Chapter Eleven / MIMI

 

It had been one Sunday morning in the spring of 1965 when Nora had received a phone call from a very unexpected source.

 

Charles and I had been playing and watching television in the living room when the phone had rang at the desk. Always needing to know what was going on, I was right at Nora’s side (making a pest of myself), wanting to know who was on the phone.

 

“It’s your grandmother,” Nora replied, which had eight-year-old me confused, since grandmother was dead and the other one, that woman in Seattle, we had never referred to as grandmother anything.

 

“The other grandmother. Now go and play,” Nora had said, admonishing me to leave her alone.

 

The fact that Mimi was calling us had everybody wondering what was going on.

 

Shaken, Nora hung up the phone. “Boys, I need to go and talk to your father. You guys stay here and out of trouble.”

 

Over in apartment eight John was in the bathroom shaving when Nora entered, saying she needed to speak with him. As she had waited for him to finish, she went into the living room. Suddenly, the magnificent photos of the Circe and particularly the Ship’s Clock took on a completely new significance, bringing back memories of times thirteen years earlier, long before my brother and I had even been born.

 

“What’s going on?” John asked, wiping the remnants of shaving cream from his face with a small towel while still holding his razor blade in his other hand.

 

Nora was apprehensive about what she had to say, mostly out of fear of how John, with his unpredictable behavior, might respond. Especially since John was still holding the razor that could, under the wrong circumstances, turn into a weapon.

 

“Your mother just called,” she began, trying to select her words carefully and keeping a secure distance from John.

 

“Ray is dead,” she said.

 

All the color instantly drained from John’s face. There was no anger. In fact, there was no nothing.

 

Ray had been perhaps the most influential person in John’s life for thirty years. Ray had been the one who had consistently cared about John and his well-being. Ray had been the biggest influence in giving John a reason for living, and with a bright wife and two young sons, have a proud reason for being alive. Now the man whom had done all of this for his stepson was dead.

 

Mimi and Ray had not lived together as husband and wife for thirty years. They had probably not even said half-a-dozen words to each other in those years. The only reason they had stayed married was because where money was concerned, they were both cagey individuals. For tax purposes, they both knew that it benefited both of them to remain married. All of their tax matters were always handled through their lawyers.

 

Living aboard the Circe (where he had a phone on board), Ray, now in his mid seventies, had suffered a heart attack. Calling 9-1-1 for help was not an option in 1965 since it did not yet exist. Instead, Ray had made the fateful mistake of reaching out to Mimi. Mimi had waited several hours before calling anybody to go down to the Circe at the Marina Mart by which time Ray was dead.

 

Given how Mimi had handled Ben’s funeral six years earlier, Nora was not even going to go down that road with her. Through other sources, she found out that Mimi had arranged for the funeral to be held the following Saturday.

 

“I don’t think this is a particularly good idea,” John had said as Nora packed suitcases for her, John, Charles and me.

 

“Ray loved you, very much, John,” Nora said, folding up my good pants in a small bag.

 

“And I loved him. He was, until you and the boys came along, the most important person in my life.”

 

“And that is precisely, John, why we are not going to miss his funeral.”

 

“Mother will hate this. Just hate it. You know how she likes private funerals.”

 

“Frankly, John, I don’t give a damn about how she feels about it. We are going.”

 

“I still think this is a really bad idea?” John said to Nora in the front seat of the station wagon just as we arrived inside the city limits of Seattle at around ten in the morning on Friday.

 

“Now why would that be, John? I am sure your mother will love to see you and her grandsons. She has never even seen Chris.”

 

John rolled his eyes. He knew his mother. He knew that not only could she care less about seeing him or her grandsons, a fact that hurt him greatly, but she would be irate that her plans for Ray’s funeral were being toyed with in any fashion. At this point, Mimi had no idea that we were even coming to Seattle. Surprise.

 

It was about a half hour later when we pulled up in front of Mimi’s house. Nora and John were just barely out of the car when Mimi, now seventy-years-old, emerged angrily pissed off from her front door. Right behind her was Malone, the mousey man living in her basement, also appeared and stopped on the porch.

 

“I don’t know what you people are doing here,” Mimi shouted, “but you are not wanted here. Now get right back in your car and go right back to Portland or wherever you want.”

 

Now Nora could get angry at the best of them. She was not only a lawyer, but also a lawyer with a short fuse. At the same time, however, she constantly had to be concerned about not sending John off into a wild and violent tangent. Instead, she took an air of pleasantness (all things considered, with Ray’s death and why we were even in Seattle), pretty much ignoring anything Mimi was saying.

 

“Mimi,” Nora began, “it is so wonderful to see you again too. Although under such sad circumstances.”

 

“I mean it, Nora,” Mimi continued, “Get right back in your car and leave.”

 

“Oh, nonsense,” Nora said, “We are here for Ray’s funeral. Besides, it has been years since you have seen Charles. He’s so big now. And Chris, you have not even met Chris yet.”

 

“And I do not want to,” Mimi said. “You are not invited to the funeral.”

 

Now Mimi was beginning to push this in a wrong way with Nora.

 

“Who invites people to funerals?” Nora said flatly.

 

“I do,” Mimi said, “And you were not on the guest list.”

 

“Come on boys. Get out of the car and come and say hello to your grandmother.” Nora knew exactly how Mimi felt about being called grandmother, so she added the emphasis on grandmother just to irk the old lady.

 

For a moment, neither Charles nor I moved. We were not scared to move. We were just too engrossed in having way too much fun as our mother was building up to full mode. We knew it was coming; it was not a matter of if it was coming. It was just a question of when and neither Charles nor I wanted to miss it.