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Nineteen ninety-nine was now in the running for the title of the worst Christmas in the Vecchio household that Frannie could remember. That was including the Christmas when she was six, when Pop had given Ray a black eye, and Ma had thrown him out of the house, until he’d reappeared too drunk to land a punch on anybody right about the time Uncle Antonio was trying unsuccessfully to carve the turkey.
Okay, nobody had tried to hit anyone this time, but Ray had visibly sulked the entire day, leaving it to Tony to do the honours with the turkey, with about as much Christmas spirit as the Ghost of Christmas Future. He’d been gone for a whole month with barely any explanation, and then blown back into the house late on Christmas Eve, meeting them all coming back from midnight Mass, barely talking. It seemed like he’d somehow got back into town and managed to break up with Stella right away. Or maybe the other way around; Frannie had had to go pick up the family presents from Stella’s apartment, and she’d pretty much said she was breaking up with him. But in her shoes Frannie would have said the same thing, so it didn’t seem as pathetic. Anyway, he’d been even more of a sad-sack than he had after Ange and he were finally done. He’d barely come out of his room since. He’d even called in sick to work a couple of days.
Frannie had felt sorry for him for the first day or two, and then she’d tried telling him to snap out of it, and then she’d given up. Her romantic prospects were eternally blighted – she still couldn’t believe that after four years Fraser had just abandoned her for Canada like that, and then decided to come back. Ugh, men. In comparison Ray had nothing to complain about. She didn’t know how he’d messed it up with Stella, but he must have done something. Stella had dated him for nearly a whole year now, after all, and been round for dinner plenty of times. If she was going to be put off by something silly, she already would have been.
Anyway, Frannie simply did not have time to baby him, so she had gone out with her friends for New Year’s and was still just a little bit hungover at three o’clock on the first of January. Ma had actually got up and gone to church, and taken the kids with her, thank God (and Mary, of course), and then there’d been some plan to go around to Aunt Daniela’s house. Tony and Maria were feeling about the same way Frannie was because they’d stayed home, where all the Vecchio cousins and aunts and uncles had descended last night. Frannie had meant to do some of the dishes when she’d woken up but Ma had got there first; you couldn’t stop her. Ray – she had no idea; she hadn’t seen him all day.
She was just in the kitchen figuring out if she was up to a mid-afternoon snack when there was a knock at the front door. She was in her robe, with her hair looking like a bird's nest and no makeup on, but who cared; it was probably just a cousin who’d left something behind (there was a little pile of items near the front door). Oh, or maybe it was Stella. She had called, Ma had said. That might be just what Ray needed to knock him out of his funk. She’d almost called her, but Ma had said not to, that Raimondo should have his space if he’d asked for it. Nobody ever said things like that about her, hah. If only. If Frannie had tried languishing in her room for a whole week her nephews Carlo and Joseph would have been sent in to get her out by jumping on her bed. It had happened before, and all she’d been doing was having a sleep-in. They were lucky she liked kids.
Frannie yelled “Coming,” and then shrieked when she actually opened the front door, because it was Fraser, and here she was looking like she didn’t care about herself at all, which she did, just not at home on the afternoon of New Year’s Day when she hadn’t got to bed until five am. It was Fraser, unshaven, dressed like a lumberjack – smelling like a lumberjack, in Frannie’s opinion – and heartbreakingly serious-faced. When he saw her, he blinked and said “Francesca. Happy New Year. Where’s Ray?”
But he didn’t smile, not really.
“Uh,” Frannie said, taken aback. “Uh. In his room, I think?”
“Thank you kindly,” he said, and shouldered right past her like she wasn’t even there, headed for the stairs.
“Fraser!” she said, reproachfully. “That’s all you have to say?”
He turned on the second step. “I’m sorry, I need to speak with him quite urgently.”
“How can it be urgent when he’s been sulking in his room all week?” She realised suddenly that Fraser had been in Canada. “Wait. Why are you here? Aren’t you and Ray spending the holidays with your sister?”
“Yes, we – well, Stella called,” he said, as if this explained anything at all.
“Stella…Kowalski? Called you? In Canada? On New Year’s Day?”
“Oh, no. Two days ago. It isn’t really possible to get here much faster. But if you’ll excuse me, Francesca…”
He didn’t even wait for her to reply, just turned and started up the stairs again, two at a time.
“Okay then!” she called after him. After a moment curiosity got the better of her, and she went up the first couple of stairs, but she stopped when the insistent noise of knocking echoed down, followed by “Ray? Ray! I know you’re in there!”
There was silence, then something she couldn’t hear, and then the sound of a door creaking open. Whatever Fraser said next Frannie couldn’t make out, but it sounded stern, and not very friendly.
She didn’t want to go up there if Fraser sounded like that. He was always so calm and so polite. This was like listening to a stranger.
“What is going on?” Maria said, coming into the hallway. “I thought Ma and the kids were still out –”
“It’s Fraser,” Frannie said, pulling her robe around her, listening to the rise and fall of angry voices.
Maria stared at her, baffled. “Constable Fraser? Ray’s friend?”
“Corporal Fraser,” Frannie corrected her automatically.
“What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know,” Frannie said, feeling like she should go up and also like her feet were locked in place.
“Why the hell is it your business?” Ray yelled, clearly audible even from down here. “As if Kowalski gives a fuck about –”
“You are coming if I have to throw you over the saddle of the horse I do not have!” Fraser yelled back, with the kind of tone that brooked absolutely no argument.
“Oh, I am not getting involved in that,” Maria said, and went back towards the living room. Frannie hesitated for a long moment, and then followed her.
She really should have called Stella. Ray sounded so angry. He wasn’t Pop, of course not, but everybody in the family – everybody of Ma’s generation – said that Pop hadn’t been Pop, not to speak of, until after she was born. They tried not to say it where she could hear, or they said it in Siciliano, which she didn’t speak and only understood sometimes, but she’d heard them all the same. It didn’t make much sense, because Ray had been the one he’d taken everything out on, but they all agreed. So people could change, couldn’t they. And Ray had changed, after Vegas. Maybe not even changed that much. There’d been Guy Rankin, after all.
She busied herself with the fridge – she needed to eat something, hunger was making her fret – and by the time she’d found some leftovers that she liked the look of and weren’t going to make her feel too guilty, she heard footsteps on the stairs. She couldn’t help putting down the plate and going back down the hallway.
Ray was following Fraser. Neither of them looked like they’d had a real fight, instead of just an argument. Fraser still looked very stern, and Ray looked as hang-dog as she’d ever seen him, rumpled around the edges. She was pretty sure those were yesterday’s clothes, and he hadn’t shaved.
“Hey,” she said to him, deliberately ignoring Fraser. She didn’t want to talk to him right now. “Are you – Ray, you’re not okay.”
He laughed, looking at the floor. “No. I gotta go and make things right, Frannie. I don’t know when I’ll be back, okay? I mean, I might be late, or – not like, I’ll be gone for days again. Don’t let anybody worry about where I’ve gone.”
“I – okay,” Frannie said. “Um, give Stella our love?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Yeah, I can do that.”
So Fraser was making him go and talk to Stella. That was – maybe that was a best friend thing; Frannie didn’t know how best friends worked for guys, not really. Ray hadn’t had one like Fraser before, that she remembered. Of course there was nobody like Fraser.
“It will be alright,” Fraser said gently, the kind of thing he’d learned not to say after four years in Chicago. Frannie missed the Fraser who’d said that kind of thing to people. To her. Her prince with shining brass buttons. He’d been so easy to love, and so easy to hope for. If he’d just stayed gone, she could have held on to a little bit of that hope forever. But he hadn’t. Men really did always let you down in the end.
She went and gave Ray a hug. “Get out of here. You’ve been sulking too long.”
“Yeah I have,” he said, smiling at her, and then they were both gone.