“Madison?” Robin stared.
Jill waited until Madison had joined her at the painting. “What do you think?” Jill asked.
Madison glanced at it. “You’re buying another one of hers?”
“I like it.”
“Okay, so like her art. Stop buying it. Stop supporting her with your money.”
“Honey, she’s a fellow artist. Personal issues should have nothing to do with whether I support someone’s journey or not.”
Madison shook her head, barely hiding her disgust. “After what she did to you?”
“What?” Robin asked, a hard, cold knot in her stomach. “Jesus, what the hell did I do now?”
Jill didn’t respond to Madison.
“I can’t believe you still care about her.” Madison stared hard at the painting, as if willing laser beams to come out of her eyes and burn it.
“Robin has her own burdens. I just happened to be part of the fallout.”
“She broke off the engagement.”
Robin’s jaw dropped. “Engagement? We were engaged?” She looked at Krampus. “Is that what she’s talking about?”
He remained implacable. “It does appear thus.”
“You are the most unhelpful Christmas visitor I’ve had,” Robin snapped.
“This is a future that may or may not come to pass, based on decisions you make now,” he said, patient. “Listen.”
Engaged. How the hell did that even happen between them?
“She’s not the first and she won’t be the last woman to do that,” Jill said. “I don’t carry grudges.”
“Stop making excuses for her. She led you on for weeks. Months. Broke off the engagement then used your good graces to build her audience for her own art. Never once thanked you. Slept with your agent and then poached her—”
Robin clenched her teeth.
“Which I think says quite a bit about my agent,” Jill said, anger in her tone.
“Why the hell do you insist on holding on to this woman?” Madison asked, a little less strident. “She has done nothing for you. She wasn’t who you thought she was in college, and she sure as hell wasn’t who you hoped she was when you ran into her in New York all those years ago.”
Jill crossed her arms and glared at Madison.
“She played you, Mom. You made the right call when you broke up with her in college, and you should have stuck by that decision.”
Madison’s words were like a physical punch to Robin’s chest.
“She allowed her past to define her,” Jill said, keeping her tone low. “I won’t judge her for that.”
“Do you honestly think she gives a damn about you or about the little forgiveness thing you have going on?”
Dress woman approached with an incredibly thin device the size of her palm. Madison’s smile was forced.
“Hi,” Madison said to her. “I’m sorry we troubled you, but she won’t be taking the painting after all.”
“Oh—” dress woman looked at Jill, who shook her head once. “Well, if you change your mind, just call. I’ll keep you on file for a bit.” She moved her fingertip above the device’s surface before she retreated quickly, clearly ascertaining the mood.
“I’m not going to let you throw your money away on her,” Madison said to Jill. “And please, for the love of God, let go. Some people are unredeemable.”
Jill’s expression tore at Robin’s heart. “You’re right,” Jill said. “But sometimes, I hope.”
“I know. For whatever reasons, she got under your skin, and she’s stayed there ever since.” Madison put her arm around Jill’s shoulders. “Like some kind of fungus.”
Jill managed to laugh. “Maybe I should think about it that way.”
“Maybe. Let’s go.” Madison led Jill outside, and Robin stared after them with a painful tightness in her chest.
“This isn’t the actual future, right?” Robin said to Krampus. “It’s one possible future, but it’s not set in stone.”
“Indeed.”
“How the hell did we end up engaged, anyway? I mean, that’s—we broke up in college, years ago. We’re on two completely different trajectories, now.”
“It’s one possible future. The decisions you make now can help determine whether this one comes to pass or not.”
“Well, that one sucks. I somehow became the world’s biggest dick, and I somehow hurt Jill. How the hell does anybody do that? She’s this amazing woman and apparently she kept giving me chances. Why did she do that? Because from seeing this future, it was a total waste of her time.”
“Was it?”
Robin stared at the painting. “For this future, yes.”
“Ms. Preston, I’ll reiterate that this is only one possible future. There are myriad ways a future can express itself.”
“Well, it seems that the reason Jill’s not happy in this one is because of me.”
“That may not be entirely fair to say. Ms. Chen could have decided not to—what’s the saying—carry a torch for you.”
Robin glared at him. “But it looks like she did. So in order to prevent her from ever having to make that choice, she shouldn’t get involved with me.” She caught herself. Why was this even an issue? She didn’t want to get involved with Jill again. Right?
Krampus might have been a statue, he was so immobile. “Or you could examine your own motivations for doing so, should it come to pass.” He cocked his head. “If your intentions are good, and you are moved by genuine care toward Ms. Chen, then that will influence whatever future comes to pass.”
“Didn’t you learn in demon school that the road to hell is paved with good intentions?”
“Hell has no roads. It is only what you make it, my dear.”
Robin looked back at the painting. “So if Jill doesn’t get involved with me again, she’ll be safest from this future.” She turned back to Krampus.
“Possibly. There’s no guarantee that she won’t have a similar future, no matter who enters her life.”
“But this one, where she’s stuck on me, won’t come to pass if we don’t end up together.” Robin gestured at the painting. “If somebody else, say, got involved with her, it would also prevent this.”
“Ms. Preston, this future may not come to pass even if you do get involved with Ms. Chen,” he said, patient. Surprising, that a demon could sound that way. “If you enter a relationship now with Ms. Chen, and you do so with integrity, then you will already have altered this future.”
“Suppose, though, that Jill found somebody else before that happened. Like, maybe if I introduced her to someone, and she was a much better match for that person than for me. She’d be safe from this, right?” Robin again gestured at the painting.
“Ms. Preston, if you work on changing your present, this future will not materialize. I hardly think attempting to find a date for Ms. Chen will change a trajectory of which you are a crucial part.”
Robin decided she hated this painting and what it represented. “It’ll save her from me.” She looked back at Krampus.
“Perhaps you should instead save yourself from you.” He clasped his hands in front, and Robin noticed a ring on his left pinkie with a single red stone in the band. “If you change something about the source, you change the outcome. Perspective, my dear.” He turned toward the door. “Shall we?”
“Like I have a choice.” And the darkness descended like a heavy drape and wrapped her in cold, but she wasn’t moving. She was floating, somewhere. Or nowhere, so complete was the silence and blackness that enfolded her, only to abruptly recede. Robin opened her eyes to blazing sunlight. She stood on the sidewalk in front of somebody’s house, but she didn’t recognize it, a low-slung brick ranch style. It needed work on the roof, and the gutter in front sagged in a few spots, and the chintzy metal roof over the porch was pulling away from the wrough
t iron supports near the door.
What should have been a lawn was instead smooth, round stones the size of golf balls, their expanse broken by a few tired yucca plants that looked as if their best days were decades behind them. A couple of burly guys carried furniture from a moving truck onto the cement slab that served as a porch. Another man stood on the front porch, directing. Frank. A few years older and a few pounds heavier.
“Hey, Dad,” a teenaged boy said from the driveway. “The car’s not open.” He wore baggy blue shorts, sneakers, and a black T-shirt. His hair was a mop of unruly dark curls.
“Oh. Here.” Frank dug into his pocket and pointed it at the car. “Where’s your sister?”
Frank had two kids?
“With Mom. They’re on their way.”
Frank nodded and said something to one of the movers as he emerged from the house. The mover nodded and wiped his forehead with a bandana. Where were they? Southern California? Arizona?
The teenaged boy opened the back of the car and took out what might have been a framed painting, from its shape, maybe two feet square. Whatever it was, it was wrapped in a blanket. He almost dropped it.
“Hey, careful with that.” Frank hopped off the porch and took the object from the boy, whose expression was classic teen irritation.
“It’s not like it’s worth anything.”
“Maybe not in terms of money. But it does have sentimental meaning.”
“Too bad that doesn’t pay the bills.”
“Travis,” Frank said, and his tone carried a warning. “This is special to me. At least have some respect for my feelings about it.”
“Yeah, okay. Fine.” He reached into the trunk again and took a box out. “What’s so special about it, anyway?”
“It was one of her first paintings. She quit doing art, but when she was an artist, she was pretty cool.”
Robin watched as Travis carried the box to the house. He looked like Frank had when Frank was a teenager. “Well, sorry, Dad, but she’s not like that anymore.”
“She’s still your aunt,” Frank called then followed him into the house.
Robin groaned, and Krampus suddenly appeared at her elbow.
“This isn’t set in stone, right?” Robin looked at him.
“It is another possible future.”
“How many are there?”
“Infinite, my dear. A future is a response to choices you make in the present, and your motivations behind those choices. Let’s go in, shall we?”
She started walking, but before she’d taken two steps, she was in the house, standing in a hallway. The paneling hadn’t been updated since the eighties, and the floors underfoot, though hardwood, were scuffed and faded from years of neglect. At some point in the past, the paint had probably been a crisp, fresh white. Now it was a dingy light gray, and the outdated light fixtures only worsened that effect.
“Maybe if she gave a damn about you, she would’ve helped after you got canned,” Travis said as he put the box down in what clearly was going to be a bedroom. Mattresses leaned against the wall.
Robin’s heart sank. She’d let Frank down like that? What kind of sister did that? One like her, clearly. There was no way she could correct this unless she herself changed. And she wasn’t even sure how to do that. But she had to. She wanted to be redeemable. That much she knew.
“Language,” Frank scolded. “Running a corporation is a lot of work.” He took the painting into one of the other rooms then reappeared without it. Oh, God. Robin had made CEO, or something comparable. A couple of weeks ago, she would’ve reveled in that knowledge. Now it just made the hole within her deeper.
“You’re family.” Travis stood in the doorway of the bedroom he’d put the box in. He was almost Frank’s height, and once he filled out, he’d probably have Frank’s athletic build. “Family is supposed to help each other.”
“Ideally, yes. But sometimes things get in the way.”
“Like what?” Travis crossed his arms, challenging.
“Like whatever demons from your past you can’t shake.”
“That’s bullshit.”
Frank gave him a parental look.
“I’m sorry, but it is. You grew up in the same house with her, with the same parents, and you turned out okay. You don’t write people off like she does. You’re there for them, and you try to help. She’s making boatloads of money. The least she could’ve done was offered you a loan until you got another job.”
Robin glared at Krampus. “I’m tired of finding out how big a screw-up I am in the family department.”
He shrugged. “There are many different possibilities for the future. The smallest actions can cause large ripples. Whatever future this represents, the choices you made played a role in it. But so, too, do the choices of others. No one ever operates in a vacuum, but thinking you do and behaving that way can lead to futures like this.” He shook his head slowly and appeared genuinely sad, for a demon.
She might be able to introduce someone to Jill to prevent Jill’s future, but how the hell did you find somebody to step into a family and be a sister? This was on her, she realized. And, if she was being honest with herself, so was whatever happened with Jill.
“Travis, there’s a lot of baggage in my family where Robin’s concerned,” Frank said. “I can’t pretend she hasn’t let me down or that I’m fine with whatever she’s doing now. But I have a past with her that you don’t. I remember her as a big sister who was there for me throughout our childhoods when our dad wasn’t, and when our mom was working several jobs to keep us fed. That’s the sister I try to hold on to, and that’s why that painting means so much to me. Because it was done by that Robin. Not whoever this other Robin is.”
Travis stared at the floor.
“I don’t think you’ll get to meet the Robin I still care about. And that really bums me out. But you know what? It’s her loss. Because she doesn’t know you. Or Mallory. Or Deb. You guys are my family. And that’s what counts.” Frank put Travis in a playful headlock and ruffled his hair until Travis laughed. Robin’s chest ached. It was her loss, and that made everything hurt even more.
“Okay, Dad. Relax with the hair.”
Frank laughed, too, and released him. “C’mon. Your mom will kill us if we don’t get the car unloaded.” He passed within inches of Robin.
Mallory. Robin loved that name. How the hell could she have stayed out of Frank’s life this long? What the hell was wrong with her? She headed outside, needing to see more of Frank and Travis and wanting desperately to find out more about her niece. But before she even reached the front door, she was once again cloaked in darkness so complete it was almost viscous, like oil. Cold, slimy oil. It was like being immersed. Or maybe buried alive. Robin fought a rising panic and when light finally penetrated, she was so relieved she wanted to cry.
This was somebody’s office, Robin surmised, looking around. Somebody with a lot of money and power who enjoyed a panoramic view of the city from at least thirty stories up. The desk looked heavy and expensive and the conference table did, too. Both were fashioned out of some kind of hardwood and polished to a sheen that reflected the paintings on the walls, which were mostly cubist and abstract in primary colors. The room was beautiful in a museum kind of way. But there was no soul here. No sense of the person who worked here.
Krampus turned away from the floor-to-ceiling windows. “A most excellent vantage point,” he said, hands clasped behind his back. When he wasn’t in full-blown demon mode, he could have passed as a professor.
“Whose office is this?”
He pointed at the door to the office, which stood half open.
Robin moved closer to the door. “Oh, hell, no.” She stared at the one-inch-high gold letters fastened to the door. R.A. Preston.
“Your hard work was rewarded,” Krampus said, tone mild. She shot him a look,
trying to ascertain if he was being sarcastic, but she saw nothing in the smooth planes of his face or the black depths of his eyes. He motioned for her to step out of the office, so she did, half dreading what she’d find. Two nondescript white men in suits stood chatting in a sitting area outside the door. The furnishings were urban minimalist, and Robin wondered if she’d been responsible for the design, and when she’d come to like that sort of thing.
“Are you going to the service?” Grey suit asked brown suit.
“Probably not. I didn’t know her.”
Robin’s chest tightened. Service. Somebody was dead, and she had a very bad feeling that it was probably her.
Grey suit shrugged. “I didn’t either, but it’s a good way to suck up to the board.”
“Seriously, is anybody actually going besides them? I heard she didn’t have any family.”
“Of course she didn’t. Nobody could stand her,” grey suit said.
“She had a brother,” a prim woman with close-cropped red hair said as she approached carrying a vase of flowers. She wore a black skirt suit with a cream blouse. Grey suit coughed, embarrassed.
“Suck it,” Robin muttered at him.
“And I believe he will be attending the memorial.” Red hair brushed past the suits and went into the office. Robin followed her and watched as she placed the vase on the conference table. She leaned a white card against the vase then left.
“Okay, so I’m guessing the memorial is for me,” Robin said to Krampus, but he didn’t respond because the room faded. The darkness lasted only a few seconds this time, and when it dissipated, she stood in another room, white marble underfoot and on the walls, as if she were in an updated Grecian temple. A casket was positioned in the center of the room on a wheeled stand, its wooden surface reflecting the dim light from the wall fixtures.
Robin stared at it, a weight she couldn’t name crushing her inside, holding her in this spot. A man entered from behind, wearing a dark suit that might have been a little too big for his frame. He had the complexion of someone from South Asia, and he carried a device in his palm that looked like the world’s smallest tablet.
The Bureau of Holiday Affairs Page 11