Kate frowned, thinking. “Mark’s friend? One of the ones you said you came with?”
“What I said was I cameforthem.”
Then it hit her, and her heart kicked like a rabbit in her chest. “You look like him.” Medium height, medium build, same grey eyes.
“There’s a reason for that,” Patrick said softly. “And what I said was a lie. I came for you.” The keys stopped moving, and he gazed at the place her thumb met his palm.
“What’s your name? Your whole name?”
“Patrick McCann. Patrick John McCann.”
P.J.!He had to be P.J.’s father. There couldn’t be any other explanation, or rather, there could be, but her mind simply wouldn’t process it.
“I don’t have kids,” he said, answering the look in her eye. “I also don’t have brothers or a nephew – well, except one, but he’s half Filipino and lives in Singapore. I come from the future, our future, where I’m the best friend of your husband.”
Kate’s eyes bulged. “I marryMark?!”
The key ring began to rattle. “Yes.”
She sat up to put her hand on his arm, and he caught it. “You can’t let go, Kate. The things I can tell you, I can only tell you with your hand in mine.”
“Why?” Her head was reeling from what he’d already told her.
“Because,” he said carefully, “telling you about the future is very dangerous, or so I’ve been told. I can tell you what I tell you for one simple reason: so long as our hands are clasped, you’ll remember what I’m saying, but as soon as you let go, it will all be gone.”
“Gone?” She thought of her mother.
“Gone.”
She was dizzy with questions, though the sceptic in her, whose voice was fading fast, kept a low “uh uh,” rumbling in her ear.
“Mark, then? Where do we live? Is he a politician? Am I a strategist? Am I successful? Are we happy?”
He gave her a weak smile. “That’s a lot of questions. Let’s see …” He lowered his gaze to her hand, as if reading her fortune in the topography of knuckles and minute lines. “You live here, in Pittsburgh, in an immense condo overlooking the river, where you host a lot of parties. Mark is a partner at a law firm, though he’s a power broker in politics here and in the state.”
Kate frowned. A power broker was hardly the idealist she’d visualized in that flash of imagining. Nonetheless, they were still in the thick of it. “And me?”
“You run a not-for-profit – disadvantaged kids, that sort of thing. You’ve made a huge impact in the city,” he said with an obvious pride, “and it keeps you very busy.”
This was like going to your high-school guidance counsellor to find out what job the vocation test says you’re suited for and discovering it’s some vaguely improbable position at the top of a corporate food chain. Admirable, maybe, but for someone else.
“Really?”
“You do a great job, Kate.”
“But why not politics?”
The odd distracted reflection washed over him again. “I could speculate, but … but I think I should stick to what I know.”
“You’re supposedly one of my closest friends.” The voice in her head was growing louder. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“What you told me was that politics was a place for the coldblooded.”
“Isaid that?” She’d never been a cynic. Not about politics.
“Yes. And I can see you’re disappointed,” he added quickly, “but I can tell you, you never look back. Your work brings you immense joy. Immense.”
“It sounds like you’re trying to convince me.”
