Page 32 of Phoenix Fire

Chapter Twenty-one

Myrena Wimsley took another pain pill. The current sequence of pain overwhelmed her with its intensity. It was a blend of spasmodic ache and fiery steadiness, like the worst toothache or earache she ever had, or, like a deep cut which had festered with infection.

The pain sequence was coming now with more regularity, and she was losing weight. Myrena had never been a big woman. Her work regimen over the years, her active lifestyle, had kept her body fine-tuned and resilient. Even with aging she was able to keep her firm figure. She had all her life subscribed to the notion that a sound body equated to a sound mind. Myrena believed that if a person were consistently involved in honorable pursuits, did not overuse alcohol or abuse their bodies with drugs and idleness, he/she would likely have good health and achieve some success in life.

Now, this strange sickness had come upon her, this abominable sickness from hell called cancer. The disease had curbed her normal routines, had made her conform to its immutable ways. She had basically little volition left to her, no real compass to direct her. When she looked in the mirror she could see the emaciating effects of her cancer, could see the darker and deeper set of her eyes … a stranger's eyes, they seemed to her, staring at her from some remote spot of her soul. She had always been a gourmet of sorts but now food was tasteless and obligatory. She had no appetite but she forced herself to consume bird like quantities.

Oh, she would have shown her aging in any event. The cancer had merely increased the speed of its inevitability. She had no fear of death. Her life was full, with some burdens, but mostly rich with love and sensate wonders. Death would only hasten her meeting with John. She was convinced that there was indeed an afterlife, a dimensionless time and space of incredible beauty, a time for reunion and cosmic revelation. In these days of so much pain she would gladly welcome the final journey.

The pain diminished into apathy. It was not an altogether unpleasant place to be for Myrena. She picked up the family photo album she had started to scan before the pain hit. The late morning light poured through the skylights in the large parlor, her favorite room in the entire house. It was in this room where she felt John's presence the most. She could look at his portrait and feel him embracing her. At this time of day, the great room offered the most dazzling play of light and shadow. The spines on the books which lined the western wall would ripple with the play of sunlight, like gems encrusted into the wall of a cave.

Myrena turned the thick album pages and smiled as the sweet faces of youth stared up at her. This was her most cherished album of the many tucked away in a lower drawer along the library wall. This album traced the preteen and teenage years of Carlton and Jason. She could remember every camera shot taken, every little byplay scene before and after the shutter was snapped. The album gave her a vicarious pleasure to relive again those soft, sometimes poignant, memories which had begun shortly after her daughter's and son-in-law's deaths.

Myrena heard peripherally the front door chimes and Wardley's welcoming salutation.

When Jason entered the parlor she closed the album with a surprising slam. She was shocked to see Jason looking so haggard and disheveled. She put the album aside and stood to greet him.

“My word, Jason! What in the world has happened? You look terrible.” Myrena walked to meet him in the middle of the room.

Jason wrapped gentle arms around Myrena and held her close for some seconds. When they parted Jason looked sadly into her eyes. “I need to tell you something, Grandma Myrena. Let's sit down.”

They moved to the old leather sofa and sat side by side. Wardley lingered in the doorway. Jason looked fondly at the man who was so much a part of his life. “Please, Wardley, come and sit with us.”

The butler, more family to Myrena and Jason than servant, came and sat directly across from them.

There was a tense and dark expectancy hanging on the air of the grand parlor. Nervous eyes and hands searched but found no comfortable place to rest.

Myrena broke the deep silence. “What is it, Jason? Something has happened to Carlton?” It was as much a statement as it was a question.

They sat, angling to face each other. As if to watch the foreboding moment, a thin cloud passed before the sun, causing a dim shadow to settle in the space in front of them.

“Yes, Grandma.” Jason swallowed hard, lowered his head for a moment and continued. “He's dead, Grandma. He ...”

The old woman's hands began to tremble. She fought against tears in her eyes. She tried to absorb the devastating news, had even in some remote part of her mind expected it. Her thoughts kept shifting from a youthful photograph of Carlton she had just seen in the family album back to Jason and the reverberating words still ringing in her ears, 'He's dead, Grandma.'

“Oh, no!” she weakly chanted, “Oh, no!” over and over, again and again.

Jason softly embraced her. Even at this time of awful truth he could see before him the slowly receding ebb of her life. She had lost weight and her face was so much more sunken and fragile than he could ever remember. Her skin had a dry, paper thin, almost translucent cast, the blood veins so very near the surface. Jason worried that this news might literally break her heart and rupture those veins. His own heart beat wildly within his chest.

Jason held her there on the sofa for several minutes of silence. Wardley moved to the sofa to be near her, his face a drawn and pale mask of sadness. No one spoke and the old room was a giant overpoweringly stifling chamber.

Then, tears came, not in great heaving sobs but in quiet, aching drops of remembrance, an acknowledgment of death, of words and embraces that could never again come in this life. The three people gathered there, shared their grief and their tears.

Myrena's mind played back the memories in a fast reel of flashbacks:

A tear-streaked, frightened face of a young boy, not accepting the deaths of his father and mother; a fall from his first bicycle; a broken dinner plate and a contrite face; bedtime stories with goodnight hugs and kisses; eyes dancing with joy at winning a prize during carnival time …

On and on the memories came, but she was still in the moment, still aware of where she was, aware of the whole impossible moment of grief.

Jason could not find the words for his Grandma Myrena. He could only hold her and stroke her hair, his tears flowing freely. He was fearful of his own memory flashbacks, that he might be consumed by them. He knew they would come later when he was alone in the darkness. They would have to come, and he would have to get through them and all the emotions they would evoke. Now, he had to be strong for his Grandma Myrena.

Wardley stood and went to the arched entry area of the grand room, his hands clasped in front of his large body, his heart aching with his own parade of memories of Carlton Prince. He, too, felt the awful weight of loss. He stood there in the archway for some seconds, looking back at the grieving grandson and grandmother, his tears still flowing down his cheeks.

Finally, Myrena wiped her eyes with a tissue, leaned back into the sofa. “How did he die, Jason?” Her words were clear and precise.

Then she noticed Wardley standing in the parlor's archway, aggrieved, looking confused and uncertain of what he was to do or where he was to go. “Please, Wardley, you wonderful man, come sit with us. You are family and you need to grieve with us.” She held out her arms to him.

Wardley came again and sat with them on the sofa. Jason and Myrena touched him warmly on the arm as they pressed their bodies against each other.

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