Ray of Light

She was tapping her fingers on the windowsill in unison with the sound of the trickling rain.

Tapping her fingers was all she could think of doing in order to keep herself from biting them. A nasty habit, her mother had said. She hadn’t bitten her nails since she was nine years old, but this old habit came back like a faithful friend in a time of need. She turned to her side table and found a water bottle mixed with vodka and 7Up. Not a gin and tonic nor rum and coke but vodka and 7Up. Plain but not completely unoriginal, much like herself.

At first it had started as a shot here or there; when the weekends seemed endless, when she had an itch in her throat, when she needed a night cap. Then the shot glasses became a nightly and daily ritual until Ray decided that a bottle would be more practical. Who was she fooling anyways? She was alone and there was no reason to pretend.

The water bottle reminded her of another childhood comfort: her baby bottle. She used a bottle until she was four years old, well past the recommended age of when a child should transition to a cup. Her mother relented since Ray was a difficult child. That all stopped with a visit to the dentist’s office. Ray’s father realized how much future dental procedures would cost him if she continued down that slippery slope of liquid gluttony in an unsuspecting baby bottle. Ray now wondered if she was regressing.

She glanced over at her laptop screen, screwing up her eyes to adjust to the brightness of the blue glare. Her inbox was full; it had been for some time. She swore each day that she would get down to business and tackle all the work that was waiting for her. But the days would float on and then float by and she would sink deeper into the hole. Her boss would be back in two days and he would realize that she had not been working during his absence.

She stared at her email address, focusing on her first name: Rayleigh. She had always hated it. As soon as she was able to, she started referring to herself as Ray. It made her feel tough. Ray was the type of person you would find in a dive bar, the type of person that could fix your car or that you could call up when you needed a hand. Sturdy, reliable, strong. Rayleigh was none of those things so at least her name could be. The roughness of her name created an outer shell that shielded her fragility. But it was different with Jack. When he called her Ray there was a sweetness in his voice and she felt lightness throughout her body. For Jack, Ray was his ray of sunshine, his ray of light. Only Jack saw her this way and now he was gone.

Ray shut her laptop. She would tackle the workload tomorrow. Always tomorrow. She grabbed her phone and started scrolling through her Facebook feed. Mindlessly wandering through other people’s curated lives. All puppets on a string she thought to herself. Yet her she was actively participating. Was being a voyeur of puppets worse than being the puppet? She didn’t have the time nor the energy to answer these questions and start another internal dialogue. She took a swig of her water bottle and felt the burning sensation of the vodka 7Up mix on her tongue.

Christine had lost 10 pounds of fat and gained 10 pounds of muscle. Jessica had found her love of nature photography and posted banal photos on a daily basis. Steve had finally learned Portuguese so he could better communicate with his online Brazilian girlfriend. Ray wondered if Steve would one day end up on the reality show 90 Day Fiancé. She chuckled at the thought and then chuckled in response to her chuckle.

Ray was unable to finish her job even at the reduced hours, let alone start a hobby. She had a to-do list of projects and goals that she wanted to get through; but they just loomed over her, taunting her and her inability to act.

The doorbell rang. Ray lifted herself off the couch reluctantly and opened the door. It was Tim-that was the name she had given the mailman. She never ventured into finding out what he his real name was. Ray was never good at small talk, it demanded too much energy. Tim handed her a registered letter and grunted a few words before bouncing down the stairs. Ray ripped open the envelope with her finger instead of using the letter opener she had received at the last office Christmas party. The sliver letter opener was still sitting neatly packed in its black box in her desk drawer.

The letter was from her insurance company. Ray quickly scanned over the superfluous legal terms and caught sight of the figure: $ 20,000. She quickly detached the accompanying cheque as though the insurance company might change its mind. It was more money than she had expected since she thought that the car accident was her fault. But maybe that was because she felt guilty. A brief moment of joy quickly faded into the background of her dim-lit apartment. She put the letter and cheque on the dining room table and caught sight of her dreaded to-do list.

She looked over it several times, her eyes blurry, her stomach nauseated by the feeling of failure. Finally, she spotted a do-able task– reorganizing her bookshelf. Both her and Jack were avid readers and their collections had intertwined, danced and toppled one over another. As she pulled out some of her favorites, Martin Eden, 1984 and Jane Eyre and ran her fingers over the covers, a small black notebook fell off the shelf. It must have been lodged between two of the books but not by chance. Ray leafed through the pages and saw that it was Jack’s handwriting in the notebook. He had certainly left the notebook there between Ray’s favorite books knowing that she would find it.

The black notebook had a beautiful leather cover and seeing Jack’s handwriting made Ray smile. She had seen him writing in it but never felt the need or urge to know what the content of the notebook was. As she read through it, it became clear to Ray that this was Jack’s bucket list. Ray scoffed at the notebook, closed it and opened her laptop.

After getting the bare minimum done for her work, Ray felt a pull towards the black notebook. She opened it again and started reading through the list. See Alaska? I could do that Ray said to herself. Float in the Dead Sea? Check! Climb Kilimanjaro? Pass. Go volcano boarding in Nicaragua? Maybe. Ray found herself daydreaming for the first time in a long time. That night her dreams were filled with beaches, bike paths, foreign languages and smiling faces. Jack’s smiling face.

The next day Ray reached for the notebook instead of the water bottle. She was eager to read through Jack’s thoughts and plans and to integrate them into her own. Her fingers tapped on the keyboard excitedly as she researched destinations and fleshed out her plans.

She put on their favorite Leonard Cohen song and drifted away in their memories. As she was singing along to the deep drumming voice, she glanced over at the dining room table. The cheque’s shiny hologram caught her eye.

Ray could use the money from the accident to make those plans a reality. She could not make things right, but she could make them better.

For Jack.

For her.

The sun was attempting to shine through her window, undiscouraged by the fact that the curtain was shut.

A small ray of light found a way in.