Charlie
When I heard Ralph had died I felt a weight in my stomach like I had swallowed my own heart. I had known the cantankerous old man since I first moved to Ginger Falls as a nervous stuttering 13 year old. On the first day of our family’s arrival, before we had unpacked a single box, my mother proceeded to drag me from house to house until we were introduced with each of our new neighbors.
“A good first impression is key,” she would twitter while swinging her basket of muffins back and forth at a hectic pace. It was bribery baking. The same routine repeated in each town we stayed. She would stay up all night making every treat from scratch with a pinch of her favorite ingredient, eccentricity.
When we reached the last house the sun was beginning to set and it cast an orange glow onto the shingled cottage. I instantly sensed something odd about this place. The usual pansies and flower pots that graced most of the porches I’d seen that day were replaced with tin can structures. Dozens of rusty empty cans were welded together to create towering monuments scattered across the yard. I imagined they were dedicated to the Gods of string beans and tomato soup. The gnarled oak door appeared hand carved and only scarcely functional. After one quick jolt of my mother’s knuckles against the oak door, a brown face leathered from harsh sun lurched at us. My mother gave a sharp intake of breath and I nearly fell from the porch at our neighbor’s swiftness. After climbing back to my feet, I noticed his long gray eyebrows tangled and knotted in irritation. Struggling to stand upright, with long gangly limbs and a lollipop head, I must have made an uncanny resemblance to a marionette and the weathered face gave a gruff laugh. A sound so low and raspy it could have easily been confused with a growl.
“Well good evening there,” said my mother steadily, after she’d had a moment to collect herself. A calm practiced smile spread across her otherwise placid face.
“We’re new to the neighborhood and, I thought you might enjoy some fresh baked brownies.”
The rest of the old man’s body continued to hide behind the heavy door. It was opened just enough for his face to peer out, giving his head an odd decapitated, floating appearance. The face snorted into its peppered mustache and the door began to creak shut. My mother, never one to lose a fight, produced the magic term.
“Muffins!” she proclaimed, “Would you like some of those instead? I have far too many of them, poppy seed wasn’t a very big hit this time.”
The creaking came to a halt. I saw a few small layers of skin wrinkle above his eyes as my mother passed the basket full of them through the tiny opening. We waited a second to see if the basket might return. It didn’t.
“Come along Charles,” she ordered once her victory was secure. “I think that went well,” she cooed in a voice I’d come to recognize as self satisfaction.
She had shelled out cake, brownies, cookies and every last unpopular muffin from inside in her basket, her work was done.
As we turned to go I took a last backwards glance at the orange cottage and witnessed the single most surprising part of our visit. The weathered face winked at me then took a large bite from his poppy seed muffin.
Lacy
After hearing Ralph had died in his sleep the night before, a knot formed in my throat and my mind went blank. My thoughts were lost and my usual racing internal commentary was switched off like a radio. I sat in one spot at my kitchen table for 30 minutes before realizing I hadn’t changed position. Then his face came flooding back and memories began to pour like water.
My first memory was of Ralph welding in his studio. He was working on the most bizarre fantastic sailboat statue made with fused pop cans. He had used shimmering green and blue beach glass he had been collecting for months for the waves. Ralph’s helmet was down and he had a blow torch in his hand with purple flames and yellow sparks flying in all directions. When he saw me watching, he lifted his metal shield to reveal a harshly tanned face crevassed and wrinkled with thick tough skin. At first his wild appearance frightened me. Then, In one slow careful movement he began to push each
wrinkle around his mouth upward into a wise smile. The longest and deepest lines framing his grin like parenthesis.
Ralph was the closest thing to a father I had ever known. His wife, Laura, and my Aunt Peggy, who raised me, were lifelong friends. Born in Quebec and fluent in French he began to teach me when I was 5. I would take lessons once a week and speak it casually with him whenever I went over to the cottage. I remember sitting in his lap, my head pressed against his chest listening to the low rumble of his flowing lyrical voice.
“Tu parle francais tres bien ma petite,” he would say. You speak French very well my little one.
“Merci beaucoup,” I would mumble blushing.
Ralph always dreamed of returning to his home country. When he tucked me in at night, with my favorite orange and white quilt that smelt of wood-chips and fresh herbs, he would whisper to me stories about our travels through Franco-Quebec. We would ride bikes along the thunderous coast and see that tallest, densest, and oldest trees in the world. As I drifted to sleep I imagined us wandering the wet pavement of a vast unfamiliar city. I felt safe knowing Ralph was there to hold my hand until we found a suitable café. Then we would sip hot cocoa and dunk as many glazed croissants as I desired.
My favorite part of our visits to Ginger Falls was after our lessons were through and the sun was just beginning to burn the tops of the cedars a brilliant auburn. Ralph would read aloud “Le Petit Prince” by Saint-Exupéry. Even though I only understood a bit at first and neither my Aunt Peggy nor Laura could speak much French, we all took great joy in listening to the cascading rise and fall of his deep melodious speech.
A Funeral
Charlie lovingly placed a rusted tin star on the dewy grass among the white lilies and yellow tulips encircling a head stone which read, Ralph Viard. Although Charlie had deviated from junk art and worked with new materials now, his first tin can molded into a five pointed star would forever be one of his favorite works.
Ralph was the inspiration behind every one of Charlie’s pieces. He was Charlie’s mentor, his friend, and a level head when his mother’s obsessions became too much. The day after meeting Charlie, Ralph had invited him back to his studio to watch him work. Fascinated by the art, Charlie quickly became an adept apprentice. He channeled all his emotions into his work and his pieces thrived from it. Charlie was making a decent living after only a few years out of school and his future looked hopeful. Many important galleries were interesting in showing his statues.
Tangled in his own memories Charlie almost didn’t recognize Lacy Reid when she approached him. The little brunette who used to run around the studio belting “Le Vie en Rose” and muttering in French to herself, had matured dramatically. He hadn’t seen her since he was 18 and leaving for college. He was struck how her cute brown ringlets had developed into smooth thick curls draping over her shoulders and loosely falling against her back. Charlie remembered how Ralph and Lacy adored each other, always chatting in there own private language. He realized she might be the only other person who could understand how he felt after losing Ralph.
Lacy’s eyes were swollen and wet from tears but she pushed a brave smile when she saw Charlie. She was shocked by his appearance as well. He was taller now and not quite as long limbed. He seemed more confident and relaxed in his own body, unlike the clumsy teenager she remembered.
“Its good to see you again,” she spoke in a quite tone, not positive he recognized her.
“You too Lacy, its been a long time. You look, well, fantastic.”
She gave a feeble laugh, “I feel awful.”
“Yea,” Charlie’s eyes fell to his shoes.
Seeing Lacy had temporally pushed Ralph from his mind. Now he felt slightly guilty for being so happy to see her.
“I really miss him already,” she said flatly.
“I know.” Their eyes locked for a moment.
After the funeral when the guests had returned to the cottage for the wake, Lacy and Charlie meet up with Laura, Ralph’s wife. To most of her guests she seemed in surprisingly good shape, though both Charlie and Lacy knew her well enough to see she was being brave. After some idle chat about their lives Laura pulled them both in the back room to be alone.
“You both know Ralph loved you tremendously,” she began.
“And that you two were like children to him and I both.”
Charlie watched tears well up in Lacy’s deep brown eyes. He wished he could hold her and comfort her, but he lacked the courage and settled on lightly touching her arm.
“Ralph had known for sometime that he was sick, he keep it from everyone,
even me”, her eyes began to wander “But I pulled you in here for these, he must have put this together months ago.”
Laura turned around and shuffled through draws filled with mountainous piles of paper. Charlie and Lacy exchanged nervous glances.
When she turned to them she was holding two envelops. Charlie recognized Ralph’s handwriting, and eagerly ripped it open the instant it touched his palm. Inside he found a copy of Ralph’s will leaving all his equipment, his tools and the majority of his work to Charlie.
“But… but I couldn’t possibly take all this,” he stammered. “This was his life’s work.”
“No one loved his sculptures like you did, Charlie” Laura smiled, “he knew that and I know that, it belongs with you. No one else.”
Lacy didn’t want to open her package in front of Charlie or Laura. Unlike Charlie she dreaded the vanilla envelope that bore her name in Ralph’s handwriting. Lacy wished desperately to be back home away from the cold back room, away the cottage, and far away from Ralph’s vanilla envelope. She knew reading his letter or just seeing his loopy handwriting again would launch another salty bath of tears. Standing there in the silent back room, with Charlie and Laura’s eyes on her screaming in blatant anticipation she knew she had no choice. Lacy slowly and apprehensively pealed back the flap of the envelope and the three spectators watched two brightly colored pieces of paper flutter toward the ground. She knew before they hit the wood paneled floor, they were plane tickets to Quebec.
Will you come with me? She was as shocked with her words as he was.
“What?” Charlie took a moment to study the tickets and then Lacy’s suddenly solid expression.
“Come with me to Quebec,” she spoke louder and with more confidence this time.
“I know it’s crazy and unexpected and random after all these years but…”
“Wait,” he put his index finger over his mouth.
“Of course I’ll come.”
Charlie smiled and Lacy instantly knew she had done the right thing by asking him along. She felt a cool wave of relief wash over her for at that moment she saw a wrinkle above one of Charlie’s eyes that could have been Ralph’s.
