Wild Cards

by R. C. Stephens

  We both stood up and walked through the house. I tried to regulate my breathing before I hyperventilated. I had too much thrown on me all at once. I put on my black heels that Luc bought me and my heart hurt some more. I grabbed a warm jacket since November in Thunder Bay was cold.

  “I’ll drive,” Joe said, picking up the keys off the side table by the front door. I followed him outside to the old Tracker and we both got in. When we got to the funeral home, my breaths became shallow as we made our way through the front door. A lot of our friends had already arrived. I walked up to the open casket where Papa lay and I held my breath. This whole situation had felt like an out of body experience. Joe kept his hand on my shoulder as he stood behind me, and we took in Papa's pale face. He looked slim, but he also looked at peace. At this point it was all we could ask for.

  I know now how Mama’s and Papa’s choices made Joe question his whole identity. I had faith that my brother would man up and take care of Eva and Nelly. Something about knowing about their existence excited me. I couldn’t wait to meet them, although I never pictured myself as a doting aunt.

  As our friends passed, they kissed our cheeks and told us how sorry they were for our loss. Loss had been all we knew for too long now. As I tried to find a distraction and put a light smile on my face, I thought of the baby growing inside my belly. It had been a product of the love that I thought Luc and I shared. I had an unwavering belief in him. I just wished that he had the same unwavering belief in us. Thinking of the way he pushed me away hurt even more now that I knew I was pregnant. I had to call Nessa, I suddenly remembered. Then I realized I had left all my things in New York. I would have to return at some point. Bryce would expect an explanation from me. After he had been so kind to me, I owed him at least that.

  I wanted so hard to believe that New York was a fresh start for me; all the pieces of my life had begun to fall into place there. Now everything felt like it had been pulled out from under me all over again. There was one thing I knew after talking to Joe this morning, and that was that I couldn’t have an abortion. As scared as Joe seemed over handling his own situation in the wrong way, he also convinced me that he wouldn’t run anymore and I believed him. Back in New York Luc had shown me how the sex parties and screwing around were not who I really was. He was right, but I had lost sight of that through the hurdles that life sent my way. Luc taught me to care for myself and for him. He changed something inside me. He caused a spark of the old Vicky to reignite, and the old Vicky had wanted a husband and family. The old Vicky had been in a monogamous relationship for four years.

  As the people at the wake passed us by, my thoughts consumed me.

  “Vick, you okay, hon?” Marie came over and embraced me in a hug.

  “The best I can be in this situation,” I respond with a sad smile. I hadn’t fallen apart yet, and I assumed that what didn’t kill me would only make me stronger.

  “If you need anything you let me know.” She tilted her head assessing me. Marie had known me since I was a baby. I suddenly felt self-conscious, as if she might know my little secret.

  “I’ll be okay Marie, you don’t need to worry. Joe is home now, and he promised not to take off again, or at least he promised to stay in touch and I believe him.”

  “Okay, hon, but you know I’m here if you need anything at all,” she insisted, making me feel even more self-conscious. Did I look pregnant? I didn’t think so… my stomach was completely flat.

  “Thanks Marie, I really do appreciate all your help with organizing this. I couldn’t have handled it on my own,” I said, giving her a small hug.

  “It’s my pleasure, hon, you know I consider you and Joe like my own,” she said through sad eyes. Marie and her husband Hal never had any children. I didn’t think they were able to. They had been like the aunt and uncle we never had growing up.

  “I know Marie and it means so much.” I squeezed her hand. Suddenly I felt a familiar figure in the shadows. As Jamie made his way toward me, my heart dropped out from under me. My parents both really liked him. They believed we would get married one day. I never told my mother about what happened because she had enough of a burden to carry with her sickness.

  “Hey, Vick,” he said waving his hand down low. He was hesitant and nervous. He was wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt. I guess that was his way of paying respects. “I’m sorry for your loss.” He leaned in and gave me a peck on the cheek. Contact with him still hurt. The wound he inflicted was still deep. He shook Joe’s hand and gave his condolences then he walked toward the casket while Joe eyed me warily.

  Soon after, people started to leave. Marie announced that there would be refreshments at the Molino house right after, and my eyes went wide because I hadn’t prepared anything. I was hoping to go home to a quiet house.

  “No worries, hon, Hal took care of setting everything up over there, we brought food from the diner. All is covered.” She smiled kindly and I huffed out a breath. Phew!

  “Marie, I need to pay you…” I insisted.

  She cut in, “Don’t even go there, little girl.” She pointed her finger in warning, but she had a smile on her face that was light and kind.

  “Thanks so much.” I gave her another hug.

  “You ready to go, Vick?” Joe came around and placed a hand on my back, guiding me outside. We both got into the Tracker and I opened the window needing the fresh air.

  “You want me to stop and get you something to eat?” he asked with a worried tone. It was already late afternoon and I hadn’t eaten. I knew I was losing weight because my skirt was slipping off, and I was skinny as it was.

  “Yeah sure.” I grinned.

  “McDicks?” He smirked devilishly.

  My hand went flying up to my mouth, the thought of the Big Mac made me sick. “No way, maybe wonton soup,” I suggested.

  “Huh?” he looked at me confused.

  “The Chinese takeout place, we can grab some soup,” I reiterated.

  “Ah… yeah sure, it’s on the way, so I guess that works. Besides, Marie said she would open up for the guests.”

  “Yeah, thank goodness for Marie,” I sighed.

  “You said it,” he replied looking out to the road with a far away look in his eyes. I wondered if he was thinking of Eva and Nelly.

  After shoving wonton soup down my throat on the drive back home and enjoying every second of it, I needed some fresh air. I noticed Jamie’s Mustang idling in front of the house. When I got out of the Tracker, he cut his engine and stepped out of the car toward me.

  “Hey, Joe, I will meet you inside soon.” I said, as Jamie made his way over to me with both hands in his front pockets.

  He eyed Jamie in a way that said, ‘don’t mess with my sister,’ and Jamie tilted his chin to Joe and said, “Hey.”

  I didn’t want to get into things with him, especially not today, but I understood that he was here to pay his respects. He had spent a lot of time with my family and both my parents loved him.

  “I’ll see you inside, Vick,” Joe muttered, then made his way into the house. Jamie and I began to stroll down the street I grew up on. So much had changed, but now it seemed like everything had stayed the same, Jamie and I walking along the street, hanging out at the edge of the court with other friends. Walking with him reminded me of a time of innocence and purity; a time when I didn’t understand the cruelty of life. I hadn’t learned those lessons yet. “So how are you holding up?” he asked, tilting his head to look at me. He still kept his hands in his front pockets and his shoulders were slightly hunched. This was Jamie being nervous. The air around us crackled with uneasiness. We hadn’t spoken since the day I caught him cheating.

  “You know, I’m taking it day by day,” I muttered.

  We walked along to the edge of the court where there was a bench situated in the middle. “Do you want to sit for a minute?” he asked with hope in his eyes.

  “Yeah sure,” I replied and took a seat on the bench. Jamie took a seat beside me but ke
pt a comfortable distance from me.

  “I’m sorry for what happened that day, Vick,” he began. I opened my mouth to say something but he lifted his hand to stop me. “Give me a minute, just hear me out.” I nodded in agreement. “You and I we had been so close for so long. I was in love with you, but I always worried that it wasn’t enough. I always worried that I wasn’t enough. You were brilliant. You went to university while I was working on cars. In the back of my head I always figured that the day would come when you would realize what I already knew. When my mother left me, it damaged me. There is no other way to look at. As an adult I understand that she left for her own selfish reasons, but as a kid I always felt like I wasn’t good enough for her. The reality is that, even today when I know better, I still have that insecurity inside me that makes me feel not good enough. Maybe that is the gift she left me with.” He shook his head. I couldn’t believe he was opening up this much. I had to admit that he was getting to me. There was a large part of me that broke because of what he did. “You have to know, Vick, I didn’t love Lily. That day at the shop was the first time I cheated. I know it’s not an excuse. She was easy and I took the opportunity, but I only did it because I was facing the inevitable.” He looked up to me with droopy eyes. I couldn’t say that I didn’t feel for him because I did. I felt sorry that his mother left the way she did. I knew he was living with that burden. I guess it gave me closure understanding that he cheated because he felt his own inadequacies and not from something that he didn’t like about me.

  “I’m sorry you felt that way, Jamie,” I said finally, turning my head and really looking at him. He was very handsome and he was always good to me. Looking into his blue eyes reminded me of the good days. There was something about the first guy you had sex with that tugged at your heart. They may hold a special place, but it didn’t mean that they were your soul mate.

  “Does this mean you will give me another chance?” he asked and extended his hand so it overlapped mine. Suddenly his touch startled me and felt wrong. I pulled my hand away.

  “Jamie, thank you for explaining to me what was going through your mind that day. It makes me feel a little better about things, but you and I have been over for a long time. I think you are a great guy, and you treated me well. I don’t want you to think you weren’t good enough for me, because I think you are kind and loving and have a lot to offer. I just don’t think we are a good match anymore. I’ve been through a lot and I’ve changed.” I didn’t want to give him the 'it’s not you line it’s me,' but I had no choice. “I’m not the same person I was even two years ago. I appreciate your honesty, but I don’t know what I want these days. There may be a good chance I will go back to New York.”

  Jamie’s lips tugged up at the corners but his eyes were sad, “I never pegged you for a small town girl, Vick. You should go and conquer the world.”

  “Thanks, Jamie, I think you also have so much potential. You shouldn’t think less of yourself. I could have never built that roller coaster without you. You have real talent,” I said, reminding him of the hardship we took upon us when we built the roller coaster in my parent’s backyard, our senior year of high school. If it weren’t for Jamie, we would have never got the motor running.

  “Thanks, Vick, I appreciate that,” he said standing up. He bent down and placed a soft kiss on my head. “Do you want to come back to the house?” he asked.

  “Nah, I still think I need some air. I will hang out here a while longer,” I responded with a light smile. It was good to have this closure with him. I didn’t want to tell him that I already met the love of my life, and that I gave him my heart; only he took it and stomped on it, and now I didn’t think the damage was repairable. I watched as Jamie walked down the street toward his car with his head bowed. When he started up the Mustang, I heard its loud growl and then he drove off.

  Memories began to flood my mind, I remembered all the times I rode my bike up and down the street. All the times I had fallen off my bike and scraped up my knees. As a teenager I remembered hanging out in the end of our court with my friends. I had a lot of good childhood memories and that’s when it hit me. I’d come full circle. When Mama died I felt abandoned. I didn’t know how to handle the abandonment, and after she died I went running off like the scared little girl I was. The drinking, the parties, it was me lashing out at the loneliness that gripped my heart. I didn’t only lose hope, I felt completely lost to myself and to the person I had become.

  I stood up and began to walk around the court touching my stomach lightly. A part of me was almost afraid to acknowledge the baby inside me, and a part of me felt overwhelmed with love that I had the baby inside me.

  Of course everything I think came back to my mama. I wondered how she felt coming home and realizing that she was pregnant. She was only eighteen. I was twenty-two, even though I felt like a child. She must have felt just as confused and alone as I did now. Yet she was the best mama ever. A vivid picture of her warm green eyes and dark hair entered my mind and warmed my heart. I felt like she was looking down on me smiling. How proud would she be to know that my baby doesn’t have a father? Of course my thoughts drifted to Papa, as angry as I was at him, I can’t be angry anymore knowing that he was gone. He loved her so much he couldn’t live without her. Who knew that coming home for a funeral would involve so much drama? Joe was a father and I was about to become a mother. The reality seemed fabricated. We were only children ourselves not long ago. We were forced to grow up too quickly. I can’t help but feel that this is what I needed.

  Going to New York and meeting Luc brought me back to life. He made me hope again, and now he blessed me with the life growing inside me. I felt overcome by loss that he wouldn’t share in my joy. No, no, I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t keep the knowledge of this child from him. He would want to know. I needed to tell him. I suddenly wanted to send him a text message and tell him that we needed to talk. Since I had no pockets in my skirt, so I had left my cell phone in the cup holder of the Tracker. As I turned the corner of the court to head back home, a black Mustang came speeding down the road. Of course I knew it was a Mustang because Jamie taught me everything about cars. The engine was loud and I wondered if it could be Jamie coming back, only I knew he wouldn’t be driving down the street like a bat out of hell. The car slowed in front of my house. I watched the two men in the front seat looking at the house without cutting the engine. Then one of the men looked straight ahead. He made eye contact with me and my stomach dropped. The Mustang came full speed ahead, straight for me. I thought they were going to run me over, and I jumped from the pavement onto one of the neighbor's lawns. I picked up speed, needing to get away, while a sinking feeling told me that these men were after me. The Mustang skidded to a stop scraping the side of the curb. I gasped and began to run toward the neighbor’s house, but the two men quickly got out of the car. One man grabbed me from behind, covering my mouth.

  “Don’t fight this. sweetheart, you will only make matters worse,” he snarled. He had the same accent as Luc. He had a French accent. Shit, this is why Luc was drinking. This is why Luc pushed me away. His family must have contacted him. His family knew about me. I was their leverage, or I was going to be used to hurt Luc. As panic surged through my body, I thrashed about needing to flee. One of the men pushed my head down and shoved me in the backseat of the car. I knew these men were too strong for me, so I stopped thrashing while trying to use my head to figure things out, but I was consumed by fear. My heart beat so fast that I could hear each thump in my ears. I didn’t even have a cell phone to secretly send a message. I had nothing. The Mustang rounded the corner of the court briskly, squealing its tires and sped past my house. As I looked at my home with wide lost eyes I noticed Joe whipping the door open and running out to the front lawn.

  Chapter 25

  Joe

  As I flung the door open, I saw a black Mustang speeding down the street like a bat out of hell. The first thing that came to mind was, ‘stupid motherfu
cker, there are kids walking down this street all the time,’ but then I thought I saw Vicky in the backseat and I didn’t understand. She seemed okay to be walking with Jamie and I had thought I heard him take off in his car a few minutes ago. Then I remembered that Jamie’s car is a midnight blue and that Mustang was black. Who the hell would she have to pick her up? Why would she ditch our houseguests now and leave me to face this on my own? Something about her behavior didn’t add up.

  I was DEA, Vicky didn’t know that yet, I returned to university to finish my kinesiology degree, but then I had no interest working in the field. I had gone to university because it was important to Mama. I had always wanted to get into law enforcement. I always spoke about the Secret Service but that always made Mama nervous. She was scared of me dying, so I put my dreams on the back burner permanently until she got sick and passed away. Then I realized that none of us have control over our destiny, so we might as well make the most of our lives while we have the time. If Mama’s death taught me something, it was that life could change or end in the blink of an eye.

  After wandering around South America for six months, I came home and signed up for the police academy. Only I didn’t want to stay in Canada, let alone Thunder Bay. It was a small town, and it was hard to escape the ghosts that haunted me there. I graduated from the police academy at the top of my class. I applied for a green card and sent my application to the FBI. The FBI wasn’t known to recruit internationally, but I was fluent in Spanish and Italian and I had skills. They recruited me and did my papers faster than I could have imagined. Only I didn’t realize I would be sent to the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration. I didn’t protest though. I was good undercover and grateful to get away from Canada. I didn’t care about getting killed, and I got results. My little sister may not have known where I was, but I knew where she was. I had sources everywhere. I was going to come to New York and reunite with her when Marie called to say that my father was going downhill. I thought I would come home and take care of it myself; only I was a coward and spent a few extra days in Toronto wallowing in self-pity. There are details of my relationship with Eva that I left out when I told Vicky where I had been, but I didn’t want to freak my little sister out. Especially since she just found out she was pregnant. I also couldn’t let on that I knew everything about her life for the past six months. I knew she was working in New York, and I knew she was dating a guy linked to the Blanchard family. The fact that she took off that way was sending all kinds of alarm bells in my mind.