Henry's Sisters

by Cathy Lamb

  He stared out the window, his temples thumping, and it was at that mini-second that I related to my dad. I related to the guilt.

  ‘I could not bring back the man I killed in the bar. I could not bring back the men and other civilians I killed in ’Nam. I could not bring back my buddies. I could, however, try to be a part of my family’s life again, when I thought I had something to offer.’

  ‘What did you do after you got out of jail? Why didn’t you come home right away?’ I asked.

  ‘I worked on getting my act together. I earned two degrees while I was in jail, and when I got out I became an accountant.’

  ‘A murdering accountant,’ Janie muttered.

  ‘Does TechEx know you murdered a man?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. They know. The man who owns TechEx, Tony Hallicon, fought in ’Nam. My ex-boss, the man I’ve worked for since I left jail, also called Tony and recommended me.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come home sooner?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I didn’t believe that I had a right to. I didn’t believe I was good enough. You had all got on with your lives.’

  ‘What changed that?’ I asked him.

  My dad put his chin up and blinked rapidly. ‘Love,’ he said. ‘Love changed it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Janie asked.

  ‘I mean that I have always loved you all. Always. I missed you all.’ His voice broke. ‘And your mother. I missed your mother. River was…’ He shook his head. ‘We were soul mates. I met her, and I was done. I knew that I would be in love with that woman the rest of my life. And I have been. I have never stopped loving your mother.’

  By agreement, we had decided not to say anything to ‘the soul mate’ about Dad’s return. I couldn’t have him traipsing in, then traipsing out again on Momma. The ‘soul mate’ did not deserve that.

  ‘I have missed you all. I have worried incessantly about you. I have never, ever felt whole, since the day I left, and I couldn’t fight wanting to show you that I still love you, have always loved you, anymore. Maybe it’s selfish, and wrong. But I had to try. Had to show you that love. Love brought me home,’ he said.

  Not even Cecilia knew what to say to that.

  How can you argue with love?

  ‘Love brought you home?’ Janie squeaked.

  Our dad wiped his eyes with his napkin. ‘Love brought me to you all. You are my home.’

  I sniffled.

  Cecilia said, ‘Hell and shit!’ and covered her flushed face with her napkin.

  Janie said, ‘That’s beautiful, serene, refreshing, oh!’ She waved her hands.

  ‘It’s the truth,’ Dad said, his voice rough and scratchy. ‘You are my home. You have always been my home. You will always be my home.’

  Two days later, after baking jelly rolls and strawberry tarts in the shape of hearts, Janie and I came home from the bakery on my motorcycle to a white picket fence Dad was building around the house.

  ‘He says he has three more weeks off before he starts work,’ Janie whispered to me as we spied on Dad through her bedroom window. She had hung new pink curtains to invite ‘rosy peace’ in. I noticed her latest embroidery project – pink flowers in yet another wicker basket – on her dresser. ‘I was surprised when he told us that Momma had always wanted a white picket fence.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Momma had never mentioned it. Probably because she was as likely to own a house with a white picket fence as she was to own Venus when we were younger. He had asked if he could build it and we said yes.

  When Dad needed to kneel down, he struggled a bit with his bum leg, but he did it.

  He had a gentle dignity about him. It squared with some of the memories I had of him, the happy ones. I could see that the raging, delusional man that Vietnam had thrown home was long gone now. The war had done its damage, had eaten him from the inside out, but he had wrestled with his demons and flattened them down to the mat.

  ‘It’s a nice white picket fence,’ Janie whispered.

  ‘Yes, it is. It’s nice.’ My heart warmed a tad.

  We watched him through the rosy peace.

  On Friday, after Dad had spent the afternoon with Henry petting the dogs, he asked to take all of us out to dinner. Cecilia refused to come, although I could tell she was weakening. ‘He’s trying to weasel his way in and I’m not having it.’

  Dad came into the bakery, and I couldn’t deny the hope in that man’s eyes when he politely issued his invitation.

  So we’d gone out to dinner. Grandma was lovely in her black flight outfit. She fastened a pink bow to her helmet. Dad didn’t even blink. Velvet wore a green velvet dress and a yellow flowered hat. I wore jeans and heels. Janie defrumped and put on a skirt with a clean blue T-shirt. Henry had on beige slacks and tucked in his shirt. ‘I go to fancy dinner with my dad,’ he kept saying. ‘I all fancy.’

  I did not miss the way the hostess, who was about forty-five, flirted with Dad on the way to our table.

  He was polite but he did not flirt back.

  We actually had a good time after Grandma’s prayer, which was: ‘Dear God, this is Amelia. Thanks for the food and the handsome man at this table. He seems stable. Good teeth. Clean gums. Hair. No weapons. Amen.’

  I would have envisioned conversation to be difficult. Forced. Lots of undercurrents.

  There was none of that.

  You know how you’re out with people sometimes and there’s one person who controls the conversation?

  He wasn’t like that.

  Or, you know how there’s often one person who must have the focus on them?

  He wasn’t like that.

  Or, there’s a guy in your group who brags or a woman who preens or someone who doesn’t pay any attention to more than one person?

  He wasn’t like that at all, either.

  He was friendly and interesting and entertaining. There was not an awkward moment.

  We talked about the white picket fence that Henry was helping to build, Florida, Henry’s stamps, Janie’s scary new book, why I like photography (it shows truth, human nature, human emotion, disaster, joy, and I tried not to get all emotional about my lost career), my travels, Velvet’s mother’s recipe for possum, and Amelia’s plan for her new luggage line.

  He told us how impressed he was with the bakery, not only with how it looked, and all of our customers, but in the perfection of our desserts. ‘Outstanding.’ He’d nodded. ‘Every detail attended to in your presentation. Each dessert a testament to your skill and knowledge of the food arts and your understanding that food should be enjoyed and appreciated, not just eaten.’

  I tried not to blush. I tried not to show how pleased I was at this compliment. I tried not to gush out my thanks. It was hard.

  We did not talk about all the time we’d spent baking in the kitchen with him as children. I think we all knew that would be one raw ache more than we could handle.

  It was a warm and fuzzy and scrumptious dinner.

  I actually felt myself relax, as if honey had been poured through my veins and marshmallows had taken the place of my rigid muscles.

  I’ve always liked honey and marshmallows.

  ‘Tell me about your childhood after I left.’

  ‘Definitely no, we couldn’t. Let’s not go there,’ Janie said to our dad after the dinner, as we settled onto the couches in front of our fireplace with coconut orange cake and coffee. ‘Poor karma. Bad memories. Negative flow.’

  ‘I think we should skip that,’ I said, glad that Henry, Grandma, and Velvet were tucked in bed. ‘Dinner was great. Let’s not mess it up.’

  Dad put his coffee down, the firelight dancing across his cheeks, softening them, softening his scar. ‘Janie, Isabelle, I want you to tell me about what happened after I left. You deserve the chance to place blame where it should be placed. You deserve the chance to unload on my shoulders all of the problems you had, right where it belongs.’

  ‘Our childhood belongs in a tightly locked trunk,’ I said.

/>   ‘Our childhood is best left to the universe,’ Janie said. ‘Out by the asteroids, in its own galaxy.’

  ‘Please,’ Dad said. ‘When you’re ready, I’d like to know what happened. From the day I left. Maybe not today, not next week, maybe not even this year, but when you’re comfortable with it, I want to listen.’

  ‘Well. We missed you. We always, always missed you.’ Janie tried to take a sip of chamomile tea but her hand shook. She put the teacup down. ‘But all right.’ I could hear some anger tinging her words amidst the grief. ‘If it will open up the mysteries for you, I’ll tell you.’

  We were there with the firelight until four in the morning, new logs adding sparks as we piled them on.

  We did not tell him all the gory details. We had secrets; some of them involved Momma, and she was the only one who should choose to share, or not, those secrets.

  By the end of it, I’m sure he felt like he’d been bombed. He looked like he’d been bombed.

  ‘This was all, completely, my fault,’ he said, voice ragged with regret. ‘I take the blame and responsibility. I know you won’t forget it. No one could. But I hope that you will forgive me.’ He paused. ‘I will never forgive myself. Not a day has gone by that I don’t feel the weight of my desertion, and if I live to be one hundred years old, I will still never forgive myself.’

  I thought about that.

  Forgiveness.

  My world had been so completely shaken when my dad left, I’d never even thought about it. We’d been cast into a swirling mass of despair and confusion and poverty almost instantly. It wasn’t long before it got worse and we’d fallen into a swamp of tragedies.

  From the porch I studied the black outlines of the waving trees, the wind whipping up the short curls of my hair.

  Forgiveness. Could I? Could I get rid of the perpetual, incessant anger that had lived within me for decades? Could I forgive him?

  I had never fought in a war. Could I judge someone who had been through years of combat and imprisonment? Could I judge my dad’s desertion of his family? And, if I did, would it be fair?

  I, for one, had never been shot at while hiding in a swampy ditch, the jungle swaying overhead with the enemy, unshowered for weeks, my feet rotting, my buddies’ limbs flying off in front of my face from land mines or grenades.

  I had not had to aim my gun at soldiers and innocent people alike and pull the trigger, or flatten a peaceful village, or engage in a deadly night-time raid, which forever more would make me hate myself. I had not been locked in a cage and beaten for years and had two of my fingers chopped off and my back whipped into bacon.

  I had not had to come home, only to relive my Vietnam nightmares and fight with the monstrous visions my overwrought brain did not have the capacity to withhold. I had not returned to a condemning American public and a government unwilling to help, or even acknowledge, the hellacious, ongoing impact of the Vietnam War on its soldiers.

  My dad had left us because he woke up one day to a loaded, cocked gun pointed at Momma’s head, his finger on the trigger. He thought he had left plenty of money for us to last the rest of our lives. He thought he had provided for his family, as he believed a man should.

  I focused on that new, white picket fence.

  Forgiveness was definitely a possibility.

  We all thought the bakery needed a makeover, but we hadn’t had time to do it.

  Enter: Dad.

  After hours, we repainted the walls a butter yellow, scrubbed and shined the black and white floors, emptied and cleaned the display cases. We added yellow flowered curtains and bought new tablecloths. We reorganised the back and cleaned out pantries and cabinets.

  We bought new red canopies for the front, and Dad had BOMMARITO’S BAKERY written in gold on the front window. He worked tirelessly with, what seemed to me, great joy. He insisted on paying for the repairs.

  ‘A small gift to the Bommarito family,’ he said quietly. ‘One small gift.’

  When we were flooded with customers one day, we gave him an apron and an invitation, and he went to work. He came back the next day when we asked, and the next. I cried into my mixing bowls as I saw my dad flip open his old cookbooks and bake the desserts we’d baked as children, his face at peace.

  All of his desserts looked exactly like the pictures.

  Sometimes I caught him gazing at me, Cecilia, Janie, Henry, or the girls and I was stunned by the expression on his face: gratefulness. Happiness. Wonder.

  And, the most important emotion, love.

  I saw it.

  I felt it.

  I felt that love.

  I had missed that love more than I would have missed my own heart.

  When Bao and Dad had a break, they played chess.

  I couldn’t hear what they said to each other, but one day I saw Bao make a slitting motion across his neck, so I knew he was telling my dad what happened to his throat.

  Another day I saw my dad making a karate chop slice with his hand and I knew he was telling Bao what happened to his fingers.

  And one time I heard Bao say to my dad, ‘I wish you peace, Carl. That what you need. That what I need. Peace.’

  My dad nodded.

  Bao moved his knight.

  Dad moved his bishop.

  ‘Peace for us, peace for them,’ my dad said. ‘Checkmate.’

  ‘The girls are exactly like us,’ Janie said, rinsing a bowl after Blow Your Mouth Off Chilli Night. Each of us sisters had made our specialty chilli, with our personal secret recipe. All of them were spicy enough to bring tears to our eyes.

  Cecilia’s won for spiciest and best. No surprise there. It ’bout blew out my eardrums.

  ‘Hopefully the girls will end up saner,’ I mused, as I stared out the window at Kayla and Riley under the willow tree.

  ‘At least less angry,’ Cecilia said, with anger. ‘That’s what I wish for them. Less anger.’ She dropped a glass and the shards spun over the counter. ‘Damn. That makes me mad.’

  ‘I think loss makes people angry,’ Janie said. ‘And fear. It’s a psycho-emotional shake-up that gets us out of balance with the universe. That’s why I have my healing herbs.’

  ‘Herbs scherbs,’ Cecilia said, blowing hair out of her eyes.

  ‘Herbs will bring you into focus, into your own softness and gentleness, so your body and mind will harmonise.’ Janie shook her red hair out of her bun. Her hair sure was getting long.

  ‘Harmonise this, Janie: I’m a fat, angry mom who will burn all your herbs to a crisp if you don’t stop with that New Wave herb crap.’

  Here came the peacemaker. Again. ‘I remember when you started being angry all the time, Cecilia.’

  ‘When? Damn!’ She sucked on her finger where glass had punctured the skin.

  ‘When Dad left.’

  ‘Well, gee. I didn’t know you were so bright, Isabelle!’ She clapped her hands to her head. ‘You shoulda been a rocket scientist!’

  ‘You’ve transferred your anger to Parker.’

  ‘Whoee! More brilliance!’

  ‘And to Dad.’

  ‘You’re Einstein, Isabelle.’

  I dried off a pan. ‘When are you gonna get rid of your anger, Cecilia?’

  ‘When? Never.’

  ‘Let’s not fight,’ Janie said. ‘We’ll ruin our inner spherical balance.’

  ‘We’re not fighting,’ I said. ‘I’m worried that your anger is going to kill you, Cecilia.’

  Cecilia shoved her hands in the soapy water. ‘I am, too. I’ve been angry for decades.’

  ‘And you hate, Cecilia. You hate this person or that person…there’s always someone you hate. Our whole lives, there’s been somebody.’

  ‘They deserved it.’

  ‘That’s not the point. You’ve gotta get rid of your hate. It’s a living, breathing parasite in you.’

  ‘What about you, Isabelle?’ she snapped, flicking a dish towel against the counter. ‘You’ve battled depression forever—’

  �
�I’m enjoying the fight.’

  ‘You’ve been with a truckload of men.’

  ‘Probably two truckloads. I’m not proud of it.’

  ‘You travel to horrible places and it unglues you even further.’

  ‘I was unglued to begin with.’ And I missed my photographic jaunts, I finally admitted to myself. How I missed photography. I missed it like I’d miss my soul.

  ‘Don’t be a hypocrite, Isabelle.’

  She had a point. ‘OK, I’ll try to stick it to my depression if you try to stick it to your hate and anger.’

  Cecilia whipped that towel against the counter again.

  ‘Well, let’s get the tapper-counter in on this. Janie, you gotta stop it with all your checking and hermit behaviour and tapping.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know…’ she wobbled.

  ‘Come on, Embroidery Queen,’ I said.

  She put her hands on her hips.

  Cecilia whacked her with the towel. ‘Should I hit you four times?’ she mocked.

  ‘I’ll go upstairs to my serenity corner and think about it,’ Janie said.

  ‘Tap, tap, tap, tap,’ Cecilia mocked.

  ‘Shut up, Cecilia,’ Janie said, slamming a glass on the counter. ‘I don’t refer to you as fathead or meatball butt or thunder thighs or Queen Double Chin or Sag and Drag, so stop making fun of me.’

  Whew. That silence was rigid and tight, tight, tight, once again. I moved between them so Cecilia would not annihilate Janie.

  ‘My therapist says I need to become stronger with my social-familial conflicts and stand up for myself with womanly courage, so I am!’ Janie declared. ‘If you’re going to be mean, I’ll be mean!’

  Electrifying silence.

  I braced myself to physically defend Janie when Cecilia leapt for her throat.

  Janie waited with bated breath for Cecilia to lash out at her.

  But a surprising thing happened then: Cecilia laughed. She whipped that towel against the counter and laughed. ‘I’m so mad at you, Janie, I could… I could spit!’

  ‘Spit?’ Janie asked.

  ‘Yes, spit!’ She spat in the sink. ‘But I am fat! I do have thunder thighs! I think I have three chins, not two; my boobs are always sweaty; my pits smell no matter what I do; and my mouth is out of control, so who am I to argue? But I’m still so ticked off!’