Henry's Sisters

by Cathy Lamb

  ‘Now that was fun, River. Howdy doody fun. You come on back whenever you want and we’ll bargain again.’ The man laughed. He smelt like smoke and sweat and pure evil. ‘I didn’t know you liked it rough. You’re a wild horse, woman.’

  I heard Cecilia growl like an animal before she rushed him. I followed her and we had him on the ground, pummelling him with our fists, our anger our back-up. He swore and Momma tried to yank us off him.

  He was quick, he was violent, and he punched Cecilia in the face, her head flinging back like a beach ball, then punched me. My blood spilt onto my shirt, my back smashing into the rail of the deck.

  I heard a high-pitched squeal right before Henry jumped from the rail and landed smack on that guy’s back, pulling his hair with both hands and screaming. ‘You no hurt sisters! You no hurt Momma! No hurt Momma!’

  Henry wrapped his legs around that dirty creep, then got off two slugs before the man shoved him off, Henry’s head hitting the deck with a thud.

  Janie appeared from out of nowhere wielding part of a tree branch and she cracked him in the face. He stumbled back woozily, then charged her. She clipped him again in the chin and that stopped him, but only for a second. He grunted and flung her off the deck stairs where she landed right on her back.

  Momma was kicking him, pounding him on the chest, and I stood up woozily, grabbed a chair, and swung it at his back, feeling truly murderous, but seconds later dizziness hit me like a Mack truck. I heard him laugh after he socked me in the gut, and soon the deck was gone and all I could see was black.

  When I woke up, Momma was carrying me off the porch, yelling, ‘Get the fuck away from us, Reg,’ and Janie was dragging a bleeding Cecilia. Henry was hysterical and screaming, ‘You no hurt Momma! I hate you! You no hurt Momma!’ and holding his head.

  ‘Shut up, retard!’ He laughed at Henry. ‘Nice tits!’ he yelled after Cecilia. ‘River, honey, you bring the whole family back next time and, hell, I’ll give ya two trailers. We’ll buck together!’ He wiped at the blood on his face with his sleeve. ‘But not the retard. Leave the retard at home.’

  ‘I not retard,’ Henry said. ‘You retard. You fat retard. You fat and ugly retard. No hurt Momma! No hurt sisters! You retard!’ He picked up a handful of gravel and threw it at him.

  I still wanted to kill ‘Reg’ and was coherent enough to drop to my knees and grab a rock to hurl at his head. He was glaring at Henry so it smacked him in the eye. I pelted another one at him and it hit its mark, too.

  He swore again, picked the rock back up, and sent it flying in my direction. He missed by about four feet.

  ‘Fucker!’ Cecilia said. ‘Fat fucker!’

  ‘Now that’s ripe, missy,’ he yelled back. ‘Coming from a pig. A pig with big tits!’

  ‘You retard!’ Henry yelled, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  Janie hobbled back to him, and I followed her, my vision blurry, even though Momma was shrieking at us to get in the car this ‘damn minute’ and dragging a struggling Henry.

  ‘You are an old, dirty, ugly man and you will always be an old, dirty, ugly man,’ she said, her voice rough. ‘But we won’t be.’ She tilted her chin up. ‘We’re poor now, but we won’t always be. We’re going to be somebody. We’re not going to live in a shack with one yellow light in the woods. You will always be a loser who took advantage of a poor mom and beat up her kids. You’re a loser. You lost. I hope you die a painful death with lots of blood and your guts burst and I hope it takes you a long time to die.’

  She turned away slowly, and I knew by the way she moved that her whole body was killing her. Stunned, I couldn’t move, but I finally did, and stumbled after her, the man’s dropped jaw and shocked expression going with me.

  Momma grabbed us and shoved us in the car, backing around the house towards a camper trailer, screaming at us, ‘I told you to stay in the car! I told you to stay in the car!’

  The trailer was rickety, beat up. I got out of the car, my face and back splitting, and helped Momma attach it to our hitch and we drove off. We went back the way we came, the trailer swaying like a group of bats from the devil’s own cage.

  Cecilia was moaning, mopping up blood; Momma was shaking and yelling at us; Henry was hyperventilating and wheezing out, ‘Blood, oh there blood, Isabelle!’; and Janie and I were silent, shocked to the core, the pain in my head splitting my brain in half.

  Cecilia reached for my hand. ‘Your head. Are you OK?’ she whispered. She put a hand to her head in the exact same spot my head was pounding.

  My breasts ached so badly I could hardly breathe. But the man hadn’t touched them. He’d grabbed Cecilia. It was the twin thing again. ‘How are your boobs?’

  ‘I hate him, I do.’ She wrapped her arms around her chest. I felt her hurt and fury and disgust. My breasts throbbed. ‘I hate him.’

  After a bumpy half-hour ride, Momma pulled onto a dirt road in the woods near a creek. It was pitch black outside but Momma told us to get in the trailer, her voice whipped, beyond despair.

  Inside was a cooler with ice and on the ice was venison. That was Momma’s payment: an old trailer and deer meat.

  That night we made a fire and cooked the meat. We were silent while we ate because Momma was making pitiful gasping sounds, her hands wobbling like they had currents of electric shocks running through them.

  After dinner she screamed between the swaying trees.

  Who knows how long we would have been camping out there had the lice not come.

  Our hair started to itch on the third day. On the seventh day we all discovered lice in abundance.

  Those lice sent Momma straight over the edge as surely as if she’d leapt off a cliff that never ended. She was in free fall.

  She had no job. Her four kids all had lice. One was disabled. She had no husband. No food. We were living in a trailer in the woods that she’d had to sell her soul for, with no toilet or running water. We had eaten through the meat and were down to eating berries. Momma had to put Henry in diapers because his bladder control withered.

  She found a louse in her mouth one night and that was it. She started screaming.

  We couldn’t get her to calm down.

  Soon Henry was wailing, too.

  A woman who owned a sprawling cabin up the road heard them and not only called the police but came down to help us.

  She held Momma close to her and rocked her until the paramedics came and gave Momma a shot to calm her down.

  By then, Henry had slipped into hysteria. He was keening, clinging to the dragon, which he’d vomited on. Janie was holding herself with her eyes shut and periodically patting Henry. Cecilia was kicking a tree. I was trying to help all of them while I itched my hair.

  The police took one stunned look at us, studying in particular our dirty clothes and the bruises on our faces, and contacted social services.

  We were in foster care for six weeks.

  You would have thought Momma would have called Grandma then for help.

  No way.

  Then Grandma would have won, the evidence irrefutable that her daughter couldn’t care for herself and her family. Momma had refused to go to college, refused to get training like Grandma had told her to, just ran off with some guy (our dad) who ran off on her, what could Momma expect? She’d warned her! She’d known it would happen! She should have listened!

  Momma’s pride wouldn’t let her admit that anything was less than perfect to a woman who had criticised her her whole life.

  Unfortunately, that meant we had to deal with things like lice, trailers, hunger, and Momma’s life slipping out of her a few weeks later.

  Once I got rid of my lice and left starvation behind, I loved foster care.

  Janie, Cecilia, Henry, and I were the only kids in Miss Nancy’s house. She had a home in the suburbs with a big lawn and a stream in back we played in. Cecilia and I shared a big yellow bedroom, and Janie and Henry each had their own.

  Miss Nancy hugged us when we arrived at her clean and
cheerful home. She got medication for Janie’s migraines, Cecilia’s multitude of rashes, Henry’s breathing/asthma/sickly problems, and bought us clothes, put us back into school, helped with our homework, and held us when the tears threatened to drown us alive. We did not have to bake to keep the lights on.

  She put on classical music and taught Janie how to embroider.

  She was a Sunday school teacher and Cecilia became her aide.

  She signed me up for the church choir because she said I had the voice of the head angel of God’s choir.

  She had dogs and cats and Henry loved them, as they loved him.

  As you can see, Miss Nancy’s effect on our future adult lives was profound.

  She packed us a sack lunch to take to bed each night because she knew we were panicked about food. ‘If you’re hungry in the middle of the night, eat,’ she told us. Cecilia took that to heart and ate her lunch and mine.

  When Momma came to get us, we clung to Miss Nancy and sobbed. Momma was not pleased.

  ‘Stop blubbering,’ Momma told us. ‘Go to the car.’

  Momma was wearing a green blouse and black slacks with heels. Her hair was brushed, her make-up on. She was gorgeous. She should have been in a magazine.

  I learnt later that they had committed her to a nice, soft, mental health place. Momma finally got some care.

  Some rest and sleep and time to think.

  And she finally said yes to a few medications that balanced her out.

  Things went along fine for a while. Momma had secured an apartment with help from the government, we got food stamps, and she had a job in an upscale women’s clothing store that paid commission.

  The owner gave Momma three chic outfits to wear to work to advertise the clothes. She made good money because she was beautiful and could convince a turtle he should give up his shell and wear a silk cape. On the outside, it appeared we were an odd family, but definitely OK.

  On the inside things were not well. Not well at all. They were rotting.

  And on the horizon yet another disaster was looming for the Bommarito family. This one was a bloody mess.

  Cecilia had roped me into volunteering in her classroom when a parent volunteer backed out because she had menstrual cramps.

  The question I was to ask each of Cecilia’s kindergarteners after they’d finished their paintings of giant Easter bunnies was simple: how does the Easter Bunny get all the decorated eggs hidden all over the world in one night?

  It was not as easy as it sounds.

  Gary was a gangly kid. He reminded me of a spaghetti noodle with glasses. He said to me, ‘Are you married?’

  ‘No, not married.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to have a husband.’

  Gary pondered that. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m too cool.’

  ‘Oh.’ He took me seriously. ‘My mom says she’s not married right now because all men are shitheads.’

  ‘Well. Your mother is super smart, clearly. Now about this Easter Bunny. How do you think he delivers all these eggs?’

  ‘First off, the Easter Bunny is a she, not a he. That’s what my mom says. She says men couldn’t find their asses if they weren’t attached to their bodies so how could the Easter Bunny find all the houses that need eggs if he was a boy? So, the Easter Bunny’s a girl.’

  ‘How old are you, kid?’ I asked.

  ‘Five years, three months, fourteen days, eight hours and’ – he eyed the school clock – ‘four minutes. Are you a hippie?’

  A girl with a braid to her butt told me she was magic.

  ‘Bibbity boo! Can you see me now?’

  I assured her I could.

  ‘You cannot.’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘You can’t. Whenever I do this for my mom and dad they don’t know where I’ve gone! I’m invisible! You’re stupid!’ She stomped on both of my feet and stalked away.

  One kid drew a bunny with a green Mohawk and a tattoo of a knife. Another refused to write about the bunny; he insisted on writing about Slime Man.

  Even my liver was exhausted when I left Cecilia’s classroom.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘I spoke with Dr Silverton today,’ I told Cecilia that afternoon at the bakery.

  Her hands stopped over the black bottom cake she was mixing. ‘Oh yes,’ she breathed. ‘He told me. We had a short meeting in his office this afternoon. He is such a nice man.’

  ‘Yes, kindly nice.’

  ‘He told me I’m one of the best teachers he’s ever come across, that’s what he told me.’ Her face flushed.

  ‘Well, you are one of the best, if not the best.’ That was the truth. I knew it and so did all of Trillium River, whose parents got extremely upset if their little sweetheart wasn’t in Cecilia’s kindergarten class. Four had threatened to sue. Three had gone to the school board.

  ‘He is so polite, Isabelle, so gentle.’

  I noted that Cecilia’s voice was gentle, too. I hid my smile.

  ‘During my evaluation – well, we got busy chatting, so we didn’t actually get to the evaluation part – but we shared our favourite vacation spots and the Little League team he coaches and the bakery and Momma, he met Momma, and said she’s a “fine lady.”’ She snorted.

  ‘So it was a good conversation?’

  ‘Yes, I told him a little bit about my divorce and he was so kind, Isabelle…so kind…it was like—’ She stared in the air. ‘Like my anger poofed away when I was telling him about it. I didn’t feel like strangling Parker.’

  ‘Well, that’s good. Murder is bad. I’m glad you like Dr Silverton.’

  ‘I do! I do like him,’ she said.

  I tried not to laugh. ‘I’m glad you really like him.’

  ‘Oh, I do! I really like him.’

  I laughed.

  That snapped her out of her daze. She threw a piece of pie crust at my face.

  Janie and I decided to invite ourselves to Cecilia’s next divorce powwow in Portland. We thought it would be entertaining. Stimulating. A vengeful activity we sisters could bond at.

  To celebrate Cecilia’s emancipation, Janie had agreed to let me dress her. She wore sleek jeans and borrowed a pair of my four-inch heels with a green-and-beige shiny patina and a greenish silk blouse. I flat-ironed her reddish hair, shoved some bangles on her wrists and dangly earrings on her ears, and with those luminescent eyes of hers she was downright vogue.

  ‘Janie, I’ll never know why you dress like a frump,’ Cecilia had snapped. ‘When you brush your hair and refrain from wearing those brown boats on your feet, farm-wife aprons, and lace collars, you’re gorgeous.’

  ‘I don’t dress like a frump. I dress so my body feels like it’s smoothly flowing, ethereal, connected to my spirituality. I’m uncomfortable with these heels on. They hurt my feet, and this shirt—’ She picked at it. ‘If I lean the wrong way, my bra will show.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ I told her. ‘Don’t lean the wrong way. No one wants to see your beige bra.’

  ‘What’s wrong with my bra? It’s sturdy. I’ve had it for years.’

  ‘Yes, I am aware of that,’ I told her. ‘I can tell. Anyone could tell.’

  Cecilia had put on a jean skirt and pink shirt and hoop earrings. She’d grimaced at the mirror and snarled, ‘I’m almost the size of a rhino. Where the fuck are my horns?’

  I wore jeans, a gemstone-studded belt, a chocolate brown low-cut blouse, and chunky jewellery. I thought my outfit went well with my braids.

  ‘We’ve got our war paint on, ladies,’ I said. ‘Now let’s go get Parker’s scalp and put it on a spike.’

  We went to school with Cherie Poitras, Cecilia’s lawyer.

  Cherie was a tough, wild girl who became a tough, highly paid attorney in Portland who now owned her own firm. She was an only child of a man who believed that to spare the rod was to spoil the child.

  Cherie got herself declared an emancipated minor at fifteen, the old and new sc
ars on her back from a belt smoothing her case along. The law saved her and she fell in love with it. In her spare time, she advocated in the courts for abused children and had adopted four of them.

  We became friends with her after a painting incident. A teacher continually made her feel like an idiot in math class, even telling her ‘girls don’t have the brains for math.’ So one Sunday she’d snuck into the gym and, using spray paint, made a mural that stretched across an entire wall. The mural depicted the math teacher naked with three nipples, a hot dog for a penis, a unicorn horn, and fish feet.

  We knew she did it. We never told. We were friends for life.

  The three of us were in her elegant conference room in a high-rise in Portland. The Willamette River sparkled below, various ships leaving white froth in their wake as they swooshed past the bridges.

  ‘I miss my houseboat,’ Janie whimpered, staring down the river.

  ‘I miss my loft,’ I whimpered, staring up the river.

  We sighed with a high-octane dose of self-pity.

  ‘And I miss having my sanity, but you don’t hear me whining on and on, do you?’ Cecilia barked.

  ‘I stopped missing my sanity a long time ago, Cecilia,’ I told her. ‘Maybe you should pipe down about it.’

  ‘Sanity is tenuous,’ Janie mused. ‘Tenuous. Comes and goes. Many of the brightest people floating about this planet have only a finger’s grip on sanity, if that.’

  ‘OK, ladies,’ Cherie interrupted, her voice like a drill sergeant’s as she burst through the door. ‘My secretary told me the rebels are on their way down the hallway. Cecilia, keep a lid on it.’

  Cherie was wearing a black leather skirt, a white silk blouse with a wide collar, and four-inch black heels. That made her about six feet, one inches tall. ‘Janie and Isabelle, I don’t need any fighting, yelling, or throwing of anything right now.’

  ‘I can’t think of a single thing about Parker that would lead me to fight, yell, or throw,’ I said.

  We heard their footsteps. I winked at Cherie. She lifted her chin. She still loved a good fight.

  And she was a hell of a fighter.

  Parker and three lawyers – all billing out for stupendous sums, no doubt – filled the doorway.