Morphine the phantom of love. Ром Амор

      It was a cold December evening and outside the window of the well-to-do house of the head of the district committee, on the porch, it was snowing heavily. Through the white ashen blanket, outlines of neighbouring houses and trees were peeking, and in the two living room windows the lights went on. Gennadiy Vasilyevich’s wife reached for the ringing phone.

      ‘Hello!’ said the slender and elegant wife of the local hotshot.

      A dry voice said something into the handset without much intonation and, without waiting for her to respond, vanished under the persistent short phone beeps.

      ‘Who was it?’ Gennadiy asked as he entered the room.

      ‘She wants to see us all,’ the woman said slowly with her last ounce of strength, turning so pale that even her expensive French cosmetics could not mask it now.

      ‘C’mon kids, let’s get ready! We’re going to see granny!’

      The father’s voice reached the children playing in another room. They carefully collected their toys and put them into a huge cookie tin.

      ‘Is she feeling worse?’ he enquired.

      ‘The doctor said she was dying,’ said his wife with her eyes downcast.

      He approached her, sat down on the edge of the chair and embraced her, transferring his warmth to the freezing hands of his beloved.

      Elvira never knew maternal love as a child. She had always believed that the only people who really loved her were her father, who died too soon, seemingly not able to bear his spouse’s bitchy disposition, and Gennadiy.

      After losing her father, Elvira was never able to forge a relationship with her mother who had always been too demanding of her, never sharing her views and judging her with one glance without ever concealing her contempt.

      But now, despite all these difficulties and tensions in their relationship, Elvira felt like she was losing a loved one. It does not matter what kind of a mother a woman is, she always remains connected to her child by a special bond. The same bond remains unbroken, even after a mother’s passing.

      Elvira should have been ready for this by now as this was the eighth month of her mother’s hospitalisation. The doctors have long wanted to discharge her and let her die in the arms of her children at home, in the family circle. Only Gennadiy Vasilyevich’s clout settled the issue and convinced the chief physician to keep the dying woman under the supervision of the men in white coats. Both spouses agreed that their children should not have to witness their weakening grandmother dying whilst no one could help her.

      Sasha was ten, Mark seven. They were the pride of their parents. Smart, handsome, and exhibiting exemplary behaviour, the boys were set as an example at school, and their parents’ friends jokingly called them the future of the Komsomol over drinks at dinner parties.

      Gennadiy got the children ready, put on their winter coats and asked the eldest to tie up Mark’s hat. He glanced into the living room expecting to see his wife ready, but Elvira was still sitting in the chair.

      ‘Sweetheart, we’d better hurry if you wish to bid her farewell.’

      Elvira looked up from that one point at which she was staring, turned to Gennadiy and said: ‘You’re right.’

      She got up grabbed her mink coat from him and put it on in a rush. The coat was about seven years old, but it remained her pride and an object of envy for many of her girlfriends in her circle.

      ‘Wait. Perhaps we should not take the kids,’ she said undecided, watching the children buttoning up in the entryway.

      ‘Mom, mom… Is something wrong with granny?’ asked the ten-year-old son running up to her and embracing her legs. She just looked at her husband while stroking her son’s head.

      Gennadiy looked away towards the window where it was still snowing in the falling dusk, and thought that he should not have let off his driver over this weekend.

      ‘Darling,’ Elvira addressed her son, ‘you know how much mommy loves you?’

      ‘Yes, mommy.’

      She kissed him on the forehead with her dry lips and hugged him real tight. At that moment, Sasha hugged her and his brother.

      ‘I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the children accompanying us,’ Gennadiy decided. ‘She’s the only grandmother they know.’

      They got into the warmed-up car. The kids seemed to realise without the need for words the gravity of the situation, they were sitting silently in the backseat tracing figures with their warm fingers on the frosty windows. Gennadiy closed the garage gate and drove out of the yard.

      Their black Volga raced down the highway. The wipers barely managed to wipe the snow from the windscreen. Elvira barely managed to wipe the pearls of tears flowing from her eyes. He took her cold hand into his right hand and stroked it trying to assuage her in silence.

      The snow outside her window drifted the memories of her childhood and youth. Those moments when, despite everything, she offered her love to the woman who brought her into the world. All those tears she shed on account of her mother and her cold-hearted attitude, and now again her mother was making her cry. Oddly enough, all those old grudges that Elvira nursed in her heart had now disappeared somehow. Now, she felt she would give anything in the world for her mother to remain with them. To be able to gather as a family again around the table for Christmas. To share their pride of the two boys. To cook together, eat together and wait for the son-in-law at home. To listen together to hairdressers gossip about their families at the beauty parlour. To grumble at each other for a reason or without one.

      He tossed her hand brusquely. She let out a loud scream. Snow mixed with the crystals of broken glass and burst into the car. Her mother appeared before her, embraced her with her warm arms and signalled her to follow…

      Screams… Ambulance sirens… Someone’s sobbing and moans could not awake the two boys whose bodies were entangled in black iron covered with the white ashen blanket of December snow.