Just then a messenger arrived. “Mr. Anderson, your party has arrived, your meeting is in the Green Suite, please follow the signs to your left.”
“Anderson?” whispered Casey.
“Of course I changed my name, Casey; did you really think I could stand to spend the rest of my life being one of you?” he murmured, furious at Casey for disturbing him so, for stirring up the old resentments, for being here when his life worked so well without her or any of the others.
The encounter had unsettled him, bringing all the old hurt and angers back to the surface, colouring his interaction with the distributors, paradoxically making them more eager than ever to invest in new product. Robbie was normally mild, compliant, amiable at these meetings, virtually rubber-stamping the distributors’ requirements, letting them make suggestions and demands, confident he and the other programmers could come up with the right solution or work-around; it was what kept him on his game, constantly innovating to stay ahead of the pack.
Now he drove them, brow-beating them into accepting his terms, refusing to compromise, bending them to his requirements, telling them what they’d get, not what they wanted to hear, and what it would now cost to get exactly what they wanted, promising them increased playability, more and faster levels of game-play, enhanced engines and adaptability, and future-generation capabilities and options in return.
The meeting broke up with happy faces all round, and as they filed out of the conference suite, there was Casey, waiting for him again, tears glimmering in her eyes. He sighed; much as he wanted to tell her to fuck off, forever, her persistence had also gotten to him, so he walked over to her.
“OK, you got me, so talk,” he said. “Not here, Robbie, somewhere private, please!” she begged, so he acquiesced, taking her to his room.
Once inside, he got two sodas from the mini-bar, handed her one and sat down on the couch opposite her. “Talk, Casey, you wanted to talk, say your piece and leave!”
She sat with her hands in her lap, nervously twisting her fingers together, looking down, before beginning to speak, her voice hushed, and tears not far away.
“Robbie, what we did was unforgivable, and I can’t ask you for forgiveness, I have no right, not after the way I treated you. Mom and Dad taught me to look down on you instead of looking up to you, and I was too young to understand how I was hurting you, even as I watched myself doing it; it was just easier to do it, watch Mom and Dad do nothing about it, do it again, because I could. I learned to forget I had a big brother, and I ignored the fact that he needed me. You were our punching bag, and all we ever did was dump on you.”
“I can never forgive myself for not being there for you. I’m sorry, truly sorry. I would give my right arm for the chance to turn back the clock, do it over again, but do it right. That’s not possible, but I wanted you to know that’s how I felt and how I feel now. I should have allowed myself to love my big brother, and I’m sorry, truly.”
Robbie was mildly impressed; apparently she’d grown up a little, no longer the little airhead she was when he’d left.
“So, when did this realisation suddenly come on you?” he asked, unable to keep the twist of bitterness out of his voice, her head snapping up, eyes wide open as the question cracked out at her, eyes dropping once more, to answer him.
“Mrs Anderson told me what Mom and Dad had done to you. And it made me think of all the times where you weren’t included or hadn’t been allowed-in, all the things we did without you, the places we went and the vacations we had, all of them with a blank space where you should have been, and I realised I couldn’t remember a single time I’d ever seen you happy, or smile, or be hugged, or….” Casey dissolved into tears, guilt and sorrow finally catching her again.
Robbie handed her another handkerchief, and waited for her to compose herself. When she’d dried off a little, she continued. “I tried to find you, I really did. I asked everyone who knew you, put ads in local and national newspapers, searched the internet, nothing. I even risked asking Joey. The first time, he told me to fuck off, just like you did, and I deserved it. Eventually I got up the nerve to ask him again and he told me he hadn’t seen or heard from you since you took off, asked me if I was proud of what I’d done, what we’d all done.”
Robby smiled thinly. “Good old Joey, he always knew how to keep his mouth shut!”
Casey looked puzzled, and then understanding dawned. “Joey’s always known where you were, hasn’t he?” she asked wonderingly, and Robbie nodded.
“Of course. He did for me what family does; he had my back. He was always there when I needed him. He comes see me every so often, spends a week or so, and Sarah too. They’re my family, they always were; they kept me from going insane around you and your people. Sarah’s the only mother I ever had, not your mother, not Angie.”
Casey’s lip trembled as she realised just how deep was the cut he’d made to sever his link with her. “Poor, abandoned Robbie, they gave you what we should have, they kept you safe when we failed so miserably. I hope God will forgive me, I have no right to ask you to, but I just wanted you to know, I tried for so long to find you, just so I could tell you this. I’ll go now; your secret’s safe with me; Mom will never know where you are, she doesn’t deserve to.” She looked at him, tears still glimmering in her eyes. “We took everything away from you, and gave you nothing in return; I’m so sorry.”
Robbie had had enough of punishing her; she was obviously in distress, she seemed genuinely remorseful over what had gone before, and he was feeling sorry for her now, for her grief and sorrow, and to be completely honest, ashamed of himself for being so hostile in the face of her obvious pain. He stood up, and took her hand, gently urging to stand so he could help her dry her eyes, his compassionate nature reasserting itself as he guided her to the sofa. Sitting her down next to him, Casey buried her head in his shoulder as she sobbed, her arm around him, crying her guilt, and loss, and shame.
Eventually her sobs died away, Robbie patting her back as though she were three years old, hiccups giving way to murmuring as her grief played itself out, to look up at him.”I’m sorry, I got your jacket all wet” she smiled, tremulously, Robbie just smiled back, the first real smile she’d ever seen on him, she realised with a shock, tears starting in her eyes again.
Robbie looked at her quizzically, and she smiled tremulously. “I’ve never seen you smile before, it’s lovely, you have such a sweet smile.” Her face clouded up. “That’s something else we have to pay for; we stole your smile. Oh Robbie, you poor boy! How you must have hurt!” Casey hugged him tight, pulling herself against him.
Robbie held her helplessly as she dry sobbed, the years of guilt flaring up again. He was nonplussed. He’d not dealt with a situation like this before, so he resorted to once again patting her back, varying it with smoothing her hair and making soothing noises as she burrowed against him, hands clutching at him as she shook and sobbed. Finally, in desperation, he put both his arms around her and hugged her close, reflecting that this seemed to be a day for firsts; hugging his sister was a first for him, as was she hugging him, talking to him, and smiling at him.
Eventually she let go of him, wiping her eyes, as she straightened herself up, smiling shyly at him and getting a shy smile in return, then pulling herself closer to him, leaning on him as she collected her thoughts.
“Robbie, Mom won’t hear from me where you are, or who you are now. How you want to deal with the parents is up to you, not a word from me, I promise. I looked back though the family photo albums, looking for a picture of you; but they all start with me. You never got to have a yearbook picture taken, so we don’t even have that to remind us of what you look like; not that I ever needed it, but to see nothing in our family record only made it worse; we never included you at all, in anything. I couldn’t believe we have almost no record of you at all, virtually no sign you’d ever been part of the family, just one anonymous baby picture, without even Mom and Dad holding you; it could be a picture of anyone, not even a member of the family…”
Robbie looked sideways at her. “Because I wasn’t, don’t you know that yet?” immediately regretting the tone and comment as she flinched.
She continued nervously. “The word got out about… you know, us, and Dad’s business suffered, some graffiti around town, smashed windows, some contracts cancelled, so he paid, but only in a very small way. You remember Karen, Joey’s girlfriend? She was on the squad with me, and, I guess Joey told her what had happened; she cornered me in the locker room and slapped me around; she was really furious. She passed the word around, and then the whole school was mad at me, even the other girls in the squad; if I’d ever looked, I’d have realised just how many people liked you, looked up to you even. The whole school knew about the scholarship, the principal had already made a plaque for you, the first Berkeley Computer Science scholarship ever awarded to one of his students; he had a ceremony planned for you, everything; he was furious with me, he wanted to suspend me. I was going to leave, change schools, get away somehow, but Mom made me stay, forced me to stay, really, and made me graduate. On Graduation Day, everyone cold-shouldered me, no one clapped, people booed me, and I deserved it. I guess that, more than anything, brought home to me what I’d done, what I allowed to happen.”
Robbie glanced at his wallet on the table, the picture of him with Joey and Karen at their engagement party last year in San Francisco in the inside cover, and returned his gaze to Casey. He thought briefly what she’d said, about Karen; she’d said nothing to him at the party about confronting Casey.