Benny & Ray

Epilogue

 

 

Carolina had a vague recollection of that summer day when her folks were married, so long ago it seemed only the vaguest wisp of a dream.  She remembered them standing in bare feet, facing each other and smiling and holding hands, as the sun sank low in the sky over Provincetown Massachusetts.  The sky was lit up a blazing orange. 

 

She wore a long white dress and a garland of flowers and ribbons in her hair.  Her feet were bare too.  She wanted to go and look for starfish, to run and play in the water, but Zia hung on to her hand tightly as she held on to her little velvet pillow.

 

That weekend, she, Nonna, Zia and Uncle Damon had stayed with Uncle Paul and Aunt Emelia and she was finally permitted to play on the beach, and run as much as she wanted to. 

 

Her folks had flown to Italy the next morning.  Their honeymoon. 

 

Nonna took her home the next day, back to the big house on Octavia.    

 

It seemed like Dad and Papa were gone for an eternity, to her younger self.  They finally returned, loaded down with presents for her. They never left her for so long again. 

 

Carolina closed Dad’s journal, gently, and returned it to her nightstand.  She had stayed up all night, rereading it from cover to cover.  She hadn’t intended to, but she couldn’t put it down. 

 

She had nothing to do but rest these days, no place to be, so it hardly mattered that she was up all night.  The doctor had ordered bed rest for her, as this pregnancy had been a difficult one.  Her husband was good to her, though, and had kept the house clean, and the children fed and in clean clothes for the past month, while she grew larger everyday.  Carolina squirmed and stretched gingerly, careful of her round belly.  This baby was pressing on her bladder in an uncomfortable way, and she took her hand and pressed up on him, to get him to move.   

 

She leaned back in bed, and pulled the comforter up to her chin.  Though May, the mornings were still cool.  It had been a cold and wet spring. She wore her winter flannels still, to ward off the chill.  Though it was now mid morning, the sky was dark gray and heavy with thick storm clouds.

 

Reflecting on Dad’s journal, Carolina was feeling restless, saddened, and a little bitter.  In her mind’s eye, she flitted over bits of text she had read these past few days, eloquent passages from dozens and dozens of her dad’s journals.  He wrote beautifully.  So much of it made her laugh with delight and weep with grief.  There was so much about her dad that she had never known, so much about both of them that had been a mystery to her.  But now, the love and fierce passion between Dad and Papa leapt from those pages, and was nearly palpable. Carolina was surprised that he had kept so much from her, even after Papa died.  He certainly had the opportunity; the two of them grew powerfully close after Papa passed away. 

 

Throughout her childhood, Carolina had felt a certain restraint from Dad, a certain holding back of emotion that she never quite understood.  As a teenager, she sometimes felt frustrated by Dad’s lack of demonstrativeness and often wondered if he loved her and her sister.   Papa was just the opposite.  Papa had been her most fervent and passionate friend growing up.  He had an unlimited supply of hugs and kisses for her and Darcy.  But boy, when Papa was mad, you knew about it. They fought like badgers when Carie was a teenager; she had the infamous Vecchio temper, too.

 

Papa and Dad were so different; Carie marveled at how well they got along.  She wondered what Dad saw in Papa. Thought they were an strange mismatch.

 

Now she knew better. It was all there in his journals…the joyful coming together*, the blazing passion, Papa’s affair, their separation, their coming together again. She wished that Dad had felt that he could have let her in a little more.  

 

She’d never known anything about them being separated for an entire summer.  Nobody breathed a word about that. 

 

Dad had written about the terrible crime that had been committed against Uncle Tommy**, and the act of vigilante justice that Papa had carried out.  Now she understood why for so many years, Dad made Papa get up at the crack of dawn once a week to do community service.  Papa did his penitence without complaint.  When in fact Dad told him that he had served his time, repaid his debt to society,  Papa continued to go down to the homeless shelter, or the food pantry once or twice a month to help out.  And Dad loved him for it.

 

Carolina closed her eyes, lay back, and reflected on her Dad’s life.

 

She knew that Dad had been a Canadian Mountie; there were quite a few photos of him around the house, wearing his red serge.  He had retired from that before she was born.

 

She did remember when he had been a police detective, before his career-ending, near-fatal gunshot injury when she was ten years old, and Darcy was three. They had been so scared that they were going to lose him. 

 

What stood out to her the most about Dad’s life were his years of social work in the community. He did so many people so much good; from his police work, to his social work, and later, by his service on the Council of the city that had become his.  Once the news of Dad’s passing got out, she had been contacted by an amazing Diaspora of people from all over the country whose lives had been touched by him, almost from the moment he left his native Canada and touched down at O'Hare, clad in red serge and Sam Browne.

 

Dad and Papa were happy for many, many years together, the most joyous being when Dad semi-retired. He left his teaching post at the university, devoting just a few short hours a week to his city councilman duties. 

 

The rest of the time, Dad doted on Papa.  Sometimes, Dad dragged Papa the library, where he loudly complained the entire afternoon, but Dad contended it was only so Papa could “keep up appearances” and that Papa had actually learned to love reading.

 

Summers, Carolina or Darcy would drop in on them a couple of times a week to find the two of them happily gardening together out back, or simply sitting underneath the old oak tree, speaking softly to one another in Italian. 

 

They finally got to travel a lot, too, to Italy and Portugal and Greece and Scotland and Wales and England and France, and of course, to the little cabin in Yellowknife.  Dad even got Papa all the way up to Tuk once, before Papa grew ill.

 

Papa had been gone for ten years now, killed by the cancer that had stalked him as a younger man.  And looking back, Carolina realized that Papa’s cancer killed Dad in a lot of ways, too.  He grew so quiet and so still when Papa died, and his skin turned a kind of ashen gray shortly after Papa drew his last breath.  Dad developed a permanent stoop to his broad shoulders almost from the moment that Papa’s spirit fled his body.  He stopped smiling.

 

Carie did not see him smile again until she bore him a grandchild, who they called Little Ray. Little Ray was just like his namesake, even from the beginning.  Inside of her, he had kicked and poked and tossed and turned.  He had burst out of her, screaming in rage, a month earlier than he was due.    

 

Dad took her and her little son out to the stables on his fifth birthday, and gave him his first riding lesson.  They both laughed with delight as Ray galloped in circles around his Grandfather.

 

Darcy moved back into the house with Dad his final years, to keep him company.  Carie had offered the spare bedroom in her own house, with her rambunctious family.  But Dad had declined. He preferred to remain in his quiet little bungalow, with his books and his music, in the house that the two of them had made together.  Dad preferred to remain in the bedroom he shared with his husband for so many years. Papa’s suits always hung in the closet, next to Dad’s, as though he expected him home at any time.   

 

One day, Dad frightened Darcy by initiating a conversation with Papa.  Later, the doctors said it was dementia, but it didn’t make sense; Dad was clear-headed otherwise.   On occasion he would converse with his old wolf Diefenbaker, but mostly it was Papa that he talked to. 

 

Darcy and Carolina witnessed Dad’s passing last Friday at sunrise.  His daughters held his hands.  He wore the most beautiful and ethereal smile on his still-handsome face. His gray-blue eyes gazed into infinity, and he drew a breath, chuckled and whispered “Yes, Ray. Very much so.”  His eyes then closed, and he exhaled ever so softly… ever so gently…ever so quietly.

 

Carolina had decided last night that she would take an extended leave from the hospital to finally write that novel that she had been telling her husband about for the past five years.  She had been waiting all along, for divine inspiration, and it seemed as though, she had finally found it within the lines of Dad’s journals.

 

On her bedside lay the brushed-silver name plate that had adorned Dad’s office desk at the university.  She picked it up and caressed it, her fingertips delving into the grooves of the letters:  Dr. Benton F. Vecchio her fingers spelled out.  The silver was a little tarnished now.  It had been a gift from Papa, presented to him the morning of his first day of teaching at the U of C.

 

She sighed.  Anna Carolina Vecchio pulled her laptop from her nightstand, drew open the lid, and typed:

 

Ray Vecchio turned the corner and spotted the Stetson immediately, floating serenely ahead of him through the rushing crowd like a canvas sail on Lake Michigan. The knapsack was fastened securely to the broad back and the man looked for all of the world like an overgrown boy scout, returning from overnight camp.

Something in Ray knotted sharply, and he grinned. "Hey, Ben-NY!"

The dark head instantly turned, eyebrow raised, tongue perched in the corner of the mouth. Ben Fraser gracefully maneuvered through the crowd, weaving his way back to his best friend. "Ray! You’re here."

"’Course, Benny." But he grinned. "What’d ya expect?" Ray slung his thin arm around his friend, propelling them in the direction from which Ray had come.

"Well, by the way you sounded on the phone…." Ben searched his friend’s profile briefly as Ray rushed them through the station. "…I didn’t expect to find you here. I thought something was wrong." In fact, Ben had not slept much the night after that odd phone call, curled on his side, tense with anxiety.

"Nah, nah, nah, Benny. Everything’s fine."

"So there’s nothing wrong?"

"Well, uh, it was touch and go for a while there, but…certain plans fell through, and so, uh…it turned out that I didn’t need to do what I thought I had to do after all." Ray slapped Ben’s back before pulling away.

"So, everything’s fine, then. There’s nothing wrong?" Ben sounded so anxious that Ray actually stopped.

"Benny. Nothin’s wrong." Ray pulled Ben aside, and faced him. "In fact, everything’s all right now." Ray scanned his friend’s open face, the cool gray eyes gazing back with concern. Ray suddenly got the uncanny feeling he’d dodged a bullet. He shivered as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. No. It was probably just the place. After all, last time they were here, Ben was nearly dead by Ray’s own gun. God. He’d never have forgiven himself if…Don’t think about that. Ray had helped lift Ben’s bleeding body from the floor.

"So…nothing’s wrong? Nothing a’tall?" Ray knew Ben was fishing for details.

"How many times I gotta say it, Benny?" He said it a little sharper than he meant to.

Ben fixed him with a no-nonsense stare.

Ray dropped his head and sighed. "Look, it’s confidential, okay? Top secret government stuff. I can’t say anymore than that, and you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, anyway. It was a half-baked idea from the get-go; nobody would have fallen for it. It was just that clown Ford tryin’ to get rid of me once and for all. Feds, I tell ya." Ray started moving again, propelling his friend through the terminal. Once they got out of the main traffic flow, Ray slowed, but kept a guiding hand in the small of Ben’s back, steering him to the right.

"Come on," Ray continued, grinning and putting Ben’s mind at ease. "The wolf’s waiting. I got him a ‘welcome back to civilization’ doughnut." Ray patted his jacket pocket with his free hand. Ben heard the distinct sound of paper bag being crinkled, kraft paper, waxed , he surmised from its pitch.

"Oh, Ray, Ray, Ray. He’s finally started to get back in shape. Don’t spoil him again. "

"And I guess what else they had at the gift shop?" Ray continued like he hadn’t heard. "Chamomile tea."

"Diefenbaker doesn’t drink tea, Ray. In fact, I believe he prefers coffee." He burst into giggles.

"The tea’s for you, moron." But Ray laughed. His hand slid back up to Ben’s shoulder.

"So how was Canada, Benny?"

Ben thought for a moment and shrugged. "Well, Ray," Ben said with sudden melancholy, thinking of the beautiful but empty wilderness, "Canada’s Canada."

Ray said only, "I’m glad you’re back, Benny," squeezing his shoulder, understanding his friend’s abrupt mood change. Ben never had to explain things to Ray. Never. Ray just understood.

"Oh, and by the way, you owe me one," Ray said loudly, letting his hand drop again, quickly slipping back into Chicago Tough Guy.

"Alright, Ray."

"Frannie wanted to tag along with her own little version of the welcome wagon, if you know what I mean, but I bribed her out of coming," he explained. "Well, more like threatened her, actually. Same difference."

"Oh dear. Thank you kindly, Ray."

They silently made their way to baggage claim, and immediately spotted a large dog, or rather, wolf cage, being wheeled into the claim area. A pair of bright, inquisitive eyes peered out at Ray.

"Hey there, Fur Face," he called. "Miss me?"

"Yes, Ray." Ben answered for his wolf. "Very much so." Ben gazed at Ray as though he hadn’t seen the man for a year. Ray thought he’d never seen him look so vulnerable, so unguarded.

Ray finally did something he had been trying not to do since catching sight of that ridiculous hat. He kissed Ben’s left cheek, and then his right, before clasping him in a tight embrace. "Next time, I’m comin’ wit ya, like it or not," he murmured into his shoulder. Detective Ray Vecchio couldn’t describe how good he felt, having his best bud and his best wolf back home where they belonged.

"I’d like that Ray," Ben said softly back. Dief woofed in agreement.

"Welcome home, Benny," Ray said. "Welcome home."

Carolina needed a break.  She saved her work and put the laptop aside, lay back and stretched. 

The baby delivered a swift kick in the general direction of her liver.  With a kick like that, she knew he was going to be yet another horseman, like her Dad, and like her Grand Dad Fraser.  She put her hands to her belly, feeling a foot poking her side.  Carolina thought that she might name her baby boy Benton. She smiled.

 

 

 

END OF CHAPTER AND END OF SERIES.

Benny and Ray