The Red Strokes - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 from my latest release, 'The Red Strokes', available on Amazon.

CHAPTER TWO

 

 

Mia pulls the door to Rowan’s room shut and then looks in on Stevie. Their last day of the semester. The beginning of summer break. Filled with energy and squirt gun battles on the bus ride home, arguably every young boy’s favorite day of the school year. She should be looking forward to hearing their splashes in the pool and talk of fishing and camping with their friends. Instead, they will wake under a cloud of mourning. Their first experience with death.

When they awaken, she’ll tell them together. On a generic day, she tends to fuss over Rowan a bit more because of his special needs, but today is different. Although they will each take their grandfather’s death hard, her deeper concerns are with her youngest son. Stevie had always emulated his grandfather. Like him, Stevie can lose himself in a dictionary and winning spelling bees and word challenges are the only victories that mean anything to him. Just as she had some thirty years earlier, Stevie would rather spend his time in his grandfather’s nest, surrounded by books and notes that would one day become books, than join the other kids at the park or the movies.

The nest. That’s what she began calling their carriage house when her father moved in almost eight years ago. He never threw away a scrap of paper once there was ink on it claiming that each was a novel in the making. His living room slash office looks like end-of-day Wall Street and it drives her crazy. When she’d ask him how he could possibly find anything, he’d say that he had a system and knew exactly where everything was. She never believed that.

Stevie is drawn to the paper chaos just as she had been as a child. Even once her father became ill; between hospital stays he would spend the majority of his time behind his desk while Stevie spent all of his free time in the same plaid chair next to the desk that she had spent countless hours in all those years ago. The smell of slightly musty and well-read books, the paper clutter, the clackety-clack of the typewriter strokes; these were the core of her childhood. Of her son’s childhood. And now, they’re gone.

She pulls the door to Stevie’s room shut and braces against the wall.

“Still sleeping?”

She turns toward her husband and nods. There is an innocence about him in his rumpled pajamas and messy hair that causes her to smile through her many concerns.

“You okay, darling?” he asks.

She nods again and then shakes her head. “How am I going to tell them? I’m upset, but I’m an adult. Things like this are easier for adults, right? Besides, I’m not the uncontrollable tear type, you know that. I’ve had plenty of time to prepare for this day.” She swallows hard. “But, the boys…”

Her words catch in her throat and she leans into him. He wraps his arms around her, cradling the back of her head in one, large palm.

“It’s just a part of life we all have to face at some point. We’ll be here for them. They’ll be fine.” Roger assures her in his Texas drawl. He turns her around and leads her down the stairs.

“It’s just not fair. I mean life. At this age, they shouldn’t have a care in the world. They should be enjoying their summer break.” She looks up at him. “And my tour starts next week. I don’t know what to do about that. I mean, Julie went through so much trouble putting it together, but now I feel as though I shouldn’t go.”

Roger flips the light switch on and removes a cereal box from the lazy Susan while Mia spoons grounds into the coffeemaker. “I’ll be here in the evenings and my sister said she’d sit with them during the day. You need to go on your tour. Darling, I thought the world of your father, you know I did, but at the risk of sounding insensitive�"life goes on.”

His words sting, but she knows he’s right. Her father wouldn’t have wanted them to halt their lives for the purpose of mourning. In situations like this, he would have recited the quote he was so fond of about accepting what couldn’t be changed and changing what could.

“It does, doesn’t it?”

* * *

After telling the boys of their grandfather’s passing, she allowed them to decide whether they wanted to go to school. She was certain they would prefer to skip their last day in order to deal with their grief in their own way and in private. To her surprise, both boys opted to go. As soon as the decision was made, she began to regret giving them an option. Were they covering their feelings? Were they struggling with them? Or worse, were they ignoring them? And how could she help them if they didn’t tell her they needed her help? With so many questions she isn’t able to answer she makes the 45-minute drive to Lilah’s house tormented by her thoughts.

She inches her car over the red ash that serves as Lilah’s driveway. Still sick over the chip in her car’s paint from a piece that kicked up the last time she visited, she’s not about to have that happen again. She would have preferred her sisters come to Lancaster since her home is much roomier, but her Lilah insisted they meet at her house-in-the-boondocks. She had said it was more convenient, but Mia isn’t fooled. Lilah has always catered to their prodigal sister and as pathetic as she finds her patronizing ways, today in particular she is in no mood to join in or fight about it so she agreed to trek to Bum-Fuct-Nowhere without argument. In the end, the decision may prove to be to her advantage. Should Val start slinging her sarcastic barbs while at Lilah’s house, she could politely excuse herself claiming emotional exhaustion without offending anyone. But if they were to meet in Lancaster, her only escape would be to ask Val to leave and that wouldn’t sit well with Lilah on any day, but especially not on this one.

Not seeing Val’s car, Mia breathes a sigh of relief. She steps out of her Jaguar followed closely by Lacy, her two-year-old Chihuahua. Tossing her Ray-Bans onto the front seat, she removes a paisley print scarf from her head. She began wearing it while driving a Mustang convertible Roger had bought her several years ago for her birthday. A habit that outlived the car, she now wears it because she thinks it makes her look like the women in the old, black and white movies, refined and maybe just a little mysterious although she would never tell anyone that.

She’d always heard that Realtors make a decent living and knows that Lilah is no fool with money so why her sister chooses to live in the middle of nowhere is beyond her. It is quiet. Eerily quiet. And that god-awful smell. Only now does she wish she had insisted on meeting at her house.

Mia lifts the brass doorknocker and lets if fall against the plate. Without waiting for an answer, she gives the knob a turn and peeks her head inside while Lacy races between her legs. “Hello, hello. We’re here.”