Boxed

by MR

“You gonna open the package or you just gonna stare at it? Cause if I’d known you were that easy to please I coulda given you an empty box wrapped in pretty paper.”

I look up and meet Ray’s eyes; he’s smiling, but I can feel the impatience radiating off his slender body. When it comes to presents, either his own or other people’s, Ray has all the self-control of a small boy in a toy store.

“I’m sorry, Ray.” I look at the package again and, unable to resist, lift it to my ear and shake it slightly, which makes him laugh.

“Ah, you’re not gonna figure out what it is that way.”

“Just following your example,” I reply, which earns me an even bigger smile.

It’s our first Christmas together as a couple (when I made a similar remark to him a few days ago, Ray looked at me perfectly straight-faced and said, “A couple of what?” I must confess to smacking him on the arm hard enough to make him wince). It is, in fact, a good many firsts: His first Christmas in Canada, our first holiday together since the adventure.

The beginning of what will be the rest of our lives.

Because Ray Kowalski loves me as much as I love him; enough to forget about Chicago and his old life and stay here. The concept of that depth of love and his willingness to sacrifice what he was for my sake occasionally makes me pinch myself just to be certain this isn’t all a wonderful dream. Thus far I haven’t woken; I’m beginning to believe I never will.

Christmas Day was spent with Maggie. We met her fiancée; a personable RCMP Constable named David Weston, for the first time, and consumed a meal that should have guaranteed we not have to eat again the rest of the week. When we finally said our good-byes and left (close to midnight), we were laden down with bowls and plates. Maggie insisted there was no way she could be expected to eat all the leftovers, and David had to be back at his posting by the 27th.

I managed to get Ray to agree that we not open our presents to each other until Boxing Day. It had been a hard bargain to drive, not helped any by the fact that he was somewhat disappointed when he found out Boxing Day didn’t involve actual boxing.

“Then why the hell do they call it Boxing Day?” He asked, clearly angered by what he perceived as deliberate linguistic trickery on Canada’s part. My explanation that several other countries also celebrated it, and that the boxing referred to was the boxing of presents, not fisticuffs, in no way mollified him. “That is dumb, Fraser. D-U-M, dumb! Why not just celebrate Christmas on the 26th if you’re not gonna open the presents till then?”

“Well not everyone observes it, Ray. A good many of my fellow Canadians do celebrate Christmas on the 25th. But the 26th is considered part of the Holiday season, and my grandparents always saved at least a couple of presents to be opened on the 26th.” In the end, I think it was the part about it being a childhood tradition that made him come around.

The gifts I gave him were practical; a thick black cable-knit sweater with denim patches on the elbows, his own Swiss Army knife (“Jeez, does this mean I’m a real Mountie?” He asked when he opened it), and an Arctic compass. I also splurged on several CD’s I knew he wanted; replacements for favorites left behind in Chicago.

His gifts to me were of more whimsical bent; a book of Persian poetry I’d mentioned reading (the original lost in the fire that destroyed my apartment), an extremely inappropriate pair of red and green plaid flannel boxer shorts (festooned with reindeer with Christmas lights wrapped around their antlers), and a small, roughly carved wolf that is supposed to represent Diefenbaker. Ray took up woodcarving as a hobby after we rebuilt my father’s cabin; something to occupy his hands when he’s not up to his elbows in the engine of someone’s snowmobile or ATV.

And now this final gift- which wasn’t under the tree with the rest but apparently hidden somewhere in our bedroom. That alone makes me wonder at its nature.

“It’s not another pair of boxer shorts,” he says, as if reading my mind, and I blush. “You can give me a private modeling of those later. Come-on, Frase, open it! I’m not gettin’ any younger.”

Carefully, I undo the wrapping and find myself holding a wooden box roughly the size and shape of a cigar box. Almost certainly hand-made, rubbed to a deep glossy finish, held closed with a tiny metal clasp on the front. A jewelry box perhaps? I look at Ray, frowning.

“Open it.”

Carefully, I undo the clasp and lift the lid.

The first thing I see is the folded piece of paper yellowed with age. The words TO BENTON are written on it in a careful scrawl I immediately recognize. My father’s handwriting.

I glance at Ray again, well and truly puzzled. “Read the note,” his voice is soft. “I’ll explain the rest of it afterwards.”

Feeling unaccountably nervous, I pick up the note and unfold it. I’ve seen my father’s writing so many times in his journals it seems strange to look at it like this, on a single, blue-ruled sheet with nothing else around it.

Benton:

I know I should have given this to you myself and for that I ask your forgiveness. If I were a better father (and less of a coward), I wouldn’t resort to such roundabout means.

Be that as it may, you deserve to have this box and what it contains. I often thought of leaving it with your Grandmother, but I must confess to a certain unease that she might not see fit to give it to you when the time was right. She was a good woman and she loved you, but she led a hard life and it wasn’t in her nature to be sentimental.

I know you believe that everything of your mother’s was lost in the fire that destroyed the cabin, and I must confess to encouraging that belief. I have selfishlessly kept this box to myself; save you, it was all of Caroline I had left. The time has come now for me to pass it on. It will, I hope, spark some long-buried memories. I know your memories of her are few and far between, nowhere near the store I have. There are days I’m not sure my greater remembrance doesn’t qualify as some sort of curse.

She loved you, Benton. Her death was a tragedy in and of itself, but the fact that it left you bereft of the one person who was capable of giving themself to you selflessly is as much a crime as how she died.

Look through this box and remember, son. Remember what little time you had with her. Perhaps you will understand better then why I became who I was.

Lovingly,
Your Father,
Robert B. Fraser

I look up at Ray, tears stinging my eyes. “How?” I manage to whisper.

He leaves his chair and comes over to sit beside me; one arm goes around my shoulder, and I automatically lean into him, burying my face in his neck. “Shh.” He begins to rub my back in slow circles. “When we were in Inuvik for the trial?” I nod. “Buck Frobisher told me about it. He wanted to give it to you, but he was afraid it’d be too much. Bad enough you found out Muldoon was responsible for your mom’s death like you did; he wasn’t sure you’d be able to handle this too.”

“Where did he get it?”

“Your dad gave it to him before he went off after Gerard. He told Buck that if he didn’t come back, he was to give it to you”

“That was nearly four years ago, Ray. Why didn’t he give it to me before this?”

Ray smoothes my hair. “Buck’s a good man, Frase, but he’s not always all there. You know that. He says he intended to give it to you when your dad was killed, but you up and disappeared after the funeral. By the time he found out you were in Chicago, he’d forgotten it again. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky he actually remembered it while we were in Inuvik.”

I lift my head from his shoulder, struggling for some measure of control over my emotions. “Did he know what was in it?”

“No. He knew it was connected to your parents, but he never opened it. Here,” He pulls my handkerchief out of my shirt pocket and hands it to me. “Gonna give yourself a headache. You want a couple aspirin?”

I nod, unable to trust myself to speak again just yet. Ray leans in and kisses the bridge of my nose, then gets up and goes into the kitchen.

Carefully I pick up the box and sit it on my lap, laying the letter from my father to one side. The inside is lined with yellowed tissue paper; the faint smell of roses still lingers, and I smile. One of the few clear memories I’ve ever had of my mother was her perfume, something light and floral that smelled like roses in bloom. I fold the tissue back.

The first thing to catch my eye is a photograph. Obviously taken indoors, though it’s impossible to tell where, as the background is merely a mass of jumbled shadows. A slender, dark-haired woman shown holding a small boy perhaps a year or so of age. The woman is smiling, though the boy, dressed in a pair of corduroy overalls and a striped shirt, looks to be on the verge of tears.

I turn it over. Caroline and Benton, Christmas 1961.

I turn it back and stare at it in wonder. In all my life, the only picture I’ve ever seen of my mother and I was the one father gave me that Christmas in Chicago. I always wondered where he’d gotten it, as he’d told me all the pictures of my mother and I as a child had been destroyed when the cabin burned.

Ray’s back, holding out two aspirin and a glass of water. “He lied to me, Ray. He knowingly and deliberately lied to me.”

Ray hands me the water and aspirin and waits for me to swallow them, then puts the glass on the table and sinks down beside me. “Yeah, he did, Ben.”

I know my anger is unreasonable, directed as it is at a man who is dead and buried, but I can’t seem to fight it. “How could he do that? How could he lie to me about something this important?” And another piece of the puzzle clicks into place. “You read the letter, didn’t you?” He nods. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t want to give you something that would hurt you worse than you’ve already been hurt.”

His ready admission only makes me angrier. “When did you read it, Ray? You said Buck told you about the box during the trial in Inuvik. Yet I know for a fact you didn’t have it with you during our search for Franklin’s hand.”

“I read it after we got back. When you agreed to go on the adventure, I gave the box to Buck and asked him to keep it for us while we were gone. I read the note a week ago, when it finally arrived here from whatever Godforsaken part of Freezerland he’s in right now. I wasn’t even sure it’d arrive in time for Christmas; it took me three months to track down where they’d posted him.”

“Did you know about the pictures?”

“No. I read the note and decided that whatever else was in the box was yours. I’m sorry if the fact I read it upsets you, but it’s time for you to let this thing go, Benton Buddy.”

“What thing?”

“That.” He gestures at the box and my father’s letter. “He screwed up, Frase. It was a major league mistake and he knew it, but at least he had the balls to write the note and give the box to Buck. God alone knows what would’ve happened to it if he’d had it with him when Gerard killed him.”

The thought of Gerard getting his hands on the box dissipates some of my anger. I know that if he’d gotten hold of it, he would’ve used it as a weapon during our final encounter. “Couldn’t he at least have mentioned it to me when I was in Chicago?” I told Ray about my father’s ghost while we were on the trail. I’m still not sure why it so surprised me that he accepted my explanation so readily. He’s been accepting things about me readily since the moment we met in the squad room.

Now he shrugs. “Maybe he forgot about it. You said he disappeared after you captured Muldoon and you haven’t seen him since, right? So maybe he didn’t mention it while you were in Chicago because he didn’t want to have to face what he’d done.”

Which is, of course, precisely the sort of thing father would do. “Only I could have a father who’d lie to me from both sides of the grave, Ray.”

He puts an arm around me and pulls me close. “Some people don’t even get that much, Ben.” I know he’s thinking of Damian Kowalski and the 10 years of silent condemnation he endured, for no other reason than because he chose to become a police officer. Dead thought he was, I knew my father better by the time he left than I ever had when he was alive.

“So. You gonna see what else is in it?”

I lay the first picture aside and, one at a time, carefully remove the photographs and mementoes hidden in the folds of the tissue. Only gradually do I realize what a rare and precious gift I’ve received.

Because here is the original of my parent’s wedding picture; dad handsome and stalwart in his full-dress uniform, mother wearing a linen suit and carrying a small bouquet of wildflowers. I’ve seen the picture before, but only as a poorly made copy hanging on my grandparent’s bedroom wall. The original is hand-tinted; the bright red of father’s serge muted to match the pale blue of mother’s dress.

Three wild daisies pressed flat inside a first anniversary card. Small clusters of dark-colored hair in an envelope with BENTON’S 1ST HAIRCUT printed on the outside. A yellowing sheet of plain white paper folded in half, unfolding to reveal scribbles of blue and brown, with a yellow, vaguely oval shape suspended between then; written in one corner are the words Ben’s picture of the sky and sun, March 1963.

“I would’ve been three,” I say to Ray. It’s odd to see something you drew as a child but have no memory of doing lying before you. I surely must’ve drawn other pictures; why did she save this particular one?

“Oh, man,” Ray pulls a wallet-sized picture out from under the drawing. “Do I recognize this or what?” He holds it up and I find myself confronted with serious looking dark-haired boy in a plaid flannel shirt.

“I was five, my first day in Kindergarten. Mom cut my hair the night before, and they drove me there on the dogsled.”

“They butched you, ”Ray snickers, and I find myself nodding, both amused and saddened by the memory that has returned unbidden.

“I hated it.” I reach out a finger to touch my own face. “I thought it looked awful, and between that and the fact they wouldn’t let mother stay, I spent the whole day crying. We lived in such an isolated area I’d never had anyone my own age to play with. We only went into town to get supplies and go to church on Sunday, if the weather was good. I doubt I’d been away from my mother for longer than an hour since I was born.”

“Must’ve been a shock.”

“That’s putting it mildly.” I can’t believe I actually forgot that day, or that remembered emotions could hurt so much. “When dad came to get me after school, I told him I was never going back again.”

“What happened?”

“He decided I’d become too dependent on mother and needed to “toughen up.”

“Jesus Christ, Frase, you were a five-year-old kid, not a candidate for the U.S. Marines!”

“He wouldn’t let mother come with us the next morning. I seem to recall he essentially had to tie me to the dogsled to keep me on it.” And why am I tearing up over something that happened nearly 35 years ago? “I eventually adjusted, though I must confess to having no idea how to interact with the other children. But I never stopped worrying about mom being alone. When dad was out on patrol, she used to take me to and from school herself, and I’d spend the whole day worrying that something bad was going to happen because I wasn’t there to take care of her.”

Ray’s arms envelope me, and I allow myself the comfort and warmth they provide. “Poor kid. You already had the weight of the world on your shoulders, didn’t you?”

I sniffle and clear my throat. “I could never make them understand how I felt, how afraid I was for her when she was alone.”

“And when Muldoon killed her you were convinced it was all your fault. Christ, Ben, it’s no wonder you repressed the memory of her death. It was probably the only way you could deal with the guilt. But listen to me,” He puts his hand under my chin and tilts my head up, so we’re eye to eye. “It wasn’t your fault she died. Your father expected you to act like an adult when you were barely out of diapers. That’s way too much responsibility to put on a kid, Frase. I don’t care if you’re in the butt-fuck middle of nowhere with five foot of snow on the ground. You were still just a little boy.”

“I thought that was why he left me with my grandparents, why he never came to see me. And when he was there, he never paid any attention to me. It wasn’t until after he died that I realized the reason he was so obsessed with bringing Muldoon to justice was because the guilt was eating him alive too.”

“Come’er.” Ray leans back on the couch, pulling me down on top of him so my face is resting on his chest. “The problem with adults is that they don’t realize kids aren’t dummies. You were a smart kid, Ben. You knew something awful had happened, but everyone around you pretended like things were fine, so you had to pretend too. And finally, you pretended for so long you honestly forgot what’d happened. But the guilt…the guilt was still there inside you. And it colored everything in your life from then on. And because of that, nothing worked out. The guilt was always there, waiting for something bad to happen so it could say ‘I told you so.’ Right?”

“I’m honestly surprised I managed to get into the RCMP, Ray. Cadet’s do have to undergo a fair amount of psychological testing.”

“Yeah, but by then you’d buried it so deeply I doubt it would’ve shown up. And you were the great Bob Fraser’s son; I think they expected you to believe you were Superman.”

Sadly, he’s right. “Ray? I think, perhaps, that looking at the items in the box should be done gradually, over a period of time. What do you think?”

“I can’t believe how stupid the adults around you were, that they never saw what you were going through.” He leans down and kisses the top of my head. “And I think you’re right; you’ve got enough crap to work through as is. Maybe once you get your head cleared you can look a little deeper, huh?” I nod. “You realize, of course, that I’m going to keep telling you that you’re a good man and more than worthy of being loved for a long, long time?”

I raise myself up on my elbows and look at him; he’s smiling. “How long?”

“Umm, could take a long time. Forever, maybe. Lucky for you I don’t have anything more pressing to do, huh?”

I smile back and lay my head on his chest again, listening to the steady beating of his heart. “Incredibly lucky, Ray. Luckier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

FIN

Home