Henry's Sisters (13 page)

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.

‘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 scars 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.

Parker had a smirk on his face, but his eyes widened like a startled turtle and he stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed me and Janie standing in front of the windows.

The three lawyer-stooges stopped behind Parker, the one right behind Parker colliding into him as he caught my eye.

One of the lawyers, the one I immediately knew was ‘the boss,’ blinked rapidly and flushed when he saw Janie. Even Parker was shocked at her appearance. But only for a second.

‘What are you two doing here?’ Parker barked out.

‘We came to enjoy the circus,’ I said. ‘We’re hoping you get eaten by a lion!’

Parker turned red and flushy.

‘We came because we simply can’t bear to miss out on any opportunity to be with you in an earthy, cosmic way,’ Janie said, smiling sweetly. ‘Your company being so pleasant, your personality so soothing.’

One of his lawyers coughed into his hand.

‘I don’t like it,’ Parker seethed. ‘You two don’t belong here. It’s between me and Cecilia. You both owe me money to fix my car and, Isabelle, you still gotta pay
my fiancée
for her heels.’

‘Send the bill again,’ I drawled. ‘I know exactly where to shove it. It’s a hot, smelly place…’

Cherie interrupted. ‘Gentlemen, the ladies aren’t leaving. Please, have a seat. Let’s remember to keep this civil and calm.’

Cherie and Parker’s lead attorney sat across from one another. Parker’s lead attorney, the one who flushed like a fire engine when he saw Janie, was about forty-five. He was white and balding, at least six feet, two inches tall, and wore glasses. He was kind of handsome. The other two attorneys were in their thirties, stuffed into suits, one stocky like a water tower, the other gangly like Abe Lincoln.

Cecilia and I were on Cherie’s left, Janie on her right. Parker sat right across from Cecilia and glowered. All of a sudden, he laughed. ‘I can’t believe I stayed married to you as long as I did.’

One of his lawyers, the Water Tower, turned to him and said, ‘Parker, not now.’

‘I can’t believe I stayed married to you, either,’ Cecilia said, smiling. ‘Momma said you were a man with a small dick, physically and mentally. She warned me. So many times. I ignored her. She was right. My momma is always right.’

Now, the part about Momma always being right was a lie. But the part about Momma thinking that Parker had a small dick physically and mentally was dead-on. Momma had said, ‘Parker will always think like a man with a small dick. Petty. Jealous. Mean. Close minded. He’s got short man’s complex on his groin, don’t forget it. I’m warning you, Cecilia, he’ll bring you grief.’

‘You’ve bemoaned Parker’s small penis throughout your marriage, Cecilia,’ Janie said, clasping her hands together, her voice curious. ‘And the unsturdiness that brought to your marriage bed, but I thought that Parker was on Viagra? No?’

Parker was not happy. ‘I don’t need Viagra. You can ask Constance about that.’

‘Parker!’ the Abe Lincoln attorney snapped. ‘Settle down.’

Now that made me raise my eyebrows. His own lawyer snapping at him?

Parker settled back down, like a killer fish retreating into its shadowy cave.

‘All right, let’s get started,’ Cherie said. ‘Both of you, back off. Let’s leave less blood at this meeting than the last one. Cecilia is ready to settle. She wants the house.’

‘I already said that’s fine,’ Parker said, hitting his palms on the table. ‘No problem. She can buy out my half.’

‘No, she’s not going to buy out your half,’ Cherie said as if he were an unruly, bratty child. ‘The house is almost paid off and she wants it in its entirety. She will, however, agree to let you have your retirement account.’

I heard the loaded pause in the conference room. The house was worth about $650,000. The retirement account that Parker had built up as a cheesy and slick but successful computer salesman was about $450,000.

‘That’s still an unfair split,’ Parker’s lead attorney, Bob, said. Bob was the balding guy. He was The Man in Charge. I had the distinct impression that poor Bob had been handling these messy matters for a long, long time.

‘Like hell it is,’ Cherie said. ‘Parker has his brand-new Corvette, he says he wants his other older model Corvette, which is still at the house, his tools, and other toys, including a big-screen TV. Plus, Cecilia is the main caregiver for the children. Surely, Parker, you want the kids to be able to stay in their childhood home?’

Parker made some grumbling noises. Like a bear who has a blackberry bush stuck up his bottom.

‘In addition, Parker must agree to take all of his credit card debt with him. That includes the total amounts he built up on his cards while married to Cecilia and all the charges he’s billed since they separated.’

‘No way,’ Parker spat out between clenched teeth.

‘All of the charges were for you and Constance,’ Cecilia said. ‘I
refuse
to settle this divorce if I have to pay for your mai tais in Mexico and the Bahamas. We have separate cards. You take yours, I’ll take mine, fucker.’

The balding attorney sighed. Cherie kicked Cecilia under the table. Cecilia did not object to the kick.

‘Also, there is the matter of child support and of Parker reimbursing Cecilia $30,000 for her to go back to school to get her master’s degree,’ Cherie said. ‘Cecilia took out a student loan and Parker needs to pay for that. If Parker agrees to pay for Cecilia’s master’s, she’ll drop the alimony.’

Parker again protested, like a whining snake. ‘I am not paying for her to get a master’s degree. Ya got that? She’s a kindergarten teacher! You don’t need even half a brain for that. All she needs to know how to do is write the alphabet and sing a few goddamn songs, for goddamn’s sakes!’

Bob The Man in Charge said, ‘Shut up, Parker.’

‘Do not say “goddamn” again, Parker,’ Abe Lincoln told him. ‘We’ve told you how we feel about that word.’

Parker slapped his palms on the table.

‘Anything else?’ Bob The Man in Charge asked.

‘Yes. Parker will pay my legal fees and will put $1,000 each month into each girl’s college fund. In addition, he will pay $3,000 a month in child support.’

The Man in Charge nodded. I noticed he was fiddling with his pen in a weird way, forward a few circles, back a few circles, forward a few times, back. Odd. The rhythm was so like Janie’s. ‘Can you give us a minute?’

‘Sure can.’

We ladies all stood up and left the conference room, but not before Cecilia whispered loudly, ‘Having sex with Parker was like having sex with a pencil. Thin and pokey.’ And Janie said to Parker, ‘Remember when you made a pass at me at my houseboat? I couldn’t leave my home for days because as soon as I thought of your face I got diarrhoea. Yuck.’

I didn’t do anything until I saw Parker smiling crudely at me, his eyes staring right at my boobs. I sidled right up to him as he leant back in his swivel chair and smirked. When I was eye to boob with him I moved zippity quick and tipped his chair right over.

Parker somersaulted out backward, like a rag doll wearing a pimp suit, swearing as he went, and landed facedown.

I smiled sweetly at the surprised attorneys and left.

Bob The Man in Charge tried hard not to smile before he went back to his rhythmic circles.

We headed down the hallway to Cherie’s office. She opened a little door behind a stack of books and flicked a switch.

‘Don’t ever tell anyone about this or I’ll get disbarred,’ she muttered.

Like we would do something heinous like that, sneaky lady.

Ah. Beautiful. We could hear every word the lawyers and Parker were saying. Every word.

‘Take the deal, Parker,’ The Man in Charge said. ‘You’re done. We’re done.’

‘You’re not going to get better than that.’ I knew it was Abe Lincoln speaking. ‘She gets the house, you get the retirement money. You got your cars and the TV. You make a lot of money. You’ll be fine.’

‘Hell, no!’ I heard him slap the table again. ‘I’m getting ripped off! Ripped off! And I sure as hell am not going to pay for that fat ass’s student loan.’

I saw Cecilia flush. I wanted to kill Parker.

‘You won’t get better than this and all you’ll end up doing is dragging out the inevitable. I’ve been doing this for twenty years. Trust me,’ Bob The Man in Charge said.