Melia-Irrevocable Journey (Sequel to Irrevocable Quest)

029:

029:

Her arm ached from holding Hannah in the car seat carrier all the way from the studio across the street to her condo. This little studio had been put in as an escape for her mom during her grief period by her manager, Michael Adam Gage. She had lived here as a child with her mother, after her biological father's death.

She thought about Raine Maverick.

She had pictures of him, of course, her mom was a picture freak, and usually kept quite a few framed and pinned to walls in every room in every house, and in every way imaginable. In this house, for instance, even though her mother had quite clearly mentioned that she could redo it to her own liking, she had kept it almost exactly the same as it had been. The walls were pale yellow, and cream, very light and airy, the carpets over the hardwood floors, were also cream, with light pastel designs. Above the big screen TV a small mantel had been installed with relics from their stay on an island in the pacific. 

A picture had been taken, presumably the day after the plane crash, of all of them; her mother and dad, Danny, standing off to one side, cut off jeans, no shoes, longish red hair, blowing across his face, huge scratches across that face, both hands occupied with sticks and shells, his t-shirt in tatters across his little boy shoulders. Her mother held Maille, whose name had been tentatively Kylee at the time, in honor of her birth mother, Kylee. But they'd changed her name to Maille (pronounced Miley) to honor the young woman who had found them on that deserted island and rescued them from peril. 

She and Megan... toddlers, about two, long red hair also blowing, one in sweats and one in a dress. She would be the one in a dress. Megan the tomboy, even at that age. They both held leaves and rocks they'd found, they both had scraped knees showing and bruises on that perfect white skin. They all looked the worse for wear. Her dad, Richard, the only dad she had ever known looked grim and determined to save his brand new little family. It had to have been a very scary time in their lives. 

Her mother had told her once that that picture had been taken right after they realized that a tsunami had been triggered and the water around the island was receding, only to be swept back up and over the little piece of dry land the very next day. The fact that the camera had survived gave Tracy license to frame this picture in a huge oil based wall portrait. It reminded her of how fragile life really was, and to live each day as if it is your last.

Well, I've certainly learned that, haven't I? Melia thought in reconciliation. She closed the door behind her, glanced up at the picture she'd just been contemplating and set Hannah's sleeping form on the small wood and glass coffee table. Nothing in the condo was expensive, and none of the furniture was antique, or special, or unique. All of it, unlike its counterparts in Alaska, and Montana, was simple, and practical. 

And Melia chose not to change that. It wasn't from lack of interest, it just wasn't worth changing. She liked it this way. In its own way, by leaving it the way it was, she gave tribute to the time when her mother had lived here by herself after Raine's death.

Melia glanced once again at Hannah and then up at the picture on the wall above the little mantel. This place was a haven for women who had lost husbands.

Suddenly she knew what she wanted to do. She went to the kitchen table where she'd left a stack of prints, and also her laptop and opened it, sitting down, kicking off shoes and pulling off her tight skirt. She scrolled through pictures she'd taken over the last year. She got this from her mom, they all did. All the women in the family had camera's and used them prolifically. She scrolled into a folder that she hadn't been able to look at since Jared's death. Now suddenly she wanted to see that picture. One her mom had taken. There it was.... 

For a brief moment, her eyes clouded over in memory and she could hear the wind rustling the foliage around her, see the bright sun-dappled splotches on the redwood deck. She could feel Jared's arms around her from behind, as he encompassed her and Hannah in enveloping love. He wasn't looking at the camera in this picture, his eyes were focused on Hannah's face, his lips buried in her own hair, and Hannah was actually looking at him. And she, Melia was looking straight at her mother with the camera. Her own eyes had a queer expression, a kind of windblown knowing and painful look. Had she known? It wasn't an hour until the final....

She clicked on the picture, staring. It was a family picture. An hour later the baby would be conceived. Her mother had come down to see how they were doing, on the deck, nursing the baby, getting some sun. Jared had begged her to go running with him. Had he known? Had he sensed it would be his last time? She thought not. She certainly didn't think anything of the kind. In her distracted mind, even that moment, especially that moment, Jared couldn't die, nothing could change.

Her mother had clicked several pictures right then. But this one spoke to her. His focus on them... the two of them, the center of his life, his universe. Her own eyes projecting outward, reaching out to her mother, as if leaving part of herself in the picture, and part of herself outside of it. Was that weird? She thought so, maybe, but also, it was true. She sent it to her mother's photo studio and requested an oil done of it, to match the one above the mantel. She'd have to move the other one over... but this one belonged there too.

She clicked off and checked Hannah. Still asleep. She had time for a shower. She started up the stairs when her cell phone buzzed, and she hurried back to get it so it wouldn't wake the baby in the stillness.

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