Henry's Sisters

by Cathy Lamb

  ‘I’ll remember the skunk tail-pulling trick, Velvet, thank you.’

  I had another sip of lemonade, endeavouring not to blow it out of my nose, leant my head back against the chair, and let the wind soften up my stress as I thought about Velvet’s advice.

  Here’s what I know: never underestimate what you can learn from women older than you, especially the ones with white hair.

  Those gals know everything.

  Bao came in with his chess set and played by himself with his one good hand. I brought him coffee and a slice of my fresh pumpkin bread. He smiled a little, lips turning up, creakily, as if they hadn’t had much practice in that department for several decades.

  His scar peeked at me.

  His aloneness peeked at me.

  His pain peeked at my pain, I was sure of it.

  And that’s why I liked and related to Bao. Pain. We had that in common.

  She’s pulling her hair out.’

  ‘What?’

  Cecilia and I were in a booth at Bommarito’s Bakery. It was four o’clock and Cecilia had brought the girls in. They were in the back icing cookies with Janie. ‘She’s pulling her hair out.’ Cecilia ate a bite of the pecan pie I’d made. ‘This is melt-in-the-mouth delicious, Isabelle. Incredible.’

  I nodded. Pecan pies were my specialty. My dad had taught me the secret. ‘Who’s pulling her hair out?’

  ‘Riley is.’

  I slumped in my seat. ‘Riley is pulling her hair out? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Haven’t you noticed? Do you have one eye shut or something? She’s wearing a headband, which covers some of it, but she’s going bald right down the middle of her head because she’s yanking her hair out one by one.’

  I felt sick. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she’s got the Bommarito Family Trait of Disasters and Discomforts.’ Cecilia’s lips tightened into a hard line, and I knew she was trying not to cry. She dropped the fork and lowered her voice. ‘She has a disease named trichotillomania. I couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on. Her hair kept getting thinner until I saw this bald area. I didn’t want to make her feel bad, feel ugly, like I have felt my entire fat life, but I started watching her and I noticed how much she plays with her hair. One time she was watching TV and I watched her yank a hair out.’

  ‘She pulled it out deliberately? Maybe she hadn’t meant to pull it.’ Why would Riley pull her hair out?

  ‘I kept watching, and she did it again. I wasn’t even positive she knew she was doing it. She was feeling around on the top of her head, the sides, the back, as if she was trying to find the perfect hair, and when she did, she wound it around her finger and pulled. Then she stuck it in her mouth—’

  ‘Her mouth?’

  Cecilia slapped her hands over her face. ‘Yes, and she played with it in her mouth. Then she put that hair on her leg and found another one.’

  ‘Did you say anything to her?’ Sheesh.

  ‘Yes, after about four hairs. I wanted to be nice about it so I said, “Riley, what are you doing? Do you want to be bald like an alien?” She jumped as if I’d shot off a cannon. I went over to her and picked up the hairs on her legs and showed them to her and she came apart. Her whole face crumpled and I held her and rocked her back and forth. It was terrible. Shit! Pulling out her own hair!’

  ‘Did you tell her to stop?’

  ‘No, I told her to pull more out. Gee. What do you think I did, Einstein? Told her to make a nest for the birds? Maybe some hair macramé? She promised she’d stop.’

  I watched Cecilia’s face as it crumpled.

  ‘She didn’t stop,’ I said.

  Cecilia shook her head. ‘I’ve begged and pleaded and threatened her. She keeps pulling and pulling like a hair vulture. The kid’s gonna go bald. Her parting is about an inch wide now and the kids are teasing her. I took her to the doctor and I studied her symptoms online. I even joined some cheesy parent support group, and you know what I think of a bunch of people getting together and whining about their problems.’

  ‘Yes. I believe you said that was for weak-boned spiders.’

  ‘Yep. That’s right.’

  I nodded.

  When I hear about an adult having a problem, whether it’s mental or physical or emotional, well that’s a sad thing. But it’s life. We all get hit in the face. We all get brought to our knees. Buck up and take it.

  But kids. That’s a whole ’nother bucket.

  And a kid that I know and love.

  Riley, our brilliant Riley, lover of physics and family, pulling her hair out.

  ‘I’m sorry, Cecilia.’

  ‘I’m damn shit sorry, too.’ She dropped her head to her hands.

  I slung an arm around her, kissed her temple.

  Why can’t life be easy?

  Grandma, Henry, Janie, Cecilia and the girls, and I sat down and had homemade pesto and tomato pizza together the next night at the wooden table in the kitchen, the french doors open to a drifting breeze. Velvet was playing poker with a co-ed group in town. (A woman always won. ‘Now that puts a stingin’ bee in those boys’ bonnets!’ she’d tell me. ‘A stick in their overalls!’)

  Grandma did not take off her goggles the entire meal and made an aeroplane engine humming sound.

  Riley pulled on her hair and flicked two hairs to the ground as she slurped her strawberry shake.

  Kayla wore a white toga and a gold necklace over her head with a half-moon hanging almost to her nose.

  ‘I am studying alternate, ancient religions,’ she told us in an airy monotone. ‘I am going back in time, into the recesses of my mind, to reach our ancestors.’

  ‘Oh, that’s not a good idea,’ Janie protested. ‘What if some of our stranger relatives pop out and start telling you to do crazy things? Grandma’s mother had agoraphobia, remember? She would stare at people on the street through her lace curtains. And Grandma’s sister, you know, Helen, she had so much stuff hoarded in her house that Great Aunt Tildy had to bring in three giant trash containers when she died.’ Janie smoothed her hair back into her messy bun. ‘She had newspapers from four decades before! And Aunt Tildy talked to voices. Friendly voices. They were friendly.’

  Kayla held her hands out to the side, yoga-style. ‘I’m not afraid of our ancestors. Their lives are my legacy, the memories hiding in the deepest caves of my brain. I am using those memories to form a spiritual basis from which I can do further religious exploration. This necklace is helping me to be celestial in my thinking.’

  ‘I think it’s helping her to be strange and weird,’ her sister helpfully added. ‘She’s a toga-ghost with a moon between her eyes. What’s so spiritual about that? Give me a break.’ She yanked out a hair and dropped it to the ground.

  I saw Cecilia’s lips tighten.

  ‘Don’t worry, Riley,’ Kayla said, back to the airy voice. ‘I’m going to go way back in time and ask for the powers from all of our ancestors to come forth and rid you of this gruesome habit.’

  ‘You’re gruesome,’ Riley told her. ‘Totally gruesome.’

  ‘I’m going to use my incense to pull the demons out of your body,’ Kayla told her, wriggling her fingers. ‘The evil one is making you a hair puller.’

  ‘You’re a demon, Kayla,’ Riley said, squinting her eyes. ‘Definitely a demon.’

  ‘Hey, if you could pull the demons out of my body, I’m on,’ I told her. ‘I’m so on.’

  Kayla sighed in the way only disgusted young girls can sigh. ‘You choose your demon, Aunt Isabelle. You like her. That’s why she stays.’

  Whoa.

  ‘How philosophical!’ Janie breathed.

  ‘My demon is sure stubborn!’ I said. ‘Always following me around and around, making me frolic about on the demonish side.’

  Grandma farted, then spread her arms out and flew around the table. ‘There’s gas in the tank!’

  Henry told us about the brown dog with big teeth that bites at the animal shelter. ‘He wears a yellow collar. That
mean, watch out! He bites!’

  ‘You got a lot of furry friends, Henry,’ Janie told him.

  Henry thought that was hysterical. ‘Yeah yeah! Furry friends.’ He made a meowing sound, then he barked. ‘If animal shelter bigger, we take more doggies in. We need more room, Paula Jay says. More room for furry friends! I love pizza.’

  Grandma leapt up on her chair, hand shielding her eyes from the sun. ‘I see a ship! We’re saved!’ she shouted.

  I waved my napkin. ‘Hooray!’

  Everybody else waved their napkins, too. We have to do this or Grandma gets upset.

  It was pathetic how easily I was falling into the Bommarito family insanity.

  The sun rose over the mountain, golden and pink, purples and blues. I sat on a rock and stared at the Columbia River, the wind flipping my brown braids all around me.

  The windsurfer glided towards shore. I wondered what that was like, windsurfing in the early morning hours, before the sun was much awake, before work, before my emotional instabilities got a fierce grip on my neck and shook it.

  He turned and smiled at me and waved.

  I waved back.

  ‘The Jell-O tastes like embalming fluid.’

  ‘Have you ever tasted embalming fluid?’ I asked Momma, taking the seat farthest from her bed in the hospital room. Cecilia sat down next to her bed, glaring at me for taking the seat I did, and Janie hid behind me as best she could.

  ‘Don’t be disgusting, young lady.’ Momma patted her bell-shaped, ash-blonde hair and straightened her pink robe. ‘The food is terrible. The service is terrible. So many nurses and doctors coming in all the time like rats, I can barely think. See? Here’s one now.’

  She sniffled as Dr Janns entered.

  ‘Mrs Bommarito, how are ya today?’ He smiled cheerily at her. ‘Givin’ all the nurses a bad time, I hear.’

  ‘You have the smile of a Cheshire cat,’ she told him.

  Dr Janns grinned widely, showing her all his teeth. ‘You can call me Cheshire, ma’am. Are you in any pain? Achin’ anywhere?’

  ‘I couldn’t be in more pain if I were strung up on a wall by my ankles being whipped by a midget.’

  ‘A midget?’ I asked.

  Beside me, Janie whimpered and whispered her self-help talk. ‘I cannot control what comes out of her mouth. She can’t hurt me. Other people can defend themselves.’

  ‘Yes, a midget.’

  ‘Why a midget, Momma?’ Cecilia asked. She is always so much nicer to Momma than the rest of us. It’s that desperate ‘One Day Momma Will Love Me’ syndrome.

  ‘Because he reminds me of one.’

  I rolled my eyes. The doctor was actually almost six feet tall. ‘I apologise again for my momma. She is rude.’

  ‘Do not apologise for me, Isabelle Bommarito. It is not necessary. I am in grave pain.’ She plucked at her pink robe and examined her fingernails.

  ‘Well, it’s good to see you sittin’ up today, Mrs Bommarito,’ Dr Janns soldiered on. ‘Spry and ready to face the day with good cheer.’

  ‘After you ripped open my rib cage and poked at my heart with your handy dandy carpenter tools it’s amazing I still have a heart left. With you being so young, I’m surprised you didn’t mistakenly operate on my uterus.’ She arched her eyebrow at him.

  He laughed. ‘Mrs Bommarito, as you are not in possession of the ol’ uterus anymore, that would have been a challenge. I was tempted, however, to operate on a kidney for fun. Give myself the jollies. I also thought about closing my eyes while doing so to create more challenge for myself.’

  I laughed. Janie gasped, then snickered and covered her mouth. Cecilia hid a smile.

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t. You surgeons think you’re God and can do anything.’

  ‘Not God, ma’am, but we are the ones with the sharp knives. It kind of makes us like the boss. You know. The boss. You’re out cold, I’m wielding a weapon. You’re totally at my mercy.’ He grinned again. ‘So, I take it you are feeling better than yesterday?’

  ‘Yesterday I felt like my lungs had been sliced open. Today I feel like my heart has been stabbed. Which is worse, doctor?’ She eyed him up and down.

  ‘Sliced and diced!’ the doctor said cheerily. ‘But I personally think you look terrific, Mrs Bommarito. I wish all my patients came out of their operations as well as you.’

  Momma’s chin lifted and a weak ‘Is that so?’ dropped from those red-lipsticked lips.

  ‘Most assuredly!’ Dr Janns went on. ‘Your colouring is rosier than it was yesterday, your vitals are vital! You don’t seem tired. You’re rockin’, Mrs Bommarito. Rockin’. Fantastic and beautiful, if I can say so.’

  My mouth fell open. I couldn’t believe it. Momma tried to hide her smile. ‘I’m a strong woman.’

  ‘Yep, you are,’ the doctor agreed. ‘Strong as an ox, as soft and gentle as a lamb, as flamboyant as a peacock, as cuddly as a kitten.’

  I sucked in my breath, waiting for the snip snip from Momma.

  She glanced out the window. ‘Perhaps you did a fairly good job on my heart, I’m not sure. I can’t tell yet. I’ll let you know. If you didn’t, you’ll be sure to hear from me.’

  The doctor was still smiling. ‘It would be a pleasure to hear from you at any time, Mrs Bommarito. Any day, all day.’

  ‘All right, then I’ll tell you your hair is unbrushed. Untidy.’

  ‘Momma, please—’ Cecilia started.

  I sat back in my chair and pulled on a braid.

  ‘Oh maaaan,’ the doctor pretended to whine. ‘You don’t like my hair? Yesterday you didn’t like my tie.’

  ‘I don’t like your tie today, either. It makes me dizzy.’ She huffed. ‘Do you want to make your patients dizzy, young man? Do you?’

  I sighed. Janie whimpered. Cecilia shushed her.

  The doctor was buzzed and checked the number on his beeper. ‘Mrs Bommarito,’ he said, leaning over her, ‘I think you’re going to be one of my favourite patients ever.’

  At those truly shocking words, that momma of mine did something surprising. She took that doctor’s hand in hers and patted it. ‘Have a good day, Dr Janns,’ she told him. ‘I’ll see you this afternoon, as usual. Do not be late. Tardiness is not acceptable.’

  He grasped her hand in his. ‘I wouldn’t miss it.’

  The doctor grinned at us and left.

  ‘These doctors are incompetent,’ she said as he left, the scowl back in place. ‘Completely, utterly incompetent.’

  Two days later, Janie and I locked up the bakery and drove to Cecilia’s. We were going to melt some of Parker’s tools down with a blowtorch as a sisterly bonding activity.

  We drove up the hill towards Cecilia’s house in my Porsche, which we’d snagged after a visit to Momma. I have spent a fair amount of time trying to decide if I like my motorcycle or my Porsche better. I cannot decide.

  As we were getting out a brand-new red Corvette roared up the drive.

  ‘Speak of the King of the Devils,’ I said. ‘Our blowtorch sisterly meltdown will have to wait.’

  ‘I see he’s brought his motorised pitchfork,’ Janie drawled. ‘Already I feel bleakness swirling through my gentle karma.’

  The man driving the Corvette, Parker, Cecilia’s soon to be dung-faced ex, if this infernal divorce would ever end, was a prime example of an MMMMM. Translation: Major Male Menopause Moment Man.

  ‘Good thing the girls aren’t here,’ I said. ‘He’s come to harangue Cecilia. Bully her up. She says he does this in the hopes that she’ll get so battered down, she’ll give in.’ I laughed. ‘As if our Cecilia would ever get battered down.’

  ‘Ladies!’ Parker spread his arms out wide, as if he thought we would race to him for a hug.

  I spread my arms out wide, too. ‘Adulterer! Slime-Man! Mould and scum!’

  Janie spread her arms out. ‘If it isn’t the devil! Where’s your pitchfork? Come on, now, show me that pitchfork!’

  Parker dropped his arms, the sleazy smile disapp
earing.

  ‘Forgive us for not jumping into your arms,’ I said. ‘We’ve restrained ourselves with great effort.’

  ‘Hello, vermin,’ Janie said. ‘Did I tell you that my hatred for you makes me a better crime writer? I think of you when I’m killing someone.’

  He cringed, paled a bit, then got his footing back. ‘How are your one-night stands going, Isabelle?’

  ‘They’re going well, thank you. Plenty of them.’ My skin crawled as Parker took me in from head to foot. He is a shortish sort of man with vampire-like teeth.

  Cecilia married him because he was the first guy who expressed serious interest in her. She was bowled off her feet, her usually smart brain going to mush in a hand basket because her self-esteem at that time was about as low as a beetle’s groin. He gave her attention, and she licked it up. Grateful.

  Sad.

  ‘Janie,’ Parker said. ‘How’s the houseboat? Able to leave it without counting all the cracks in the sidewalk, I see. Maybe you’ll be able to go to the store by yourself soon.’

  I wandered over to his car and took out my lipstick. I twisted it upward, then jammed the entire thing into the sheepskin liner on the driver’s side, smearing it as I went.

  ‘What the—’ Parker ran over to me, flushed and furious. He dipped his head in the car. ‘Isabelle, you’re gonna pay for that!’

  ‘I sure will, snake oil man. I have some Monopoly money in the house. How about pink?’

  He spat out a bad word that started with a b, but I have been called worse. I threw my lipstick at his lips. I noticed that his bottom was bigger than last time. ‘I notice your bottom is bigger than last time!’

  ‘By the way, Parker,’ Janie said, hand to cheek, ‘what’s your middle name? I’m trying to name the gambler in my next book who has no morals, cheats anyone he can get his hands on, and ends up in a grave alive. He suffocates slowly. What is it again? Deadbeat? Hairy Chest Man Loser? Gopher Face? I can’t remember. Help me out, Isabelle.’

  ‘I think his middle name is: I Come In My Hand A Lot,’ I said. It’s good to be helpful.

  ‘You are so smart, Is,’ Janie gushed. ‘I knew I could rely on you. For a second I thought it might be Masturbating Monster, but no. You’ve got it.’