By Brian R. Ballou
The Boston Globe
NEWTON, Mass. — The call to her home came shortly after 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, and Cheryl Payne could tell from her best friend’s voice that something bad had happened. So instead of calling the Fire Department, as her friend had suggested, Payne drove directly to the West Roxbury firehouse where her former husband, the father of her two sons, worked.
On the way, she figured Warren Payne was hurt, perhaps like in 1989, when he sustained burns after being caught in a flashback fire.
“But I knew as soon as I got there that he was not hurt, that he was gone,” Payne, 47, said yesterday, sitting in her living room, where a coffee table had been turned into a shrine. On the table sat a dark-blue Boston Fire Department T-shirt, newspaper clippings of Wednesday night’s fire that killed Payne and fellow firefighter Paul J. Cahill, a lighted candle, and an old photograph of Payne, suited up in full firefighting gear with a wide smile on his face.
“We’re in disbelief; I still feel like I’m going to wake up and find out it’s a bad dream,” said Payne. “Last Friday, I couldn’t find the telephone. I looked everywhere, and my oldest son, Johnathan, helped me but we couldn’t find it. Then I remembered about Jeremy - he gets impatient waiting for his dad. He had the phone, trying to call him.”
She said father and son had made plans to go away for the weekend.
According to authorities, Warren Payne, 53, a 19-year veteran of the Boston Fire Department, died after being engulfed in flames while searching for patrons and employees inside a West Roxbury restaurant. Cahill, 55, was just behind Payne. Both men served in the firehouse on Centre Street, headquarters of Engine 30 and Ladder 25.
A funeral service will be held for Payne on Friday at 11 a.m. in United House of Prayer in Dorchester. Yesterday, Cheryl Payne offered condolences to the Cahill family, as well as to her former husband’s relatives. She also expressed her gratitude for the support from his co-workers.
Although they divorced in 1999 after 10 years of marriage, Cheryl and Warren remained close friends. He even moved to Newton to be closer to Jeremy, 15, and Johnathan, 16.
“He was so into his children. He did everything for them,” Payne said. “Jeremy collects trains, and his father made sure he had the latest. I think that if he could have given those kids the moon, he would have.”
The couple met in 1984. Cheryl was home from college in North Carolina and was walking along Blue Hill Avenue when she spotted Payne, dressed in a security uniform but stretched out and relaxing on a wall. “I couldn’t get over it. He was laid out, so I asked him what he thought he was doing. Everything just started from there.”
Payne said he was good at cooking and just as good at eating.
“Warren, he always had something going on. He was one of those people who just walked through a crowd,” she said, rising from her chair and motioning as though she was stepping through a narrow hole. “He was like that. It didn’t matter where he was, he had to be in the middle,” Payne said. “He was always keeping his co-workers laughing.”
“These last couple of days haven’t been easy, especially for those boys.”
Jeremy left the house early yesterday, headed for the library. As he walked out of the parking lot, a friend strode alongside him on a scooter, wearing a bright red plastic firefighter’s hat on her head.
“We’ve been trying to keep busy. That’s all we can do right now,” Cheryl Payne said.
Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.