Ma and Ray

Ma and Ray’s relationship is defined by a tension between domestic care and unequal authority. Ray is the twins’ stepfather, and his actions toward Ma range from anger that she tries to contain to sustained, practical devotion during her final illness. Their shared vigil at her death brings them together in care, while also revealing a difference between them: Ray cannot accept the suggestion that Ma might be given permission to go, but Dominick eventually does.

Domestic Authority and Conflict

The household’s everyday hierarchy is visible when Ray is away duck hunting. The twins have spent the morning watching cartoons in their pajamas and ignoring Ma’s orders to bathe, dress, and help wash the windows. They respond differently to the adults: Ray’s orders make them snap to attention, while Ma’s are treated as optional. From outside the parlor window, Ma continues washing the glass, her circular wiping motions appearing to the boys like a wave. Thomas worries she may tell Ray; Dominick assumes she will not. The scene suggests that Ma’s authority over the children is less immediate than Ray’s, even as she continues to carry the work of managing the household.

That imbalance does not mean Ma is passive. In a family confrontation, she tries to check Ray when he is angry with Thomas. Ray dismisses her intervention and blames her for being too indulgent toward the boy. The exchange makes their disagreement explicit: Ma attempts to moderate Ray’s response, while Ray treats her protection as part of the problem. The children also remember an occasion when Ray’s anger toward Ma became physical. The following morning, he resumed the family routine by going to Mass with Ma and the boys, eating at a restaurant, and taking them to see The Wizard of Oz. The abrupt movement from conflict back into ordinary family life conveys how little space the household gives to discussion of what has happened.

Ray’s discipline of Thomas also forms part of the atmosphere surrounding his relationship with Ma. When Thomas repeatedly chews on his shirt, Ray responds by taping his hands for days. The account emphasizes the child’s distress and humiliating mealtime restriction, but it does not establish Ma’s presence during that particular punishment. Read alongside her attempt to intervene in another confrontation, the episode shows the broader family context in which Ray’s authority is exercised and Ma’s protective role can be overruled.

Care Through Ma’s Illness

When Ma develops cancer, Ray’s care takes a concrete and demanding form. He drives her to Yale–New Haven Hospital for chemotherapy and radiation, stays with her through the treatments, eats in the hospital cafeteria, and naps in the chair beside her bed. By early evening he is back on the road, heading north on I-95 so he can make his shift at Electric Boat. When Dominick suggests that Ray may be taking on too much, Ray does not turn the question into a discussion of his feelings; he asks what else he is supposed to do. His response presents care as an obligation enacted through repeated journeys, hospital hours, and work rather than explained in words.

Ray also undertakes a repair meant to give Ma something lasting. Her much-used photo album has come apart after the brass pins joining its covers bend and break. Ray takes it from the china closet to the garage and reinforces its binding with custom-cut aluminum strips and small bolts. He demonstrates the repair by holding the album at arm’s length and opening and closing it. The gesture is practical, but the object matters because it preserves the family photographs Ma repeatedly handled and treasured. In the face of a serious illness that cannot be repaired, Ray directs his effort toward an item he can make durable.

The album’s repair belongs to a wider family effort to make amends to Ma during her illness. Thomas creates a collage declaring that God is love, while Dominick plans a major renovation of her kitchen. Ray’s contribution is distinct: he restores the album that holds the family’s remembered life. His attention to its broken binding contrasts with the physical limits of what care can accomplish for Ma herself, without suggesting that the repair could alter her illness.

The Final Vigil

Ma’s decline brings Ray and Dominick together at her bedside. On May 1, 1987, Ma slips out of consciousness, and Ray and Dominick keep watch through the night as her breathing becomes labored and she repeatedly tries to remove her oxygen mask. A hospice worker explains that someone in a coma may still hear and understand, and suggests that the family might give Ma permission to go if that feels right. Ray balks at the suggestion. His response is consistent with the practical loyalty he has shown throughout her treatment, but the moment also exposes a difference in how the two men can face her approaching death.

Ten minutes before Ma dies, Ray is down the hall in the men’s room. Dominick leans close to her and tells her that he loves her, that she need not worry, and that he will take care of Thomas; he then gives her permission to go. Ma dies without revealing the identity of the twins’ biological father or reading her father’s history. Ray’s absence from the bedside at that precise moment is brief, not a withdrawal from the vigil: he has remained with Dominick through the night. The account instead places the final permission in Dominick’s hands, after Ray has been unable to accept the hospice worker’s suggestion.

Relationship and Narrative Significance

The relationship is presented through acts rather than through a direct account of Ma and Ray’s private life. Ray’s schedule of hospital visits, his repair of the album, and his vigil establish devotion; the children’s memories of his anger and Ma’s efforts to intervene establish that devotion does not erase conflict. The same household can contain practical tenderness and intimidating authority, without either aspect canceling the other.

Their contrasting responses at Ma’s death sharpen this pattern. Ray stays beside her through the long night but cannot give the permission the hospice worker proposes. Dominick, who has watched Ray’s care and shared the vigil, supplies the words Ma might need to hear. The scene does not turn Ray’s hesitation into indifference: instead, it sets his steadfast presence beside his inability to voice release. In this way, Ma and Ray’s relationship is bound both to the daily labor of keeping a family together and to the limits of what that labor can prevent.