December 24th, 2005
Seattle, Washington
8:14 PM PST

Inside the famed and secret Forte base—a converted factory that kept the appearance of being abandoned, and one that had been home to the world’s premiere hero team since Forte’s humble origins—the annual Christmas Eve party was underway. Many of the extraordinary people in attendance were household names in households across the globe, and ranged from founding Forte members to its latest heroes. Guests included family members of these heroes, friends of the team, and even heroes from alternate realities, having crossed over at the invitation of their Forte friends to share in the holiday gathering.

Eggnog flowed freely beneath strung Christmas lights as holiday music helped set the tone and warm the hearts of all gathered. A ridiculously large tree, decked out in fine adornment, stood sentry over the festivities, with piles of colorfully-wrapped gifts waiting beneath it. The smells of seasonally-appropriate cooking permeated the air, wafting in from the kitchen where the team’s resident chef—Anvil—worked his culinary magic. Children ran about, sugar-dosed and equally amped on gift anticipation, while teens who had once been much like them—some of whom had spent parts of their childhoods living in the base—played it cool and tried to pretend at being above such thing now.

Laughter could be heard everywhere, prompted by stories both familiar and new. Couples held hands and snuggled on coaches. Old friends exchanged updates on what had transpired in their lives since last they met, details that would seem surprisingly mundane to those outside the super-hero world who would find that their idols were much more like them than they ever would have suspected. Card and board games were played. Hugs were prevalent. Smiles were everywhere. It was Christmas.

Outside the warm (in temperature and heart) building, a light snow fell on Seattle, and the city carried on with its own night before Christmas.

 

1. Christmas Spirits

 

1432 20th Avenue
8:47 PM

Commander Edward Castillo—sitting and reviewing performance reports on his PC in the home office of his modest, decades-old two-story house (though only his for a few years so far)—realized it was time to stop being Commander Edward Castillo. For the night, at least.

It was the lights that brought him to this decision. He had gone ahead and opened the shutters on his office’s window, just to have the snow to look at in the background, but with that sight had come the unavoidable addition of the methodically blinking Christmas lights stapled all along his neighbors’ rain gutter. He tried to focus on his monitor, as he had plenty left to do with UNCLE’s year-end reports due in a handful of days, but the lights kept drawing his eyes back to them, flashing with a quiet insistence. The uninvited guests appeared to have something to say, and with a sigh, he acquiesced and listened. He logged out of the UNCLE system, then went ahead and shut down his PC all together. He hoped the lights were satisfied. Even though, they’d be disappointed to find out, they were only half the reason.

He got up and walked slowly to his living room—still carrying the slight limp with him that he’d picked up on that terrible day three years before, a day that he, UNCLE, Forte and Seattle had yet to completely recover from—where the fire he’d started in his fireplace was beginning to falter. Grabbing another log from the pile he’d brought in from his backyard—a yard that still mystified his neighbors, as the sight of a traditional Japanese garden over the fence of a house in an otherwise working-class Seattle neighborhood could be expected to—he tossed it on and patted his hands clean of the wood debris. It was a cold night. Christmas Eve should be, he supposed.

The crackling fire in the dark room caused the dragon centered in the shadow box that hung on his wall—the black wood frame with delicately-painted Japanese calligraphy symbols in gold finish adorning the area around the dragon—to seem to move. The fire seemed to equally animate the horse box that hung on the opposing wall, as well as give a form of life to his wooden Buddha, the yellow blossoms on his hanging silk scroll, and even to his mounted WWII-era Shin-Gunto swords (a collection he’d begun during his years in Japan). Some might find the effect eerie, but to him, it was comforting. These affectations, after all, were his only company. That fact was also clearly evidenced by the lack of any Christmas tree or other holiday decorations in the room.

He stood there next to the hearth, snug in his worn U.S. Army sweatshirt, and thought about dinner. It was already later than he normally ate, but he decided he wasn’t quite ready for a meal. It was Christmas Eve, and there were rituals to be done, and digging through the fridge would just be another way of putting them off. WAS he putting them off? It seemed that he was. And that wasn’t right, he knew. Rituals were important. His years in the Army had taught him that. More years in the intelligence field had cemented this. But it was his age, now, that had taught him this more than anything.

He stepped past his Shoji screen and sat on his couch, a second-hand thing with zero style that he’d bought from an old couple (says he with no right to call anyone else old at his age…) off a Pennysaver ad when he’d first relocated to Seattle to take over as Northwest Regional Commander. Its unabashed aura of no-frills Americana clashed nicely with his otherwise Japanese décor, an effect that he enjoyed. The couch, to him, kind of reminded him of himself during his time in Japan, back in his days with RONIN—didn’t quite fit, didn’t quite give a shit.

His coffee table, too, was all gaijin, and on it sat an item he had placed there about forty-five minutes before. It was a bottle of Glenmorangie Scotch Malt Whiskey, circa 1971. Its seal was broken, cracked by him, the first time that nectar had tasted fresh air since the year “All In The Family” had debuted on CBS, Apollo 14 had landed on the Moon, and Edward Castillo was still tromping around the jungles of Southeast Asia. The bottle was a Christmas gift—the only actual Christmas gift he’d gotten this year (though he’d gotten more than his share of cards)—and had come from a very old friend. The giver was Colonel John Clayton, the head of Canada’s BRAND (northern cousin of America’s UNCLE), a man who had done time in the Nam with Castillo and who had gone on to become a bona fide super-hero (under the handle of Phantasm) for a few years before becoming a full-time spook. Clayton had sent the bottle directly to UNCLE Seattle Headquarters, and had even marked it “top secret”. High rank had made him no less of a wise-ass in his later years.

Castillo knew his whiskey, and therefore knew (as should any civilized man) that a vintage bottle of the stuff needed to breathe once it was reintroduced to the world. The old wisdom prescribed one minute for every year since it was birthed. This one, then, had needed at least thirty-four minutes to get up to speed. His focus on his reports had given it a little extra for good measure. The festive roof lights next door had helped make sure it didn’t get more than it needed.

He picked up the bottle and regarded it, a slight, tired grin below his thick mustache as he nodded his silent appreciation for both the gift and the man who had sent it. Clayton was good people. And if Clayton were there now, he thought, raising the bottle to his nose, closing his eyes and breathing in the liquor’s magnificent scent for the second time that evening, he might even tell him so. Well, probably not. They were both from the generation of men that embraced the idea that feelings were meant to be felt, not yammered about endlessly. And they’d known each other long enough and been through enough together to not have to say the sentimental shit. It was understood.

Also on the table was a ten-ounce whiskey rocks glass, taken from his living room’s bar. It was plain, none of this logo bullshit; he was neither a collector nor considered himself part of any brand or tavern’s unpaid marketing team. While it was a rocks glass, it needed no ice, both because he never took his whiskey on the rocks and because adding ice to any whiskey twenty years or older was considered a crime punishable by flogging or castration in certain countries (the ones with sense). He took the iceless glass and poured a measure of Glenmorangie in, then held the glass up in front of his eyes and slowly swirled it as his popping fire flickered through its amber contents.

First one for the giver, he noted.

He took a drink and held it, running it over the length of his tongue a few times before swallowing. He breathed out and relished the fumes…and the burn. The heat was, to his knowing satisfaction, in the back of his mouth. Had it been on the front of his tongue, he’d have known it to be a young whiskey. A mid-palate burn would have tagged it as ten to fifteen years of age. But this burn backed the label, and the fact that Clayton wasn’t trying to test him by sticking eight-month-old Black Velvet in a Glenmorangie bottle. No, this was the stuff all right. And it tasted oh-so fine.

He smiled, raised his glass, and nodded to his absent friend, who may have been a horse’s ass but was no cheapskate when it came to the finer things. He wasn’t even all that absent, actually. He was, Castillo knew, just a few miles away, spending the Eve with his old Forte mates in their secret little clubhouse. Castillo also knew what his schedule was like, and that he’d only be in town this evening, with Nightsable teleporting him back to Canada before Santa finished making his rounds. He didn’t have time to look up old war buddies (though to be fair, Castillo had, for the second year in a row, been invited to the exclusive party, but again declined, just as he had with dinner offers from several others). Clayton had a family, after all. He and his wife and kids needed to get back to their own home to open up their presents in their robes and slippers on Christmas morn. Johnny had a good family. He’d done well for himself, and Edward was happy for him. A man should have a family, something to leave his mark on the world after he’s gone, remind the world he’d been there.

Musing on this last thought, he stared deep into his whiskey, rolling it back and forth in the glass. He quickly realized what he was doing and made himself stop, giving a quick shake of his head as if to dispel the thoughts that were creeping in and wasting his time. There was, after all, ritual to be done.

Second one.

With his glass in hand, he stood from his couch and faced the fire. He brought his heels close together and straightened his back. He took and released a deep breath, then raised his glass toward the fireplace, holding it out steady as a salute. He turned his thoughts, purposefully, to a man he’d met on another Christmas Eve, exactly fifteen years before, to the day. That man had patched up Castillo’s gunshot wound for him as they hidden in an abandoned building in war-ravaged Somalia. They had shared drinks from a bottle of cheap local rum, and stories from their complicated lives. The next day, the two SHIELD men had taken point together on a raid on a factory and gotten a very nasty stolen bomb back from a very famous arms dealer. When it was over, still Christmas morning, they’d sat together on the SHIELD helicarrier and toasted. It was Kentucky whiskey that time, which that Texas agent of THUNDER Division probably would have preferred over this finer Scottish stuff.

His name was Nathaniel Pharaoh. Or Twostep, if you preferred. Castillo never saw him again. Twostep left SHIELD, went Forte, his life went to shit, but he went out like a hero. At least by Castillo’s measure of such things. He was both shot down and buried in Seattle in 1999.

“At ease, solider,” Castillo said, solemnly, to the fire. He toasted, then drained the rest of his glass in a shot. He let out a small cough after it, and his eyes watered just a little—even the good stuff had a bite…if it didn’t, he figured, how good could it be?—and he sat slowly back down and immediately started refilling his glass, thinking about how war can turn men into lifelong friends even after one day, and how nice it would be if that were true when no bullets were flying. Six years since Twostep’s death, and Castillo hadn’t missed a Christmas Eve toast yet. He had no plans to start.

The third ritual required a drink before he could start it.

He leaned back, sipped at his whiskey, and enjoyed the warmth of the fire. He thought he could already feel the booze’s effects dampening the pain in his leg, and that was good. That also wasn’t the only pain he had these days. His back was starting to act up on him, something he did his best to let no one know, for pride’s sake. He also thought he might be developing some carpal tunnel. When they’d first started naming it that, it was something secretaries got. Thanks to the million or more back-handed blessings of the information age, everyone was a secretary now. Even commanders. His wrists reminded him what his brain already knew—he was not born to be a typist.

These pains were nagging reminders of a fact he was doing his best to make peace with—he was an old man. Oh, he kept in shape; never a morning without his calisthenics and a run, his decades-old adherence to eastern diet (plenty of rice, fish, miso soup and greens), and a belief, at least, that these balanced out his drinking, which was not an unreasonable amount most of the time. But he’d crammed a hell of a lot more life (soldier, spy, officer) into his years than most men had by the same age, and he was starting to feel it. He was starting to feel tired. Just an omnipresent, overall state of tired.

Such was life. No one lived forever.

Now definitely feeling the buzz, he sat forward again, taking another drink before setting his glass on a coaster. Back to business. Christmas Eve business.

He pulled a drawer out from the coffee table and—willing himself not to hesitate—lifted out a photo album. It was faded red, with artistic renderings of lily pads and bamboo on its front cover. It had been purchased at a Tokyo drug store in the early 80s. He laid it gently on the table, briefly touched its cover lightly with his fingertips, and then turned to the first page.

There they were—him and Natsu, his wife. Of course, she wasn’t yet his wife when that first 5x7 was taken. They were still dating. The photo made him smile, as it always did. There he was, looking a goofy kind of happy that he barely recalled being capable off, younger and thinner wearing a shirt of a color he wouldn’t be caught dead in today. And Natsu. Beautiful, sweet, her soft shoulders showing in the spaghetti-strap top she wore. And her smile—open, but always with a delicious secret seeming to hide behind it. Her eyes that he’d stare into for hours, just listening to her talk, about anything.

They’d met at a Tokyo cocktail lounge not long after his controversial assignment to RONIN. There she was, the pretty office girl, and him, this big Mexican born and bred in L.A. He couldn’t have stuck out more if he’d had antlers. He drew plenty of looks, so hers was to be expected—but hers had lingered, and had come with a smile. Despite the urgings not to from the RONIN agents he’d come out on the town with, and despite the angry (almost violent) glares from the flocks of Japanese professional men, he’d sauntered up and introduced himself. He was cocky back then. She’d later tell him that was one of the things she’d liked about him right off.

He turned the page and looked over rows of regular-sized photo prints, more frozen moments of their early days—the two of them at the top of the Tokyo Tower with a spectacular view showing behind them; Natsu in front of a ceiling-high aquarium wall, making a puckered fish-face to match the fish swimming behind the glass she leaned on; her sitting on the wood-and-dirt steps that climbed through the deep greens of the forest at Mt. Takao; him juggling some sashimi at the Tsukiji Market, to the obvious consternation of the fish peddler behind the table. All smiles. It seemed like that was all the two of them did when they first met.

More pictures—each bringing their sense memories to him, both of Natsu and of the places they were taken—carried him back. The carefree, smiling photos soon gave way to wedding photos. Oh, there were smiles in those, too, but he knew that, off-camera, there weren’t as many in their lives anymore. Her family, not surprisingly, had disowned her when she’d accepted his proposal. Edward knew a thing or two about racism, but it hadn’t prepared him for Japan. Or her parents and brothers. So their wedding was small and private, which was fine with him. Their life together was simple, too, which, again, pleased him well. He didn’t fool himself into thinking the loss of her family was easy on her, but she did her best to make him feel like he was all that that she needed to make her happy. And, living in their first little river-view apartment in the Futako-Tamagawa District, which he flipped through familiar snapshots of, there were happy indeed.

Eventually, the hospital photos came.

He’d had plenty of bad memories of hospitals in his life, from his mother’s long cancer stay to his father’s eventually fatal heart attack stint to the many times he’d visited Army buddies after their injuries. The birth of his son, Gai, had finally given him a good one. The first of his Christmas Eve tears finally fell (but accompanied by a tight smile) at the sight of his brave, exhausted wife holding their dazed little Mexicanese baby in her room at Aiiku Hospital. Close-ups on Gai followed, which brought him more smiles, more tears, and a couple more swallows of whiskey. He stared for a long time at the shot of himself, sitting in the chair next to the bed, holding his carefully-wrapped son. His first child. His only child. He envied the grinning younger man cradling the baby, so at peace and so satisfied with his life—the life that now-stranger had always dreamed of.

The pictures that followed were mostly more Gai, because what else would new parents think to photograph? They were mostly at the Castillo family’s new home in Nakano, a house this time. Pictures in the crib, pictures of him staring wonderingly at toys, pictures of laughter in the bath. He never fussed much, Gai; they all fussed some, because that’s part of a baby’s job description, but the little guy kept it manageable and was mostly partial to giggling and clapping his hands, the latter a sound Gai never seemed to tire of. Castillo could still hear that sound in his mind, the tiny palms finding each other again and again. Pictures of the boy’s big smile seemed the perfect summary of him. He was a pleasure have around. There were times when Edward hated going off to work, sad for all the firsts he’d be missing, all the little joys that being around his little man brought to his heart.

Quickly enough, the album came to an abrupt end.

There were no shots of Gai’s first steps, no little league team shots, no first bike rides. Gai had known none of these. There were no further shots of his beautiful young wife, the woman who completed his soul and had shown him what love really meant. No further shots of their house. The house, his wife, and his son had all disappeared from his life in the same fire in 1985. And along with them, the man he could have—should have—been.

He closed his eyes, letting the tears leak from them. He was most definitely feeling the whiskey now, but poured himself another glass anyway. He didn’t close the album. He flipped the cellophane pages back a few, found the picture of the three of them together in front of the Christmas tree, and left the book open there.

So many things would have been different had he been allowed to have that life. Gai would be twenty-one now. Twenty-one years-old. Well into college. Would they even be in the States, or would they have spent their life in Japan? Would they still be there now, he and Natsu living in their newer, surely bigger house, maybe with Gai still choosing to live at home with his old mom and dad while he studied his way into his coming career, hopefully something as far from intelligence service as possible? Or would he have his own young wife by then, the girl of his dreams, maybe set up in his own apartment somewhere near the University of Tokyo campus…or Hitotsubashi University…or Tokyo Gakugei? It stood to reason that such a good-looking kid (who had no chance of not ending up a dashing, charming looker with his genes) would win some young thing’s heart early on in life.

Or maybe they would have ended up in Seattle anyway. Maybe Gai would be a U-Dub undergrad, again hopefully not too cool to still be rooming with Mom and Dad, maybe at their nice big home up on Beacon Hill. Maybe the three of them would even be spending Christmas Eve with the Forte gang across town. The Edward Castillo who had that life would be much more apt to say yes to holiday invitations, he was sure.

But he wasn’t that Edward Castillo. He was an old man who lived alone, who’d never gotten around to starting a new family. For him, there was no other family. And for that reason, he still spent his Christmas Eves with them. That’s what families did.

His eyes, glossed from tears and liquor, wavered in the firelight as he stared down at his wife and son. He made himself find his smile again. The first few years had been the hardest. On Christmas Eve of 1990, he’d made the decision to pull himself out of the darkness and move on with his life, such as it was, as he was sure Natsu and Gai would want him to. Since then, there were good years and bad, but he’d come a long way toward remembering the good parts, toward honoring instead of mourning their memories, and being thankful for the time that they’d been in his life. Maybe one day he’d be able to do it sober. But not this year.

“Merry Christmas,” he told them, sniffling after he did. “I love you both very much. I miss you always.”

A brave smile. A finger run lightly over the photo. A drink.

A sigh.

He knew he’d be whiskey-wobbly in the kitchen, but vowed to make himself a meal anyway. Soon. For the moment, he carefully crossed his feet up on his coffee table (careful to keep them from bumping the album…or the bottle) and reclined, glass held against his chest, and let the fire—and memories of his family—warm him. He turned his head to his left, not really planning to, and could see through his open office door. And through it, the blinking green and red lights outside his window kept the steady rhythm of Christmas Eve.

 

2. Yuletide Misery

 

14845 International Blvd.
Travelodge Sea-Tac Airport North
9:04 PM

Carl Dulli watched the Christmas lights as they seemed to run laps around the rectangular Travelodge sign; orange, blue, green, red, yellow, repeat—like a festive clock counting time too quickly. He watched from the second-story railing, where he would have been leaning, but his hands were filled with a bouquet of red roses and a paper bag that form-fit the bottle of wine wrapped within it.

Snow continued to fall, and the wind occasionally carried flakes of it past the roof overhang and deposited them on his long black coat. The small parking lot he looked down over was filled with cars—mostly rentals, he was sure, since the motel was so close to the airport—and the light dusting of snow on their roofs, hoods and trunks combined, thematically, with colorful lights above them to paint a peaceful yuletide scene.

Carl didn’t feel very peaceful.

With difficulty, he turned around and faced the door to room 223 again. He’d been standing outside of it for fifteen minutes now in the cold, alternating between staring at it and turning his back to it. He barely even noticed the cold, truth be told. That was about the furthest concern from his mind at that moment. No, foremost was what—who—was waiting on the other side of it, and how going through it would mean, for better or worse, that nothing in his life would ever be the same again.

With few cars passing by on the street (it was now after nine o’clock on Christmas Eve, so of course traffic was light), he was able to clearly hear the occasional sounds of movement behind the door. He would also, every once in a while, catch her shadow crossing the closed, off-white drapes, and his heart would freeze, hoping that she wouldn’t pull those drapes open to look for him and spot him standing there in the chill like an indecisive idiot. Both sounds and shadows left no doubt that she was in there, waiting—waiting for him. This was no longer hypothetical. It was really happening.

He turned back to the rail. Across the parking lot, a family was leaving China Pavilion together, an interesting choice for Christmas Eve dinner. The father, around Carl’s age, held the door open for them. A pretty wife and two excited, jabbering children came out, all smiles, just like the dad. Carl wanted to hate and congratulate the man at the same time. He watched the family, clothed in their winter best, stroll to their SUV while the kids jumped up and down in the falling snow. Now THERE was a happy family. There was a husband who knew how to make it work.

His mood swung back to position one (he was alternating periodically between two of them), and he silently asked himself what he was doing. This wasn’t who he was. Other men, yes, but he’d never seen himself as one of those, guys like Ted Meade, he of the bragging and the no shame, who loved to tell his tawdry weekend stories in low, sleazy tones over Monday coffee in the break room. Carl was a family man. Maybe he wasn’t the best family man, but he never cared for Ted’s extramarital tales, only smiling politely at them while telling himself that Ted was the bad guy, and HE was the good guy. Good guys played by the rules. Good guys stuck.

And then Rebecca had happened.

She’d been new, and every man at the office had fallen all over themselves to be near her. She wore skirts that were just short enough to be sexy without being trashy. She had a face that you couldn’t keep your eyes off of. And a body that, well…you just couldn’t help but steal a glance when she walked by. And what a wonderful laugh she had. She was full of life. Fun. Flirty. It was no wonder every guy on the payroll looked for any excuse to talk to her.

And yet, the one she chose to talk to was Carl.

He’d been, frankly, quite shocked when she’d come into the break room, where he was having his 9:30 coffee, and asked if she could join him. Shocked and flattered. There were plenty better-looking guys in the office, enough that he hadn’t even bothered joining the line to compete for her attention. His hair was going. He hadn’t been in shape for a number of years. And yet, there’d she’d been, wanting to talk with him and get to know him. To say it had made his day was to make an impressive understatement. He’d felt about eight inches taller.

And she’d kept joining him, and the looks he got from his male co-workers showed that others had noticed…and were envious. Envious of HIM. How about that? Soon the two of them had become friends. Soon breaks turned to lunches. Soon getting-to-know-you chats turned deeper. She was easy to talk to. She really listened, really made the effort. She seemed to honestly care about what he thought, what he felt. Safe “Oh, things are fine at home” talks eventually evolved to honest confessions about his marital problems, how distant he and Kim had grown, how they couldn’t even communicate anymore. Communication with Rebecca was not a problem. It felt natural and easy. And she understood him. She really did. In ways he’d never known in his years with Kim, even at the start when things were still good.

Soon it was normal to find her hand on his arm when they talked; soon after, her hand over his…or holding it. Things at the office happened so that the two of them were almost always the last ones out of the building in the late afternoons, and, with no one else around to see, they would hug goodbye before each driving home. Those hugs began to linger, longer and longer. And they felt wonderful. He felt like he could just stand there and hold her all day. And she made him feel as though she thought the same. They both knew a line was being crossed. But it happened so slowly that no big alarms went off in his head. It all seemed so innocent.

And yet, here he was.

He’d known she was taking Christmas Eve day off. She’d also let him know that she’d be alone for Christmas, with no family in the area (and, as he knew all too well, no one special in her life at the moment). They had had an extra-long hug as they left the office the previous night. When he’d gotten to the office this morning, he’d found a Christmas card from her waiting on his desk. He realized then that her leaving him alone at the elevator briefly to go back and get something forgotten at her desk had been a ruse. He’d smiled at the unexpected gesture and opened the card with anticipation of an affectionate, appreciative note from her.

What he’d found, instead, was the name and address of this motel, a room number, and the simple sentence “I’ll be here tonight”, followed by her signature. He’d been unable to breathe for a moment, and physically felt a storm of tingles erupting in every part of his torso. There had been times he’d told himself he was just being foolish, that, despite her clear (and unfathomable) fondness for him, their relationship was nothing more than friendship. The card he’d held in his hands and blinked at disbelievingly erased any chance of ambiguity.

He’d spent the whole day in a daze of confusion, excitement, amazement and agony. There had been more than the invitation to think about. He’d thought about his whole life—what it had turned into, where it was going, what it meant to him. His logical self knew clearly what the good guy was supposed to do in these situations. But what about a good guy who was no longer sure he loved his wife? One who hadn’t made love to that wife in nearly two years? Good guys got lonely, too. Didn’t they deserve some happiness? Did wanting to be happy automatically make them into bad guys?

He’d stayed late when the rest of the office left early to be with their families. He’d sat alone at his desk and stared at the card, and tried unsuccessfully not to stare, too, at the photo of his wife and daughter on his desk. He was at a crossroads, one of the biggest ones in a man’s life. For all his thinking about the responsibilities of good guys, he couldn’t stop thinking about Rebecca, beautiful Rebecca, waiting for him in that motel room. Waiting for one clear reason. Waiting for him. Wanting him. Needing him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt needed. Not needed to clear the rain gutters, not needed to stop on the way home to pick up a box of corn starch, but really needed. Needed as a man.

He’d suddenly reached for the phone and called home, telling Kim a big office disaster had come up and he was the only one left there to handle it, and that he would have to work late. Naturally, she was upset (she seemed to always be) and he let her yell at him, calmly promising her he’d be home as soon as he could. He told himself, after the call, that he was just buying himself more time to think things over. But half an hour later, he was in his car, driving through the snow on his way to a motel near the airport. After finding somewhere open to pick up a bottle of wine. And some roses.

Even waiting outside the door, now, he told himself he was still deciding. It wasn’t too late to change his mind, to walk away. Or even to go ahead and go in, and just explain to Rebecca in person that he couldn’t go through with it. But the more he stood there, the more Rebecca was all he could think about. He’d not even kissed her yet. But he’d let himself think about it, and that vision was intoxicating. He thought about how wonderful she always smelled, how soft her auburn hair was when it touched his cheek during one of their lingering embraces. He wondered what she might be wearing. He wondered if she might not be wearing anything at all.

He turned to the door again, cursing it for how symbolic it—and walking through it—was.

Didn’t he deserve to be happy?

With a breath of chill December air, Carl left the rail and stepped to the door.

He was nearly knocked off his feet when, out of nowhere, hands roughly grabbed his arm and the collar of his coat. The hands were very strong, and as they gripped tightly at him, he found himself being pushed down the open-air walkway, away from the door he’d been focused so intently on that he hadn’t seen or heard anyone coming up on him.

“Move,” a quiet but harsh voice breathed in his ear. Despite the obvious muscles that must have accompanied arms strong enough to propel him so easily and quickly, the voice, to his surprise, was a woman’s.

“What—?” he managed to say, and even that barely come out. He mind was unable to catch up because his body was too focused on not falling down. His feet were trying to keep up with the pace he was being forced into—with room door after room door (222…221…220…) whizzing past him—and he was trying to keep his balance without dropping the items still held in his hands.

“Shut up,” the voice commanded flatly. The voice didn’t sound like it could be reasoned with. And the voice didn’t sound happy. A small part of his mind wondered if this was Kim, having come to the office in her anger, found him driving away, followed him here and caught him. It was not Kim’s voice, nor was the voice at Kim’s height, and Kim was certainly not this strong, but maybe this is what happened to scorned women when they’d really been wronged. Maybe they transformed like the Hulk.

As his confusion started blossoming into fear, the hands yanked him to a stop in front the motel’s small laundry room. It was empty.

“Get in,” she said, and pushed him through the glass door. As he passed through, she finally let go of him, and he took several more quick steps toward a dryer to put some distance between them before whirling around to find out who the hell this was and what was going on.

It certainly was NOT Kim. Most obviously because this woman was black. He didn’t recognize her at all. She was tall with a striking (and clearly angry) face. Her hair was done up in long braids that cascaded down past her shoulder, shoulders that were covered in a trench coat of black leather. She wore jeans, a red sweater, and some kind of combat boots. He saw most of these details reflected in the glass door of the laundry room, as her back was to him. She was pulling the door shut behind them.

When she turned around to face him, though, he noticed one other detail. Her coat shifted slightly, and he saw something beneath it.

A gun. A shoulder-holstered gun.

His throat tightened to about the size of a straw in one of the juice boxes he used to buy for his daughter when she was really little. Oh, God—was he being robbed? To go with the terrifying thought, a tiny, detached voice in his head wondered if asking that made him a racist.

She put her hands on her hips and looked down at the tiled floor, taking a few breaths. With her head still down, she raised her eyes up to lock with his. The look she gave him reminded him, strangely, of one of his mother’s. If his mother had been a black woman in combat boots with a gun, of course.

“What is this?” he managed to ask, not sure whether or not to drop the wine and roses…or maybe throw them at her and try to make a break for it.

She licked her lips and then twisted them in a way that (again like his mother) said that she had a whole lot to say, but was exercising self-control and thinking her words through first.

“You need to go home, Mr. Dulli.”

He swallowed. He wasn’t being robbed. This was worse. Worse because she knew his name, worse because she seemed to know exactly why he was here. But why the gun? Was she a cop? A serious shock of panic jolted him at that thought—cheating on your wife wasn’t illegal, was it? Could you be arrested for it? Of course it was a ridiculous question, but right at that moment, it seemed as possible anything that had happened on this increasingly surreal day.

“How do you know my name?” he asked. If he’d meant the question to be a demand, then it came out all wrong. It came out scared.

She sighed heavily, looking down again and shaking her head. It struck him that she didn’t just seem angry at him; she seemed to be angry at something else, too…maybe at herself. She took two steps toward him as she reached into her coat. He took an involuntary step back, suddenly sure he was about to get shot and left for dead in front of a detergent vending machine.

If she saw his fear, she didn’t seem to feel guilty about causing it. She pulled out a card with two of her fingers and thrust it at him. He finally had to make some decision about his hands, and he awkwardly—and yes, shamefully—put the bottle and the flowers on top of a white, dented washing machine. Her hand remained where it was, holding the card. Nervously, he took it from her and turned it up to his face. It was a business card.

THE MISERY LOVE COMPANY
a private investigation firm

And the name on the card, above the office and cell numbers and the email address, was listed as:

Misery Love
President/Investigator

“I don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head, but his trembling voice suggested that he understood all too well.

He heard her reach into her coat again, and she began fiddling with something in her hand. When he could finally take his eyes off the card, he looked up, and saw that what she was holding was a Questpad. She was tapping the screen, seeming to be bringing something up on it. Before he had time to figure it out on his own, she held the screen up to his face and showed him.

On it was a photo of him. And Rebecca. Together, at lunch. At Dulces Latin Bistro. He remembered the day. It was a close-up photo, but clearly taken from far away and shot through the restaurant’s front window. Rebecca was laughing, and so was he. And her hand was on his arm.

Before he could say a word or even process this, the woman—this “Misery Love”?—reached her finger around and tapped the screen. The picture was replaced by another one. In this one they were sitting on a bench together, back when the weather was better, and her head was on his shoulder as they watched—the photo did not show it but he clearly remembered it to be— gulls flying around above the pier they were near. She tapped the screen again—never taking her eyes off his face—and a new photo of him and Rebecca leaning on the trunk of his car together came up. She tapped several times more, quickly, and that photo turned into a series from that same scene—them there by the car, close together, holding hands, and finally hugging. The fact that there were several shots of the hug spoke to how long it had gone on.

He felt like he was either going to throw up or cry. Any arguments he might have conjured up with a “just friends” indignation behind it were lost in a crippling wave of shame.

“My wife hired you?” he asked, his voice cracking.

“No,” she said, taking her Q-Pad back and pocketing it. “Your mother-in-law did.”

His eyes widened in disbelief. “What?”

“Your wife talks to her mother. She tells her about how you’re distant, about all your late hours. So her mother got it in her head that you’re having an affair, and she went behind your wife’s back and hired me to find out.”

He actually almost asked aloud how Audrey could possibly think that of him. In his mind, he was still the good guy, wasn’t he? The realization of his hypocrisy disgusted him.

Then a thought hit him, and even with all the other terrible things happening in the past couple of minutes, this thought was the most painful, and the one that, he was sure, was absolutely going to shatter him to pieces.

“It’s all been a set-up,” he said, numbly. “The whole thing with Rebecca.” By set-up, of course, he meant ‘a lie’. Of course she couldn’t have really been interested in someone like him. How could he have been such a pathetic, gullible fool?

“Yeah,” ‘Misery’ said, but the deep, rich layer of sarcasm poured over her words drained any actual affirmation from them. “Your mother-in-law and I cooked up this complex, long-term sting operation, got a high-priced hooker to infiltrate your company, and had her spend months seducing you. You know, ‘cause you’re such a tycoon and all with your fifty-six thousand a year before taxes, you’re worth that investment of time and money. Please. Get the fuck over yourself.”

He supposed knowing he hadn’t been tricked by the woman waiting for him several doors down the hall should have made him feel better, but it didn’t. He suddenly felt far too heavy. He leaned over and put one of his hands on top the washing machine. The other he put over his face. And this time he did start to cry.

He heard the woman sigh again, heard her take a few slow steps away from him. She wasn’t leaving, but maybe just giving him some space. Maybe just pacing.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said through a sob.

“I do,” she said back. “You’re getting your ass in that LeBaron and going home. Right now.”

“How can I?”

“It’s easy. First, the key goes into the little slot on the steering column…”

“That’s not what I mean—” he said, emotionally, dropping his hand and sniffling.

“I KNOW what you mean, Mr. Dulli,” she said, that maternal sharpness back in her voice. She stepped back toward him. “And I’m telling you it’s just…that…easy. You decide, right now, that this mistake you almost made, all this…this…”

She reached her left hand past him, grabbed the bottle of wine, threw it in the trash can behind them (where it somehow didn’t break, even though it landed quite loudly), and did the same with the roses. He could have taken the move as threatening, and she did seem about ready to throw him right in the trash after them, but he didn’t flinch or move. Because he knew he deserved it if she did.

“…This BULLshit…is a lesson learned and you put it right behind you. You appreciate how close you came to fucking up your life forever, you thank Jesus for showing you the error of your ways, and you drive motherfucking home.”

“It’s not that simple,” he said, tiredly. She seemed to know everything about him, so shouldn’t she also know his marriage was already coming apart, and had been for a long time?

“Marriage is NEVER simple,” she retorted sharply. “Yeah, it takes work. It gets bad? That means you have work a little harder. You don’t bail out and throw it away the first time some ring-chaser in a skirt looks your way. You man up and fight for your family.”

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, sounding exhausted to his own ears. “I mean, why are you telling me all this instead of just doing your job? Why do you care?”

“Because it’s Christmas Eve, you sorry son of a bitch,” she said, almost snarling the words at him (he didn’t think he’d ever heard anyone snarl the word ‘Christmas’ before). “And you’ve got a little girl at home waiting for her daddy to show up to tuck her in before Santa shows up. Meanwhile Daddy’s at a cheap motel trying to slide down some other kind of chimney.”

He couldn’t help himself; he hitched a sob and started crying again.

To her credit, he supposed, she softened her tone when she spoke again.

“Don’t kid yourself into thinking I’m doing this for you. And what I’m doing, by the way, is breaking client confidentiality, something I have never, EVER done in my career. And I’m throwing my honest wage away. But I will be godDAMNED if I was going to spend my Christmas Eve freezing my ass off in a parking lot of a Travelodge knowing my pictures were what took your little girl’s family away. The other three-hundred-sixty-four days? I’d do my job and put that shit on you where it belongs. Tonight? I’m not doing it to that kid. That’s why. And that’s why you’re going home.”

He tried to compose himself, wiping his eyes and nose with the back of his hand. “What about Audrey? Doesn’t she—?”

“She doesn’t know shit yet. I don’t tease clients with maybes until I have the real facts. Far as she’ll know, nothing got found. I’ll find some reason to refund her. Money-back guarantee or some bullshit. She damn well better not spread that around.”

He was guilty. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t slept with Rebecca. In all the other ways that mattered, he had been unfaithful. And he was caught. He deserved whatever punishment was due for what he’d done. So why was he getting a second chance? This made him more ashamed than any of it. So much so that the gratitude he felt made him feel dirty.

“I don’t know what—I’m sorry—”

“Uhn-uh,” she said, holding up and cutting him off with an authoritative finger. “You do not ‘sorry’ me. Go drive your ‘sorry’ to where it belongs. You don’t stop at Miss Rebecca’s room to explain yourself, either. Down the stairs, to the car, drive home. And go right now before I change my mind.”

She took a step to the side and leaned back on a counter, crossing her arms over her coat, clearing the path for his departure.

Carl swallowed, took a breath, hung his head, and walked slowly across the small, warm room to the door. She kept her eyes on him the whole way—he didn’t have to see this, he could feel her glare. He opened the door, and the cold—and a few snowflakes—hit him as he took one step out. Not able to help himself, he turned back around to look at the woman who had just granted him such completely undeserved mercy.

“I—” he started to say.

“If the words coming are ‘thank you’ or ‘Merry Christmas’,” she said, cutting him off, “I swear I will beat the shit out of you. Go.”

Carl nodded, realizing he had no idea what words to use anyway. He started to turn left, then realized that path would take him past the door where Rebecca waited. He stepped out, let the door close, and turned right instead, heading for the opposite stairs.

He thought of his little Amy, and all the gifts Kim had been buying and wrapping and hiding for her, and what her face would look like in the morning when she opened them. He thought about what Kim’s face looked like when she’d opened the first Christmas present he’d ever given her, while they were still dating—a necklace he’d agonized over the selection of, so faithless in his ability to choose something she’d like. She hadn’t just liked it. She’d loved it. She’d loved him.

Maybe she could again. If he showed her he was worthy of it. That love had been the greatest gift he’d ever gotten. Maybe it wasn’t too late. He’d come to believe tonight, after all, that there were such things as second chances, earned or not.

Carl pulled from the parking lot, drove into the dark, snowy night, and didn’t look back.

---

Misery slammed the door of her vintage ’68 midnight blue Mustang Fastback and stared out through the snow-speckled windshield, looking up at the window next to room 223 on the second floor. Subject #2 (as Misery had designated her in her notes) was in for a long night. And that, at least, made Misery feel better.

Not by much.

She shook her head at herself testily as she pulled her pack of Newports and her old Army Zippo, and cracked her window just slightly as she lit a cigarette. She wasn’t ready to drive just yet. You weren’t supposed to drive angry. And she was. At herself.

What the hell was wrong with her?

She had just broken so many P.I. rules—and her own personal rules—that it boggled her mind. She was going to lie to a client. The only thing that was going to make her feel even slightly better about that was that she wasn’t going to charge the client, but then the idea of not charging a client she’d logged so many hours for already REALLY pissed her off. She didn’t run a charity, she ran a business. Businesspeople got paid for their time.

Not a charity. Right. What the hell would you call what she just did, then?

She punched her steering wheel, but not hard—her mood wasn’t going to improve if she found herself having to track down a replacement for it. All that work—she’d been right there at the finish line, sitting right where she was now, camera at the ready, getting the money shot of Subject #1 WITH WINE AND ROSES at the door to the ain’t-our-honeymoon suite. If he’d just knocked and walked right in, all would have been gold. But no. He had to stand there. He had to stand there doubting and looking miserable and like he might just walk away and do the right thing.

The son of a bitch had done it just long enough to become a person to her. And it had to be on Christmas Eve, of course. He did it just long enough for her to snap and climb up the stairs and save the dumbass from himself. What had she been thinking?

She scoffed a laugh, blowing smoke out with it.

You know exactly what you were thinking, girl. Give me break.

She was thinking about a little girl, all right, but it wasn’t about his. Well, yeah, it was, but not completely. Another little girl was what made her drop her camera and climb out of that warm car and throw good money away. Another little girl whose daddy fell out of love and walked away from his family. Whose momma never got over it and stayed alone and miserable to this very day. A girl who let her daddy issues screw up every relationship she ever had and even drive her into the Army to follow in the bastard’s footsteps.

A girl who should, by all rights, hate Mustangs.

She tossed her cigarette butt and rolled the window back up. There was no point in hanging around. Subject #1 was not coming back. Though it would be satisfying to see Subject #2 peek out the window and look around the parking lot and wonder how Subject #1 could have resisted her home-wrecking wiles, Misery could think of better things to do on Christmas Eve. And thing #1 was getting a drink.

She started the Mustang, thinking that Jared would have been a good drinking buddy tonight, if he wasn’t off singing carols with his Forte buddies. No other folks came to mind who wouldn’t already have plans tonight, and the thought of sitting in a bar with other people with nowhere to go on Christmas Eve was too depressing to think about, so she decided heading home and toasting solo was the ticket. She realized she probably should have swiped Subject #1’s bottle of wine, which would have given her at least SOME kind of payment for her services. But she craved neither the taste of red wine nor irony right now. Something in a Hot Toddy would do just fine on a snowy yuletide night. She might even whip it up southern style if she had any lemons left in the fridge.

And if it wasn’t too late once that was all mixed up and she’d gotten herself changed into something warm and comfortable, she might even give Mom a call. Chances were good Reginald Love was on both their minds, and ruining yet another Christmas for the ladies he left behind.

She turned right onto International, burning some rubber as she did (not like she had to be stealthy anymore), and turned on the radio. And of course, it was Nat King Cole singing at her. She’d have probably found the same on any other station she turned to tonight.

“Yeah, yeah,” she sighed, hitting her blinker for another right, this one onto Southcenter Boulevard and a hopefully short ride home. “Merry Christmas to you, too, you old smoothie.”

Misery faded into the falling snow on a long Seattle winter’s night.

 

END.

 

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