The Ace of Spades

Chapter 25

Mea almost wishes she could pause life in this moment. Sunset, soft rock music, and the people she loves most by her side - or in Toto's case, on her lap. It's such a warm feeling, a feeling of contentment. Mea wonders if this is just the calm before the storm. Is the buffet table at a family wedding before anyone arrives; the home cleaned for the afternoon before the children come home from school; the glass-like surface of the water as the dark grey clouds take over the blue skies?

At this point, Mea nearly feels resolved. She knows there is something going on with Mimi and Viv, she knows where Doug Sullivan is - six feet under, to be exact - and she knows despite everything, she will always have her brother and sister.

What's not resolved is the story behind Mimi and Viv, and deeper, though Mea will not admit this, what is happening with her and Victor.

While Mea is on route to wine country, hours and hours south, to confront Mimi and Viv, to finally get answers, Mea shouldn't be thinking of Victor. It's just that her fucking mind wanders like never before. Mea's mind has become a distracted child at a carnival. This, of course, is bad because Mea knows that's how the circus recruits their clowns, but she can't help it. Mea thinks of Victor's playful jabs, his bounty of knowledge and love of talking. She thinks of the way his hair falls and the essence of forgiveness in his brown eyes.

Surely, Mea has to be even a little special to him. He changed her life so significantly, opened her eyes to doors and windows and the spaces beyond those doors and windows. Mea's not sure quite how she'd handle the painful rejection if she discovered that, to Victor, she was just another face, smiling up at him in admiration.

Mea feels unsettled and even more restless less thinking of how that would feel, that kind of cold-hearted rejection, so, resolutely, Mea discontinues thinking of it.

She wills her mind into blankness, perhaps some quiet will settle her, but she has an itching, creeping thought:

Raspberry wine?

***

It's nearly eleven o'clock at night when Jojo, Mea, and Toto approach Viv's beautiful home.

"Mea?" Toto asks, wearing his Thomas the Tank Engine backpack and acting, similarly, as a backpack on Mea's back.

Mea hoists Toto while answering, "Toto?"

"Why are we at Viv's? It's school time."

"I know, buddy. Jojo and I just missed being here," Mea says.

"Didn't you miss it here?" Jojo asks, playing along.

Mimi's car is parked in Viv's driveway.

"Is Mimi here?" Toto asks, distracted.

"I think so," Mea says, her voice a notch quieter.

If the bus ride here was the calm before the storm, these are the last few aching, ticking seconds before the storm strikes. Mea's sure it can't happen anyway but painfully.

Jojo climb the steps to Viv's front door first, bee lining towards the door. Mea takes the stairs a little slower, weighed down slightly by Toto.

Her sister doesn't knock, doesn't ring the doorbell - nothing. She opens the door and steps in as if she owns the place. Mea thinks she would've knocked, or at least tapped on the door a little before opening it, just to warn of their arrival.

Mea hands any and all reigns over to Jojo now.

The next moments feel like slow motion.

Jojo enters the home. Mea and Toto, together as one body, cross the threshold of the doorway. Voices, soft in the night, seep from the living room immediately. Toto yawns in Mea's ear. Jojo, apparently with tunnel vision, head directly towards the living room. Voices are louder but Mea tunes them out.