptic ulcers. I think his children contribute heavily towards those. I say children because from what I gather, his daughter, the elder of his two, is coming to visit him this weekend. And it's obvious that he is uneasy about the prospect.

And while I like Michael, and I think he is turning out nicely, he is a great deal of work and worry for his father. Under the best of circumstances, Michael would be a challenging child; these hardly constitute the best of circumstances.

I confess to disliking the boy substantially upon meeting him approximately a year and a half ago. I would never admit this to Frohike; he cares deeply for his son, and I believe he would be wounded to the heart to know that I so disliked the child at first.

On the other hand, Frohike is not sufficiently blind to believe that his son is an angel, or was at any time. What I find to be most noble about Frohike is that in spite of his difficulties with Michael, and all of Michael's imperfections, he is completely devoted to him. He loves him no matter what should happen, or how difficult it should become.

This is so terribly different than my experiences with my own father. Everything that takes place with Frohike and Michael, I can almost directly contrast with my own.

Frohike is openly affectionate with his son. My father is cold as granite. Michael can screw up a little, or a lot, it matters not a bit. Frohike will support him. My father would say that I need to learn from my mistakes. Frohike is there whenever he's sick. My father feels that this is mere coddling.

And what frightens is me is that I am so much my father's son. As much as I would choose to not be like him, it appears that I am still very much a victim of that amorphous, overpowering mix of genetics and environmental influences.

I know that Frohike and Michael argue a great deal. I would prefer that to the stony silence that exists between my father and myself. It is as though Antarctica lies between us. Where Michael and Frohike have blood and tears, we have a frozen wasteland.

But with my father being James Arthur Byers IV, this is not likely to occur.

I have days when I curse my WASP-Episcopalian-old money upbringing. Frequent ones.

I am so inhibited, in every aspect. I know I feel things. I know I am influenced by emotion.

Yet it never seems to bubble to the surface. I envy Langly at times-he is so intensely visceral. And while Frohike is essentially a silent man, he does not disavow his passions.

And I want it to rise. I want Juliet to know my feelings even when we're not in bed. I think I value my sexual relationship to her so deeply, besides its intrinsic value, because it is the only place where any of my inner core reaches the outer banks of flesh.

I am so outwardly calm, so inwardly a disaster.

I don't know how my father is inside. I doubt anyone does. Perhaps my mother knew.

I miss my mother very much. She made up for some of my father's rigidity and chilliness. I've been told I resemble her. I know I have the red hair that was her birthright, and the freckles, and the blue eyes. My father is also blue-eyed, but his are pale and frosty. My mother's were warm and lively, beckoning like summer. Kat has her eyes.

I pray I have gotten at least a shadow of them.

Why is it that this bond of fathers and sons is so entrenched? Even when there is no relationship to speak of, the notion is still bound around the DNA helix, invisible rope tied into invisible knots in imperceptible space. And just as difficult to undo.

It's been claimed since ancient times that the sins of the father are visited upon the son. I don't know if the sins of the father are, but just about everything else seems to be. And I wouldn't be hasty to discount the sin part.

Why is it that we cannot see fathers simply as the humans that they are?

I do not understand why it is, when we know that our fathers have done us wrong, that we cannot simply, at least in the emotional sense, send them packing and on their way?

Why does this question bother me, after so many years of silence between my own father and myself? There is nothing there. There should be nothing there. He has chosen to not include me in his existence. I have abandoned all possibility of including him in mine.

Yet the question plagues me still. I suspect that in some roundabout fashion, this accounts for my tremendous relief at Juliet's not being expectant.

I think I would like to have children of my own. But I don't know that I could be a good father to them.

I wonder if this question plagues Langly at this point. It has to. And if his child is a boy, the ties that bind, and sometimes strangle, will be passed on.

I don't doubt his ability to be a good father. He seems immature at times. But I think that is part of the reason he will do well. He can become a child again, recognize their frailties and dependence, just as he is quick to admit his own.

Somewhere along the way, I lost the ability to do that.

I need to get it back.

I have no idea how.
 

LANGLY:

Ally is calmer now that we're home. I think she'd really like something with tequila in it, but she can't. And a smoke. She tends to rely on her vices when she's stressed, and right now, she can't have 'em.

But this day is still not over. We've got to head over to Joanie's for a small celebration, it is her birthday, I wanna see her. And then we're supposed to go to Mulder's to see what's up with what he got for us. He's been pulling heavy parent duty lately. Frohike says he sounds pretty tired.

I wonder how tired I'm gonna be with this kid. Frohike says, you have no idea.

And it's like it never stops, so it seems. I mean, look at Michael. Junior is 25 fucking years old. But it's like Frohike is still busy being a dad. All the time. Even when Junior is sort of acting like a grownup, which, okay, I'll admit, is happening more and more, Frohike can never let go of being a daddy.

Is this going to happen to me?

Miranda is like so independent most of the time, but Ally, she still thinks of herself as a mommy 24/7 in a lot of ways. So I'm not sure why this whole thing of a new kid has her so freaked out. It's not like she was never a mom before.

I say this to her, and she's like, yeah, Langly, I've been a mom, but I've been Miranda's mom. I've never been the mom of your baby before.

She says it's totally different, and for all she knows, any experience she had, it could be useless. She said that when we got married, too. Even though she'd been together with the same guy for 20 years, she said, well, I was never married to you. So I don't know. It's all new to me.

She thinks it's new to her? She oughta try standing in my place.

If I had half a clue what I should be doing, I'd do it.
 

Joanie looks okay tonight, and she seems happy. She doesn't have any hair, but she's got a new wig, looks good on her.

And she's happy to see me. I'm still little one to her, even though I'm like five inches taller than she is. I'll always be her little brother.

I'm so glad she's back with me. I missed her so much.

She's my only blood tie left, unless you count my niece and my nephew. I try not to count my nephew. He's such an asshole. He's a born again, and he's like so fucking self-righteous it's not even funny. I mean, some of them you can laugh at, they're obviously so out of it.

My nephew Chris isn't somebody you can laugh at. I mean, he's out there, that's for certain, but he's also real smart, and real shrewd, and he's fully in his dad's organization.

We used to have fun when he was a kid, but that was a long time ago.

And he's here tonight. And that pisses me off. I mean, he is so rude to Ally, just 'cause she's Jewish. Like she's demonically possessed or something, just because she doesn't think Jesus fell to earth already.

Like I think he did. Not. Well, I have no idea. And I don't care. He never helped me much along the way.

So much as I'd like to hang with Joanie, I can't really deal with it when my nephew's around. And when my nephew's around, Julie, my niece, since she's kind of a mole in her dad's organization for us, she has to act a certain way, and I hate it.

Plus my nephew doesn't like us being there. He thinks it's my fault his mom and dad split up.

I doubt I had much to do with it. I think I sort of catalyzed it, but that's about it.

Ally usually takes him light, but right now she's not feeling so hot, and she's tired, and when she says she wants to go home and go to bed, I'm ready.

Used to be though, Ally said she was ready for bed, it meant something else, most of the time.

And I'm like so horny right now, I'm ready to raid the Frohike special editions. For the next - are you ready for this - nine weeks, sex is off limits to us.

Nine goddamn weeks. Oh man.

Until she was doing treatments, did we even go nine days since we first did it? I don't think so. Maybe a week, on a bad week.

But nine weeks!

And she's not any happier about it than I am. She was saying in the car going home she feels like her whole life is spinning out of control.

I'm starting to feel the same way.
 

FROHIKE:

May 19, 2001

The day has finally arrived.

My daughter will be here later this evening. She does not expect to be here before 10 p.m., which gives me far too long to be anxious for her arrival.

I hope she doesn't encounter any difficulties on the way down. I know she is very independent, but I worry about a young woman, driving alone...

I'm being ridiculous. She probably drives the Jersey Turnpike at least once a week.

She's not a little girl. I'm not going to be greeted by an eager nine-year-old shrieking "Daddy!"

What I wouldn't give to have it be so.

I have seen her. I saw her when she came with her mother during Michael's bout with pneumonia.

It pains me to say it, but my daughter, well...

Regrettably, the gene pool could have been kinder to her.

She is a mix of Jan and me, short, inclined to put on weight easily, with dark hair, Jan's huge splash of freckles, a round face.

My first impression upon seeing her a few months ago was that if she smiled more, she would be an attractive young lady. But the hard line of her mouth makes her appear old and, well, let's just say it doesn't enhance her appearance.

Her cartilage piercings are far fewer than her younger brother's, but I did notice she had one in the upper portion of one of her ears, one in her nose, and one in her chin.

I suppose this is an improvement over the crop of earrings that Michael used to wear, the eyebrow rings, and thank God he wasn't able to keep the lip and tongue pierces due to infection.

What is it about my children that would make them want to mutilate themselves in such a fashion?

As to whether or not she does ink, I have no idea. I know that Michael has several tattoos; the one I have seen, the parrot on his back, is actually quite well done, if a bit large and loudly colored.

And Michael has stopped putting in so much jewelry, thank God. I haven't seen him put in more than three earrings in ages, when he puts them in at all. The eyebrow rings are gone. The nose stud has stayed-I guess I should be thankful he's down to that.

I forced him to get rid of the dyed hair for Langly and Allison's wedding; I am happy to say he has not renewed it. The burgundy was not so terrible as the blue or green, but there was no way he was going to keep it. Not if I had anything to say about it.

And people used to complain about my generation growing their hair long.

Give me a break.
 

MICHAEL:

Oh fuck.

Tonight my sister is coming to visit.

And Dad says I have to play nice.

I don't want to see Leslie. I don't want her to come here. This is my life, mine and my dad's, and I don't want her around. She's such a bitch, she hates my guts.

Why the hell does she have to come here?

Maybe her car'll break down.

Maybe she'll wimp out.

Maybe she'll lose her way.

I just keep thinking, if there is a God, something which I very much doubt, he'll do something to keep her away from here.

I mean, I'm not saying hurt her or kill her or anything like that. Unless you absolutely have to, and I don't want anything to do with it.

This is like the worst.

I mean, Dad and me, we have a decent life here. And it's like we had to work real hard to get it. We still have it hard sometimes. But it's like, we got real tight, and now...

I can't believe she said she'd come.

I figured she'd never do it.

So I freaked out totally when Dad said she was gonna be here this weekend.

Maybe Kelly and me can get our asses out of town in a hurry.

Fat fucking chance. And Dad says I got to be here.

For some reason, he wants me to get it together with my sister and my mom. He's pushing real hard on that one, and it's pissing me off.

Shit, we're never gonna be a TV family. Why bother?

And I like it the way it is with my dad and me. He's mostly real good to me. Except about this.

I can feel my stomach knotting up already.

I can hardly wait for a weekend of my sister dissing me from hell and back. This is gonna be such a kick.

She hates me and I hate her.

I mean, she wasn't ALL bad to me the last time I saw her, but then again, I wasn't in much shape to argue with her.

And Dad is like so stressed out over this. He's been living on crackers and milk. Washed down with a little J&B.

I don't even know what Les drinks. It's so weird. It's like we have the same parents and I don't even know her.

Maybe she's different. Maybe she's nice now. Maybe she'll even think I'm a little bit better than pond scum.

Right.

At least my mom doesn't think she's so great anymore.

Maybe that means she thinks I'm not so bad anymore.

I never hoped so hard for it to be Monday.

END OF PART 8