though he was worried he also felt relieved.
“Go, Jonathan,” Jim said. “You’ll be glad you did. Come back here after. Bring Philip with you. We won’t start dinner until you get back.”
“You’re serious,” Jonathan said, staring at him as if he were insane, and then looking around. “You’re all serious?”
Trix tapped his shoulder. Jonathan spun to stare at her. “Dude, seriously,” Trix said, grinning. “Go. You won’t be sorry.”
Jonathan laughed, a smile stealing over his face. Jim could see that he thought they had done something wonderful for him, that they had been in touch with Philip and somehow conspired to arrange a meeting. But that was all right. He would learn soon enough that they had not spoken to Philip at all during the breakup, and then they would have a lot of explaining to do.
“I’ll be back,” Jonathan said, pulling his keys out of his pocket as he pushed open the door. He paused and looked back at Trix. “By the way, I love the hair.”
Trix smiled and thanked him, and then Jonathan was gone.
The four of them stood in the foyer, silently acknowledging the bond that would always exist between them and the secrets that they shared. Jim reached up and touched Trix’s hair. When they had brought Jenny and Holly back to Boston and reality had adjusted to their return, Jim and Trix had both found that the changes they had undergone had been reversed. But Trix had liked her body and her look, and scant weeks after their ordeal she had dyed her hair the same bright pink. She was even thinking of piercings.
“It’s a good look,” Jim told her.
“Come on,” Jenny said, taking Trix’s hand. “If we’re going to be saying good-bye, I’m going to want wine.”
Trix allowed herself to be led toward the kitchen. “It’s not forever, you know. I’ll be back to visit.”
Jenny changed the subject, talking about the people who needed help in the Collided Cities, and she and Trix ventured off on that discussion path as they went down the hall to the kitchen.
Jim looked down to see Holly watching him. “Do you think Auntie Trix will be all right over there?” he asked his daughter. But, really, the question was for the Oracle of Boston. “Do you think she’ll be happy?”
“Silly Daddy,” Holly said, hugging him and staring up into his eyes. “I know all the secrets from the past, and I can tell you what’s going on in the city right now. But I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. Nobody does.”
That aged wisdom flickered in her eyes.
“That part,” Holly said, “is up to us.”
