Want to read Silver Linings ? Here is the prologue.
PROLOGUE
MAY 1, 2061
The needle that would end her life was being prepared. Her son held it up to the light and gently tapped the clear liquid swirling inside it. “Ironic” she thought sadly, “I legalized it in fifty states, never thinking it would come to this.” She shifted uncomfortably in her chair and took one last look around her beloved room. It was her sanctuary, a place away from the millions of people who so loved and admired her. A place where her enemies faded into oblivion.
He pressed forward and swabbed her forearm; the smell of disinfectant punctured the air. He felt that he couldn’t breathe, his chest tightened like a vice. He wasn’t at all sure he could go through with this act. She had told him that the pain was no longer bearable. His mind understood, but his heart did not.
Tears streaked down his face and he let them splash onto her paper thin skin. She was his mother and his closest friend. This act would not only kill her, but a large part of him would die, too. A sob escaped him. He had always been a man of his word and he promised his mother this one last act. As a physician, he had done it only a few times since the legalization. He knew the excruciating pain that racked her frail body. But he had prayed for a miracle that didn’t come. So tonight was the end and he would keep his word no matter how hard it would be. He tried to smile through his tears as he whispered slowly, “I love you, Mom”
She looked up into his tears and saw the handsome middle- aged man who had given his life to medicine and the helping of others. She was so proud of him and she knew that she was being selfish. She wanted only him with her now and she knew he wouldn’t “botch the job.” “I love you, too” she replied with a small smile. Her breath caught in her throat as her body pulsed with pain. Almost every breath now was torture. She had kept the demons at bay long enough. It was time to rest her weary body and find the pain free existence of another life after death. She believed in the survival of the soul so death would, in her mind, be just a transition. She looked up expectantly to her son.
Fascinated, she watched as her son slowly brought the needle to rest on her forearm. “Are you re ally, really ready, Mom?” he asked gently, chocking back yet another sob. God, he was falling apart. “Get a grip,” he commanded himself. He prepared for her no nonsense reply of “Yes”.
He closed his eyes one last time and steadied his hand. He listened for her reply and when she said nothing he opened them and hopefully took a deep breath. His eyes stopped tearing and opened wide. Was she changing her mind? Hope soared through his veins. A smile crept into his face. He looked into her eyes into her eyes and saw the pain but watched as it receded and was replaced by something else entirely. Cocking his head to one side, he waited, the sound of the old grandfather clock loudly ticking through the silence. “Mama,” he asked gently, “are you all right? Please tell me you’ve changed your mind.” His voice cracked with hope.
She didn’t blink. She just stared at him for one long minute. Then, sucking in the pain, she pulled her arm away.
“No.”
He almost collapsed in happiness. Quickly, he capped the needle and turned to her. He knelt before her and put his head in her lap. Sobbing he let himself go as she gently stroked his head. “There, there, Ben,” she said soothingly. “Calm down. I thought you could do this, but I now find I can not.” She felt him shake as he cried and held him as well as she could.
Finally, his sobs subsided and his head, cradled in her lap, looked calm. She looked around at the now vacant room. She had already said her good-byes. She had managed to orchestrate a good deal of her life and her death was going to fall into that pattern. It was a control thing and as everyone knew, she was a bit of a control freak. Stopping the lethal injection was not like her and she couldn’t believe she had done it. Was it her son’s misgivings and tears? No. She had been prepared for that.
This was something that really didn’t make sense this late in the game and frankly, she thought, it was out of character. She smiled inwardly as yet another pain shot through her head. “Leave it to me to get stubborn at the end and think of one more thing to do.” Her “to do” lists had been famous among her staff because they were constantly added to so that in fact they were never completed. But she couldn’t leave this world for the next until she revealed something that had lain buried within her. It was if her heart would not stop beating until it gave up this one, last secret.
She gently raised her son’s head and looked down into his eyes. Hers shimmered with unshed tears. “I can’t leave just now because it seems that I can’t let the secret die with me. It’s too important.”
What secret?” he asked in an awed and reverent manner.
“The key to life, happiness and joy,” she answered with a wry smile. Her voice held just a touch of the lilt that so enamored the world. She pulled herself forward and gently touched his face. “You’ve been so good to me for many years now, and your father would have loved to see how well you turned out, but I can’t die until I do this one last thing.”
He smiled back at her as love and sadness engulfed him. “I’d do anything to have you stay even one more day.” He choked on his words knowing that each moment of pain was agony for her. Selfishly, he wanted to keep her; but she had been the one who had made the decision and like most of the decisions she had made in her momentous life, it was the right one. He once again blinked back tears.
“Help me to my desk, will you son?”
Gently, his strong arms encircled her frail body and he led her to her favorite spot. She held his face in both hands and smiled as his tears mingled with hers. “I must do this,” she whispered softly. “It’s important to me and I hope to others, too. I thought I’d go to my grave with this story, but now that I am facing the threshold of the next world, I need to let this story, buried deep in my heart, live. Another pain wracked her body and she tightly closed her eyes.
“You don’t need to do this you know,” he said, a frantic note creeping into his voice. “I can sedate you, buy you time. Maybe in a month something new will come on the market.” He knew how hollow his reasoning sounded. “Really,” he repeated as he hastily put away his medical bag, “We doctors are always coming up with new ideas, drugs, methods, to prolong life.” God, he sounded moronic even to himself. “You don’t need to do this.”
His mother looked up at him, knowing he was talking about euthanasia. But she had something different in her mind when she replied, “Oh yes I do.” He stood looking at the woman he loved with all of his heart. Tears were now unabashedly coursing down his face. “Damn” he thought. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry like this!” With more strength than he thought possible he calmed his face and gently touched his mother’s shoulder. “How about I stay with you while you tell your secret?” His concern permeated the room.
She lightly touched his outstretched hand. “This is something I must do alone, but you will be the first to read it, and listen to it if you so desire. I promise. Now one more kiss and be gone! I’ll see you in the morning!” She smiled a reassuring smile that actually hurt her, but it was convincing and he slowly left her, glancing over his shoulder as he walked away.
“I’m just going to be in the next room if you need me, Mom. Ok?”
“Ok” she whispered back. He closed the door gently. It would be a night that neither he nor she would see any sleep.
After his footsteps faded, she sat and waited for the pain to once more subside. Outside, rain soaked clouds scudded across the sky and she let her mind go back to a long ago time.
A time before she was so well known.
A time before she impacted world events.
A time before the legend was born.
A pivotal time in her life, for she, like most people had been headed down one path when something quite remarkable had happened to her. It changed her forever and yet no one knew the story.
The love story.
The story of good and evil and the events that changed the fabric of her daily life.
An old woman now, she was born in a different century; yet she had risen to command armies of men. Until recently, she felt most comfortable in an old worn high back chair, watching her great grand children learn and grow. The world stage she had once tread upon held little interest for her now. Through the pain, keen intelligence still radiated. Bright eyes still shone through folds of wrinkles.
She looked out the window as the night enveloped her. Random thoughts of how she had lived punctuated the constant pain. She was proud of many things, one of them being how she started every day for she had always made it a habit to rise to every sunrise with a song in her heart. Life had precious to her since the springtime of her nineteenth year when her world was upended.
She always knew that one day, when all was said and done, she would tell this story, but then as time went by, it became buried deeper and deeper until it lay fallow waiting for the sun. And then the pain and the suffering came and she thought maybe it wasn’t that important after all. Maybe it should die with her. But then, tonight, she knew it must be told.
She saw her reflection in the windowpane and was shocked to see just how old she looked. Somehow, she thought wryly, you see others age but you think you’re immune. She thought of the people who had been after her for years to write an autobiography. She wouldn’t. That was the job of historians. She would write this, though. She had thought about writing it a few years after her husband died, but then, the time was not right.
Now, however, there would come a time, maybe tomorrow, when there would be no more sunrises and sunsets. Then, she would join people who once filled a time in her vibrant, almost reckless youth. She was sure she’d see faces she once loved and perhaps she would glimpse those she hated. A slight shudder went through her tired body.
Closing her eyes for a moment, she pictured him as he was. Tall. Handsome. Her lover and best friend. He had changed he into a more caring individual capable of great kindness. He had more impact on her than any other man alive and she had kept a part of him with her locked away in her heart. Forever and for always.
Sighing, she reached deep into the desk and opened her small velvet jewelry box where a faded envelope lay half hidden. She gently opened it and a small heart shaped gold locket and an old newspaper-clipping fell out. She gingerly unfolded the paper. Over sixty years had past since the article had been written. At the time it was headline news. Now, the events existed only in an old woman’s memory.
Carefully, she pried open the old gold locket. It glowed in the candlelight and shimmered in her palm. She squinted and stared at the two incredibly young faces that stared back. He was caught forever in young manhood, smiling, his handsome face etched with intellect and kindness. Her face was less open. Beautiful, with high cheekbones and a wide smile, the eyes looked a bit cold and distant. “Well, why not?” she thought. The picture was taken before she had really learned to see and to know.
She slowly put the locket around her neck and held it next to her heart for a moment. She whispered a silent thank you and spoke to the large screen in front of her. She loved technology and would truly miss her voice-activated computer.
“Are we writing tonight?” the computer asked her in a soft, friendly manner.
“Oh yes,” she replied. “Are you ready?”
The computer whirred into action. “I’m ready. Sit back, relax and I’ll edit as we go. I’ll also save your voice recordings and we can do any retouches later. Let me know when to begin.” She smiled at the big screen. It was time.
