Phone Calls and Conversations

        At precisely six-oh-eight, the phone rang.  Its chime bellowed through the house, a dark summons that would only bring bad news.  Terrible news.  Dreaded news.

         She didn’t want to pick it up; instead, she wanted to yank the cord from the wall and rid herself of its heavy torture and be free of its ugly burden.

         But instead, she only closed her eyes, steeling herself from what was to come, and picked up the phone.

         “Momma?” 

         “Joseph?”

         A heavy pause occupied the line for a moment.  And then:  “He’s gone, Momma.  He’s dead.”

         The news was not unexpected, but still, with a sharp intake of breath and a wail of grief, Janet began to cry.  On the other end of the line, Joseph waited quietly, patiently, as his mother pronounced her anguish. 

         Little by little, Janet pulled herself together---somewhat.  She spoke through her tears.  “Did he…did he suffer, Joe?”

         “I don’t think so, Momma.  I think it was….quick.  He saw me, knew I was there, and….I think it was enough.” 

        For the moment, her breathing calmed and became a little more even.  “And did you tell him, Joseph?  Did you give him my message?”

         “I did, Momma.  I told him that you wanted to be here, but you couldn’t stand to…to….”

         Janet sniffled.  “Go on, Joe.”

         “I told him that you said no matter what, you loved him and you always would.”

         “What’d he say?”

         “Said he understood, and he was sorry.  Sorry he hadn’t been a good son, and that he’d made things so hard for you.”

         “Made things hard on me?  He was as good a son as he could be…I mean, could have been…”

        The change in tense made her stop abruptly and her tears fell fresh, her pain renewed.  She whimpered, her eyes filling until the amount was too great and they started to overflow.  She did nothing to stop the downpour, but rather stood with phone in hand, thinking about her son:  Cyrus.  For a moment, she slipped back in time and she remembered when Cyrus had fallen sick with pneumonia.  His fever had run high, and she had taken him to the doctor.  She had stayed at his bedside the night, watching over her son, waiting for him to get bett---

        “My god, Joseph, my god!  Maybe I should have been there!  I should have come! Why didn’t I come?  Oh my god, Joe, why, why, why!?”  Abruptly, she was yelling and crying, filled with doubt and self-contempt and guilt.  “Why was my son taken from me?”

        Her pain grabbed him through the phone lines and the many miles between them, and squeezed him tight.  His chest tightened in anguish.  A heaviness formed in his own throat, and Joe found that speaking demanded an inner strength that he wasn’t sure he had. 

        “Momma?” Even to his ears, he sounded far away, as if speaking from a dream. 

        Or a nightmare.

         “Yes?”  Her grief-stricken tirade abruptly broken, she croaked a response that was laden with tears and heartache.

        “I’ve got to go now.  They’re moving the body, and I want to be there.”

         “What about the arrangements, Joe?  When can we bring him home?”

         “I talked to Mr. Winslow a few hours before he….. Winslow okayed everything.  We’ll bring him home tomorrow, Tuesday the latest.”

         “What about the funeral home?  I don’t want any circus!” Now she was fire and anger, protective of Cyrus until the end.

         “I know, Momma.  I talked to the funeral director already, and he says he’s done this type of thing before, knows how to keep it discreet.  It’ll be alright.”

         With her free hand, Janet wiped the tears that slid down her cheeks.  She stood in the doorway that led to the kitchen, and her gaze wandered haplessly about until her eyes settled upon the markings etched into the doorframe.  Her fingers grazed the etchings and triggered a memory:  it was here where she would mark the ever-increasing height of her boys when they were little.  Joseph had sprung up quickly, but Cyrus would forever struggle to keep up.  He would pout and complain and wish he could be big like Joe and Janet would hug him and tell him that one day, he would be big in his own right, he would be a giant on his terms.

         “Momma?”  Joseph’s voice spoke concern for his mother.

         “I just can’t believe it.  I mean, we knew this was coming, but I was certain that some---“

         “Don’t do this to yourself, Momma.”  Joseph tried to maintain a hard line with his tone, but he struggled.

         She didn’t hear him.  “My baby is gone….”

         “Stop it, Momma.  It’s no use.”  His voice cracked a little; the pain in his mother’s voice unnerved him.  He wanted to reach through the phone line, through time and space and hug her, comfort her, but of course, he could not. 

        Fighting his own sorrow, he took a deep breath himself, filling his lungs with precious oxygen, and it settled him somewhat, cleared his head.  He continued.  “Mr. Henry did all he could for Cyrus, fought ‘til the very end.”                    

         Janet nodded.  “I know, I know.”  Moving through the kitchen, she found a seat at the kitchen table.  Rubbing a hand across her furrowed brow, she flashed on an image of Cyrus as a baby, and grief shuddered through her. A heavy lump formed in her throat.  “I thought….uh… I’m sorry, Joe…this is so hard…”

         “I know, Momma.”  Joe couldn’t be there to console her, and it hurt like hell.

        His mother continued, still weeping.  “I thought for sure we would’ve heard from Blake.”

         “I know, we all did.”  Silence, and then:  “I’ve really got to go. The body---“

         “Yes, okay.  Call me when it’s done.”

         “I will.”

         “Oh!  And Joe?”

         “Yes?”

         “I love you, baby.”

         He choked up then.  “I love you too, Momma.”

         

######



         At six-ten, the phone rang.  Sabrina whispered a prayer to a god above, hugged the photo close, and then picked up the phone.

         “Baby?”

         “Paul?”

         He didn’t hesitate.  He knew she’d been waiting too long. They both had.  “It’s done, baby.  He’s dead.”

         She closed her eyes.  Thank god, she thought to herself.  At long last, it’s over.  And though it was the announcement that she’d been waiting for, she found herself crying.

         Paul heard the uneven intake of breath, the soft wails, and asked:  “You’re crying?”

         Her nose was running.  She sniffed.  “Yea, I am.” She hugged the picture in the silver frame even closer to her person, willing her spirit to somehow touch and merge with the spirit of her dead child. 

         “Are you okay?”

         “No, but I will be.”  She pulled the photo away from her chest, and gazed lovingly at the face that smiled back so warmly, so lovingly.  You always had a beautiful smile, Sabrina remembered.  It used to light up a room.

         “Sabrina?”

         “I’m sorry.  I was just looking at the picture.” 

         Her husband understood immediately.  “She’s with us, Sabrina.  She’s looking down from wherever she is, and she’s smiling.”

         She nodded, although she knew her husband couldn’t see.  “I know, but---“

         Her husband didn’t let her finish.  “There are no buts, baby.  It’s done, and now we’re gonna let go, and move on.”

         She wiped the tears that fell still, however silently.  “You’re right, of course, you’re right.”  She paused, and for a moment, her mind wandered and then stopped on a question.  “Do you think she’d be upset, Paul, that I wasn’t there?  That I didn’t see?”

         “I was there, babe.  I saw.  It was enough.”

         Surprisingly, a heaviness that she hadn’t known was there seemed to lift itself from her chest.  A lightness touched her as the weighty knot of grief that she had carried for so long began to slowly roll away.  She breathed deeply, and the air freshened her lungs.  “Did he….I mean, were there any last words?”

         “You mean, did he apologize?”  Paul gave a harsh, ugly laugh.  “He apologized to his momma. Said sorry if he caused her any pain. But our pain?  No, he didn’t even acknowledge it.  Maintained his innocence ‘til the very end.”  The sharpness in his tone indicated the level of anger and bitterness that he still held.  “Some mother he had.  She didn’t even show up,” he muttered.

         “Oh.”  She wasn’t sure if she was angry, or disappointed, or just didn’t care.

         Perhaps it didn’t matter.

         “And the warden?”

         “Warden Winslow presented his condolences to me, to us. Kept the media at bay too, otherwise it could have been a zoo.”  He paused.  “But the lawyer did try.  Wanted to hold a press conference right there at the gates.”

         “Which lawyer?”

         “The asshole one, Henry.  Went on and on about a travesty of justice, the murder of an innocent man and all that bullshit.  But the warden shut it down.”

         Sabrina looked at the picture of her daughter, whose brilliant eyes radiated the happiness and hope that only the young can exude.  A sudden anger clutched her, and her words bit with both heavy sarcasm and great sorrow.  “What about the murder of an innocent girl?  Did he speak to that?”

         “No, babe.  He didn’t.”  Her husband spoke with a finality that immediately dispersed her anger, and abruptly, she refocused her energy on the picture before her, on the child that she lost but still loved every single day.

         “And Blake?”

         “No.  No call from Governor Blake, no stay of execution.” He paused, and when he last spoke this last time, his words brought an end to a decade of grief and sadness.  “Cyrus Jackson is gone, honey.  And now it’s time for his family to grieve.”

         Husband and wife fell silent for a moment, and then Sabrina took the last word.  “We finally got justice for her, Paul.  She can rest easy and in peace.”  Her voice thickened with emotion, and again the tears came down.  “And now, so can we.”