Gigi and Ray

Gigi and Ray

Dear Ray,

You were my best helper. Of all the kids I’ve hired over the years, you were my favorite. You’re the one who always comes to visit me these last months at Columbine Shores, even now that I’m officially in hospice and a mess. You sneak me bacon burgers from the Naughty Onion and sit with me, knowing it’s okay not to say anything. You know that at 17 when most of the adults who show up do not. I will end my days thinking of your smile, that bright smile that made mine every time I saw it. They tell me I have a little bit of money left, even after I’ve paid off the credit card, and paid for my big life celebration party. You know I am completely alone in the world. No family left, no kids, so I want you to have the money. Enjoy it. Be smart. Remember me.

Love,

Gigi

Ray held the check in his hand, just barely able to make out all the zeros through the blur of tears. Gigi had always been generous, but $20,000 threw him. She’d been dead for months, so the check now was a shock. He felt one of those grief waves starting to darken over him, saw Gigi’s face haloed by wisps of tight white curls, those painted orange eyebrows, heard her cheerful voice calling out to him, “Hey, kid.” But he’s a master stuffer, Ray is, and as soon as those dark waves started to curl, he stuffed them all the way down to his shuffling size twelves. Quickly he turned his thoughts to that piece-of-shit Miata in the garage, the fact that his dad wanted it back, and he knew instantly what he’d do with the 20 grand. He’d go to the bank that afternoon and deposit the check. “But first,” he told Jinx, the ill-mannered Corgi bobbing at his feet, “a bacon burger.”

Ray Berwicky had just turned 18, spending that last awkward summer at home with his mom before he went off to the state university. It had always been just the two of them, him and his mom. He didn’t remember a single thing about his life before his parents divorced when he was three. In all of Ray’s memory, his dad had lived at least a thousand miles away. When he was little, maybe 6, Ray looked forward to the monthly weekend visits when his dad passed through Denver and stayed with him on the way to a monthly business meeting. Those visits were just enough to make Ray feel like his dad was part of his life. His dad was funny and bright and attentive. He could show up full force for a weekend, but beyond a couple of days, his dad had no staying power.

After a year the business meetings ended, and the monthly visits too. Then it was Ray who had to start flying to California to visit his dad. First a week, then a two-week visit in the summer and later Thanksgiving or Christmas, and then spring vacations, too. Seeing his dad every month evolved into seeing him three times a year. He’s a great adapter, Ray is, so he adjusted to the new schedule. He longed for those trips. Unfortunately, sometimes his dad ended up working, and Ray had to spend the day with his aunt and her kids, but he figured that was okay because he liked his cousins.

On the phone once when he was eight, Ray asked his dad why he didn’t live with him in Colorado. That was when Ray still asked questions. His dad said, “Because I want to live near my family.” True, his dad’s sister and her family lived 30 minutes away, but his parents and two brothers were scattered across the country. Even at eight, Ray questioned the logic. He asked his mom, “But aren’t I his family, too?”

His mom told him on that second summer trip, the first time he stayed for two full weeks, that Ray should call her whenever he wanted. Ray’s dad was pissed that she called every day when Ray was with him, so trying to keep the peace, she left communication up to Ray. When she hadn’t heard from him during that first week, she had to call. In a kind of panic, a small wounded voice asked, “Mom, why didn’t you call, didn’t you have the number here?” The poor kid hadn’t remembered, or maybe didn’t even understand that it was he who was supposed to call, and likely his dad hadn’t offered. “Dad was working, and aunt Louise couldn’t keep me, so they took me to this camp.”

“What kind of camp?”

“I don’t know, Mom, they play games, kickball and stuff, once we went swimming.”

“You went every day? Did your cousins go, too?”

“Yes, for a whole week.” He was holding back the tears now, “Eddie and Oliver didn’t have to go. They stayed home and it was just me and there were all these people I didn’t know, and I had to go every day, and I told dad I didn’t want to, but he said he had to work and that it would be fun, but it wasn’t, Mom.”

It was upsetting to be away from home to begin with, but the desire to spend time with his dad gave Ray strength. That summer when he was nine and spent a whole week at a camp with strangers broke his heart. He hated his dad for it. He loved his dad. Despite the hard days on some of those trips, Ray’s mom would drive him home from the airport and watch his little shoulders shake in the seat next to her as he sobbed and said, “I miss dad.”

And then when Ray was 11, his dad called up to say he was moving to Singapore for work. “Don’t worry. I’ll come back to see you at least twice or three times a year, and you can come visit me, there. It’s only for a year.” Of course, Ray appeared unfazed as he always did with his dad. He sat hunched over at the kitchen table, saying into the phone that it was fine, he understood.

When he hung up, he stared across at the one cracked kitchen tile and began to cry. “Dad’s leaving, Mom. He’s moving to Singapore.” And in that moment, Ray felt himself leaving, too. Yes, they talked every week or two; there were occasional video calls. As Ray predicted, his dad didn’t come to the U.S. a few times a year, maybe once. When Ray was 12, he did go to Singapore to visit, which was mostly cool. Then a one-year stay became two.

And that’s about the time Ray became Gigi Simons’ newest recruit as her backyard assistant. He became one of a long line of pre-teens she hired over the years to help weed her butterfly garden and plug the leaks in her koi pond, to pick up the dog poop, help with random chores, keep her company. Gigi was a retired school teacher who’d been on her own since her mother died a decade ago, the second husband divorced years before that. Ray had always been good with older people. He’d spent a lot of time with his mom’s parents and their friends who rallied to help care for Ray. Gigi had always loved kids, and of the many disasters in her life—a drunk husband, a house burned to the ground—not being able to have children stung the most.

Gigi was lonely and Ray was too, a deep kind of lonely, that kind you feel in your gut even when you’re with people, an emptiness you try to fill but never quite can. Maybe over the years, they consoled each other without ever saying a thing. Maybe over Cheetos and lemonade watching butterflies in the back yard or during fast food stops on the way to the city dump, each had recognized the hollow place in the other, honored it, knowing there was nothing either of them could do about it.

By the time Ray was a teenager, he’d hardened himself against his dad, pretty much giving up hope there’d ever be anything meaningful there. He’s a gentle, sweet kid, Ray is, so he showed up for the scheduled visits anyway, but weekly phone calls became random texts. Stuffing became easier than trying to cope with feelings he couldn’t even name. He longed for his dad. He knew his dad was a selfish jerk. A part of Ray may have even pitied his dad.

Part of Ray’s dad’s midlife crisis years earlier was buying a Mazda Miata. A sporty little convertible he gave to Ray in a grand gesture of generosity for his 16th birthday. That summer when Ray turned 16, they had a father-son road trip that almost had Ray re-thinking his current opinion of his dad. They overnighted in Vegas, drank energy drinks, and laughed their way across western Wyoming. And, he had a super-cool convertible. “My dad gave it to me!” he beamed at the neighbors, posing next to it in the driveway while his mom snapped a picture.

Ray and his mom cleared space in the garage so he could park next to her aging Honda Civic. The Miata, which Ray’s maternal grandpa called “a selfish car,” because it could accommodate only one passenger, had its problems. Immediately, it needed four new tires. Mystery fluid dripped onto the garage floor. Transmission fluid? Engine oil. Hard to tell, but the car kept running, so Ray didn’t worry too much.

A Miata is likely fine on the freeways of California, but Ray’s dad never considered how it might fare on snowy roads of Colorado. It didn’t. That first winter, Ray rounded a corner near home and spun out into the curb, damaging the axle, and bending the wheel. He searched online for a cheap new wheel, but couldn’t find an exact match. He figured if he couldn’t conform completely, he’d totally contrast. He bought and installed a shiny gold wheel. Every time Ray walked up to it in a parking lot, it reminded him of someone with a gold filling that stood out when they smiled. Six months later, an engine repair set Ray back another $500.

Ray told his dad about the gold wheel replacement in California that following summer. His dad was horrified, warning him that people judge you on the looks of your car, you need to take pride in your appearance. Then he told Ray that at some point he wanted the Miata back. He missed driving it. Maybe he’d give Ray a little money towards buying another car.

“ I can’t believe it,” Ray told his mom when they drove home from the airport. “I would’ve remembered if he’d told me he wanted it back. God, it was just a loaner!” He’d spent the next several months trying to save money for a replacement car, rolling out pizza crusts three nights a week, faster than anyone else at Spinoli’s Pizzeria. Then Gigi’s letter came.

Ray read it again, then tucked it in his Moleskin journal, the one he’d recently bought for college. He’d liked the slick cover of that little black notebook, the way it felt in his hands, the hope of university life. It seemed like a good place to keep Gigi’s letter, something he always wanted to have around.

Of course, he would buy a car with money. But it wasn’t just a car Gigi had given Ray, it was freedom. That little old lady had seen who Ray really was and had loved him for it. Rumbling to the Onion for his burger that afternoon, in his mind, he started forming the text he was eager to send, “Dad, come get your car. Don’t need it anymore.”