"Hello?" Lexa answered half asleep as her phone rang in the middle of the night at her home in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.
"Leah?" came a deep voice over the phone, Lexa instantly recognized the voice on the other end of the line.
"Carlo?" she asked not sure why Xation's father would be calling so late. Lexa had a terrible sinking feeling as she sat up in her bed. "Has something happened to Aphina?" she asked concerned for Xation's mother.
"No, it's not Aphina." Carlo answered a sadness in his voice as deep as a well.
A chill ran across her skin as she paused hearing Carlo weeping as he spoke, it was difficult to understand what he was saying. "Felina?" Lexa asked fearing she had heard him correctly.
"Both of them Leah! They are gone!" he cried with the pain in his heart from losing his two beautiful daughters. "My Felina and Serena!" he tried to explain through his bitter anguish, and what he told Lexa nearly broke her heart. Now it was true she, and her dead sister Leah, had always been treated like outsiders by Xation's sisters, but as Lexa heard dear old Carlo crying, telling of the suicides, she felt a deep pain in her heart and she wept along with the old gentleman. There were long pauses through the pain of loss, a few words at a time would pass between them. Lexa tried to console the dear sweet man, who always held a special place in her heart and she in his, but this was a very difficult thing to do thousands of miles away in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
"Carlo, you must be strong for Aphina!" Lexa encouraged him.
"Leah.., I know you and my girls did not always get along, but it was only because they were so jealous of anyone Xation loved, but they truly deeply cared for you." said Carlo as he went on weeping. "And.., now they are gone..," he paused " perhaps you will come and visit with Jason? For the funeral." now Lexa had heard the sound of men crying as they suffered pain and misery, but she had never heard such a pitiful, plaintiff, anguished plea, when Carlo said. "Please Leah, Jason is all we have left! My children are gone forever! Jason is all we have left now! Please."
"Of course Carlo, I would never keep your grandson from you." she paused "Especially now." here Lexa began crying harder saying "Oh, how will I tell Jason? He's only nine years old! First his father and now..," Lexa began to hyperventilate a little as the sad sound of her voice carried through the spacious cabin; which overlooked Laurel Lake, where she and Jason had lived happily for the last two years. Jason, ever curious and with a feeling of dread, got up out of his bed and crept down the hall to his mother's room, drawn there by her tears. Xation's son opened up the door and went in.
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