An hour later Jenny called her old school chums, Allie Freestone and Fancy Aniston. Again, there was happy chit chat veiling her fret and worry, punctuated by a sudden impulse to hang up.
Jenny's boss and coworkers sensed something was wrong. They gave her space and interrupted her thoughts only when it was necessary to do so. Jenny was conscious of their subtle patience and empathy and felt a special fondness for them.
She checked in often with the Scottsdale Police Department, perhaps too often from their perspective. Yet, the people with whom she talked at SPD were cordial and patient, advising her that she would be notified just as soon as something was known.
So she moved with the great manipulator called time, her thoughts both tormenting and hopeful. So much had happened in her life in such a short span of her existence. She had gone to the lightning edge of death and back, had found an inner peace from the awesome experience. She had fallen in love with Jason and had gone to the far side of ecstasy, only to be abruptly stopped short by the fickle hand of fate. The man she loved was now facing the crucible of a tragic sibling death, and she could not help him.
She fought against a recurring image of Jason in some terrible limbo of anguish and doubt. Jason was strong, she knew, but he was also human and had the capacity for deep hurt. No matter how much and how diligently she busied herself, she could not keep the torturous thoughts away. She was in some sort of time and space warp, like the second hand on a grandfather clock stuck in one twitching and unyielding position.
In her abbreviated telephone conversation with her parents, her father had sensed a dilemma within his daughter and had reminded her of another time in younger life, a time when she had lost Happy, her cocker spaniel, to some deadly fungi. When the vet had put Happy to sleep, Jenny thought she would die from grief. Her father had worked so hard to ease and erase her inner pain. He had made special time for her, had moved with her through the tender realm of sorrow and, with fatherly love and patience, had finally brought her back to a soft and tentative place within her fragile psyche.
Jenny smiled as the phrase again came to her, 'butterflies and jellybeans,' the exclusive band aid for a child's world of hurt. Happy was so much of her childhood and she had resolved his passing, his memory for her now a warm and cozy inner glow, no longer a tragedy within her soul.
The little girl was still alive within Jenny and she could feel now with adult awareness an emotion not unlike that lambent recall of a long ago time. Her heart ached now with the same wistful kind of longing, confusion, and loss. Jason had dramatically come into her life on a rain soaked jogging path and she had fallen hopelessly in love with him. In their relationship she had felt the loose elements of her life coming back to her in harmonious unity, had glimpsed the happiness and joy that her new world with Jason would hold. Her expectations were high and ethereal, an ordained and magical passage into the rest of her life. Then, fickle and capricious fate, the usurper of dreams, had come again to cast its shadow across her contentment. But she would not become a prisoner to fate's fickle shadow. She could hope. She could be patient and expectant. She could fight the dark shadow and think of 'butterflies and jellybeans' days.
On Thursday morning Jenny took Grandma Myrena home from the hospital. Surprisingly, Myrena seemed more indomitable and stronger than when she had entered the hospital. The doctor, through the results of various tests, had changed her medication again. The new medicine had less side effects and was more compatible with Myrena's biological and physiological makeup.
Wardley was almost childish in his glee to have Myrena home. He had made up a special area for her both in her beloved parlor and in the sun room, with everything imaginable she could need or want at her fingertips. There was a telephone, tissues, medicines, books, magazines, portable ice and water dispenser, the call button contraption that could reach Wardley instantaneously anywhere on the property. There were cookies and snacks that had prior approval by the doctor. Wardley was ever so attentive to detail, making sure that the spots where Myrena would recline afforded her with perfect sweeping views of the landscape outside the great windows. She was so pleased at Wardley's efforts and praised his thoughtfulness and his thoroughness.
Myrena finally opted for the sun room as it provided more light than the parlor. She would move into that larger and beloved room after the sun had gone down. She seemed in good spirits and so pleased to be home. Her smiles and her good cheer were wonderful tonic for both Wardley and Jenny.
The telephone rang just as Myrena had settled into her special place in the sun room. Wardley answered.
“Good morning, this is the Wimsley residence.”
“This is Sergeant Jefferey Henning, Scottsdale Police Department. I need to speak to Mrs. Wimsley or Ms. Mason.”
“A moment, please.” Wardley decided that it should be Jenny to take the call. “It's for you, Miss Mason. A Mr. Jefferey Henning is on the line.”
Jenny recognized the name and rushed to the phone, muttering to Myrena, “I left your number with my office. Hope it's okay.”
Myrena waved a hand in an upward motion and smiled, “Don't be silly, child.”
“This is Jenny Mason.”
“Ms. Mason, this is Jeff Henning. We talked before about ...”
“Yes,” she interrupted, “do you have news?”
“Yes, Ms. Mason, we do have some news. We have found Mr. Prince's car about fifty miles north of Phoenix, several miles beyond New River, but we have not located as yet Mr. Prince. The car keys are still in the ignition. Looks like he didn't intend to wander far. Do you know of any reason why he would be in that general area, Ms. Mason?”
Jenny was looking at Grandma Myrena's face, seeing there a fixed and anxious look. Jenny tried to keep hysteria out of her voice. “No, I know of no reason. Please, hold for just a minute.”
Jenny placed her hand over the phone and looked first at Wardley, then at Grandma Myrena. “Does Jason own property north of New River, or anywhere in that area?”
Wardley and Myrena looked at each other with worried eyes. It was Myrena who spoke. “No, not as far as I know. What is it, Jenny? Who's calling.”
“Just a moment, Grandma Myrena, let me finish the call. Don't be concerned just yet. It could be good news.” Jenny went back to Sgt. Henning. “No, we know of no reason. Do you have anything else to tell us?”
“Not at the moment, Ms. Mason. We are searching the surrounding area but there's a lot of desert out there. There's nothing out of the ordinary about his car. It could be that he just wandered off and got disoriented. That can happen in the desert. Then, again, maybe he knows exactly where he is, what he's doing, and will be along shortly. We have no idea how long the car has been parked in this spot. The engine is cold so we believe it's been an hour or longer. We'll be back in touch as soon as he shows up.”
“Where are you exactly?”
“His car is at the end of an old dirt road that trails off north of the Rock Springs and Black Canyon Road, about ten miles east of Interstate 17. You thinking of coming out here, Ms. Mason?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, I wouldn't advise it. We've got people looking all around here. I don't think there's anything you could do that isn't already being done. Besides, we wouldn't want you getting lost.”
“Yes, well, that's likely the case.” Jenny was being evasive for Myrena's benefit. “I know you mean well, Sgt. Henning. If I come, I promise not to get in anyone's way.”
After more specifics on the location of Jason's car Jenny disconnected.
For the next thirty minutes Jenny talked to Grandma Myrena and Wardley, down-playing the dark side possibilities of finding Jason's car. It could simply be that Jason was considering a new land purchase, another site for another project. Maybe he was just being secretive about the whole thing. Finally, Myrena had convinced Jenny that there was no need to coddle her, protect her, from the various potential outcomes to finding Jason's car.
“It's an area where we
had those camping trips, Jenny. If I know Jason, he is being instinctively led to that area by his grief and by his tortured soul. What he finds there can destroy him or save him. I'm not easily fooled, my dear, I've seen your eyes during and since the phone call with Sgt. Henning. You intend to go to that area, and you would have my company were it possible. Please be careful, my dear. Wardley and I will stay and pray. There's little else we can do.”
Jenny left the matriarch in her sun room, smiling solemnly and bravely in her quiescence, remarkably stoic in her silent suffering. Myrena was an inspiring lady for the ages, weakened, wizened, but with an aura of quintessential courage and indomitable will.
Jenny drove west to Interstate 17, then north and eventually east, toward an uncertain date with kismet. Tears slowly bubbled over the lower rims of her sad eyes and ran warmly down her cheeks. While she drove, the image was with her of Grandma Myrena, huddled on her makeshift bed in the sun room, smiling bravely through her grief, pain, and the knowledge of her impending death.
With her, too, was a glimmering candle of hope in the darkened mist of her soul.
“Oh, Jason, please be all right,” she weakly spoke in the quietness of her car. “We love you so very much.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Jason could not swallow.
Panic forced its way into his chest, nearly cutting off his breathing, causing him to cough in wheezing discomfort. He lifted his upper torso from the sand, sat in a hunched position, and fought the building anxiety. He lowered his head into a space between his knees and concentrated on slow breathing, his intakes of air a raspy screech in the late morning sun.
He was asleep again. He had walked all night, trying to stay at a mid-point somewhere within the breadth of pale light on the distant horizon. The problem with focus had arisen sometime during his long night trek. There had become a sameness to the band of light, his eyes straining so hard to maintain a distinctive grasp of the illusive center point. The light from the moon and stars had blurred into a nimbus shimmer that became the same no matter where he looked.
His mind had begun to tease him with directional inconclusiveness and he could not trust where his feet might take him. He began to suspect that he was walking in circles. Finally, weary, entrapped within his mind, hyperventilating, becoming aware of a bizarre hysteria overtaking him, he had stopped and forced himself to rest. He had fallen asleep.
Now, his mouth and throat was a ragged and raw thing on fire that constricted his swallowing. That reality had brought on a breathing panic. The slow and methodical intakes of air through his nose gave some relief. Then, his brain had signaled another area of pain. His hard crusty lips had new cracks and the searing pin stabs of exquisite stinging brought tears to his tired and sore eyes. He could not touch his tongue to his lips because the simple movement took the pain to new levels of excruciation.
The sun, high overhead, beat on the top of his head with relentless indifference. He was dizzy, disoriented, in pain, and was becoming delirious at his mind's suggestion. From somewhere in a deep soulful reserve came a command to stand and move on.
He obeyed the command and lurched, staggered to his feet, swayed and breathed deeply. The air he inhaled was like stoked heat from a furnace. He closed his eyes tightly for some seconds and reopened them slowly in measured stages of elevation. He blinked his eyes into some semblance of focus. A constant throbbing tenderness lay deep within the sockets.
He looked all around, trying to find a landmark. The sameness was still there as it was with the ring of light last night. From the position of the sun he could not tell north from south or east from west. He had sanity enough left to know that he was north of Phoenix. He knew that Phoenix was in a valley, but from where he stood he could not determine the direction. He had apparently come so far from his car that he had traversed some gradual dipping and rising terrain. He reckoned that the sun would soon start its westward sweep. Then, he could get some sense of the direction he should go. It surprised and alarmed him that he had indeed come so far.
He was conscious of time. Time, precious time, was something he had always taken for granted. Time, so much of it was spent on things related to self and personal gain, couched in buss words of the day, like, 'progress' and 'ambitious' and 'expedient.'
He looked around at the gravel, rock, and sand, at the ecru earth and pale green cacti, at the subtle rise and fall of the land. Near where he stood, there were so many unseen reptilian and sundry other inhabitants under their protective boulders, in the shade of their mesquites, ironwoods, Palo Verde, and in their cool and precisely tunneled underground labyrinths. In his hot and frenetic mind he glimpsed an eternal truth and, even in his quiet desperation, he was awed by the simple revelation the earth had given him. Here in this vast land of parched and inviolate uniformity, Jason felt the infinitesimal and harmonic value of his being. He was both part of and apart from the essence of the earth, given a uniqueness of purpose and design by God. He was remotely happy with this truth and, while he could not know the divine nature or the immortal relevance, he felt an inner sublimity of spirit. It was an ephemeral moment of grace and it passed too soon with the physical recognition of his pain.
Jason's caked lips felt like tiny twin blimps of viscous throbbing. The soles of his feet were raw and bleeding from burst blisters. His socks were sticking to the raw spots, sending fierce stinging sensations up his legs with each step or foot movement. His calves and thighs were tender with a constant ache. His head felt hot and hollow. There was an incessant buzz emanating from deep within and vexing his ears with its gnat-like persistence. His entire body was in physical agony, yet there were moments when dull numbness settled in his limbs.
It was his mind that concerned him most.
His mind brought back uninvited, forgotten minutiae of old books and movies:
An image of a cowboy staggering across a screen of limitless desert sand, out of canteen water, becoming delirious with thirst and a bloated tongue, imagining green oases and shading palms, his lips cracked and bleeding … the cowboy, barefoot, shirt in tatters from his own frenzied tearing and ripping, falling to the hot sand, crazily clawing at the soft burning grains, digging for water … the cowboy, finally bereft of any hope, head turned upward in one last maniacal laugh and scream for pity, falling face down in the soft sand of death and forgetfulness …
Jason's mind was making sport of him, mocking him with an open throttle of fast moving sequences of remembrance. His mind, his nemesis, took him in one direction and then another, playing, toying, teasing. His foolish, foolish mind!
He shook his head and shrieked a plaintive 'no!' out into the hot haze of space. His hand protecting and shading his eyes, he glanced upward to determine the position of the sun. He stood as straight as he could with arms outstretched and parallel to the ground, slowly turning on his own axis. When his turning had the sun setting on his right side, he determined that he was facing south.
He looked for some distant spot on the southern horizon and found what he thought was a clump of boulders. He would walk toward that point.
The whirr in his head and ears picked up in decibel and intensity as he walked. He limped along toward the boulders, forcing all of his thoughts at that spot. At that spot he would find Jenny, and Jenny would forgive him for being so stupid. Jenny would take him to Grandma Myrena, and his Grandma would forgive, too.
Jenny, sweet Jenny, her face came to him from the distant boulders. Out of the shimmering haze her face came, features sharply defined: hair billowing out in slow languorous, rhythmic sweeps; her eyes beckoning with a gentle gleam; her full, perfectly curved lips partly open and calling softly his name over and over, with promises of love eternal.
With crusty lips he smiled at her ethereal presence and was reminded with sharp biting clarity that he could still feel physical pain. He shuffled on, eyes vacant, locked on the distant boulders … on to Jenny and his hope for salvation!
What had brought him to these defining
moments in time and place? Was this the ultimate test for his life? Was it Carlton's death that had brought him here? Was it the fact of Grandma Myrena's terminal cancer? Was it his perceived breach of faith and loyalty by Jenny? Was it all of these things? On he stumbled, toward his misty goal.
The process of thought that had led him here seemed now adolescent and foolish, and, yet, he had to be here. It was somehow ordained that he be here, that he face himself in a way he would never have considered. A simple truth was rendered unto him. Not so much a truth perhaps as it was a revelation of something already known but forgotten or ignored.
His life had a continuity of purpose and value beyond the normal activity of daily existence. Not accepting or acknowledging death was a selfish and unnatural act. His denial of this natural process was an affront to the Creator. His living was a gift of dimensional joy and should be revered and enjoyed but it was but a speck upon the universal scheme of things. His selfish mutterings and reactions to death was only an aberrant and wasted chink in his continuity.
So, he had to think less selfishly and had to give more of himself, understanding the larger truth that his being and demise were small but significant links in the great metaphysical whole. He must be happy in the mortal time and space given to him. He must be happy in the thought of his immortal link.
His thirst was a delirium. No manner of thought could dispel the awful thirst. The pain came swooning in heavy, torturous waves. And the pain went, mercifully pausing in a numb limbo, enabling him to move onward toward the boulders. But the pain could not outdo the agony of his thirst.
Then, in another flash of clarity, he realized that he had no urge for body evacuations of any kind. That inane acknowledgment somehow amused him. A laugh began but lodged in his throat, causing him to wildly gag and suck at the hot air around him, wanting desperately to swallow and breathe in the same instant. The moment passed, and he felt again the inner dips and sways of depleted energy. His head was heavy and bloated like a dense and foggy cave chamber. His mind was used up. He could no longer believe what it offered him.
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