Henry's Sisters

by Cathy Lamb

  I still see the windsurfer. I wave at him each morning. He waves back.

  Maybe one day I’ll stick around and say hello.

  But maybe not.

  I have come to the conclusion that a man in my life, a relationship with a member of the male species, does not appeal to me right now. I don’t need the stress, I don’t need the drama. I’ve had enough of both.

  My experience has also led me to believe that men are much better at a distance, much better in our heads when we fantasise about them, and when we believe what we want to believe about them, than they are in real life. In real life, once the sheen is off, they’re just…men, deeply flawed and exhausting.

  Except for my dad, whom I love dearly, and Henry.

  On my own, I’ve found Isabelle after a relentlessly tumultuous journey and I don’t want a man along with me for the ride right now. I certainly don’t want to share with him my pretty bras. I like Isabelle. I like who I’ve come to be. Finally, I have found peace. Why let a man mess that up?

  But maybe one day I’ll say hello.

  I’ll think about it.

  The wedding ceremony took place at the church that summer with the reception at Grandma’s house.

  The dress was a lavender colour, the heels matched, and the groom was gorgeous in a black tux. The church was packed with friends and decorated with white ribbons, giant bouquets of spring flowers, and an abundance of candles.

  I was nervous and happy and excited and tearful. Janie and Cecilia held my hands, like always.

  ‘Do you, Carl Bommarito,’ Father Mike said, smiling, ‘pledge to love, honour, and cherish your wife for as long as you both shall live?’

  ‘I do,’ said Dad.

  ‘And do you, River Bommarito, pledge to love, honour, and cherish your husband for as long as you both shall live?’

  ‘Oh, I do,’ Momma said, for once not ferocious, but soft and loveable. Her new wedding ring flashed. It was a doozer. ‘I do.’

  It was a heart-warming, tear-jerking ceremony.

  It was unnecessary from a legal standpoint.

  Momma had never divorced Dad.

  Dad had never divorced Momma.

  But they were both adamant that they wanted to renew their vows. Father Mike thought it was a blessed idea, blessed, godly, holy!

  ‘Why, Momma?’ I had asked her one night as we swung on the swing on the porch, Janie and Cecilia in wicker chairs. ‘Why did you never divorce?’

  She huffed at me. ‘Now, Isabelle, why would I divorce your dad?’

  ‘Uh, because he left us?’

  ‘He left because the monster inside of him was making him a monster on the outside. Some quack in Washington sent him to war and that screwed him up good. I loved your dad. I still do. I always will. And I always knew he’d come back.’ She wagged her pointer finger in my face. ‘And I was right, Isabelle, don’t you forget it. I was right.’

  ‘But you forgave him instantly, Momma. How did you do that? Forgiveness isn’t your strongest suit, you know.’ I could hardly believe I was having this conversation with her. Before Henry’s death, this subject would not have been broached unless I wanted to get verbally pummelled. But Henry’s death had taken Momma down about five hundred pegs in the over-aggressiveness department.

  She started loving differently, I think, because she had lost deeply. Dad loved her, she was at peace in that love, and we, her daughters, were still alive and open to that love. She took the opening. Yes, it was a miracle. No, she was not transformed into sweetness – she could still wither anyone she chose into dust, and her grief for Henry was permanent – but kindness seeped out on a more regular basis instead of…never.

  She had even written us each a note on her pink paper. The notes said, ‘I love you. I always have, always will. Momma.’

  Momma was silent for a minute and we let the wind surround us, calm and quiet.

  ‘There was nothing to forgive,’ Momma said. ‘We can’t imagine what that poor man went through. His knee was broken with a hammer. Two fingers were chopped off with a machete. He was beaten and starved. This was after his second tour in ’Nam, after he’d lived in the jungles that time for more than a year, after he’d been shot at, and had shot at others, after watching half of his unit killed during one night-time attack, to say nothing, young lady, of all the other horrible things that happened there that vets, to this day, won’t speak of.

  ‘When he was ready, knew his life was in order, knew he could offer something, he thought about coming back. But he was worried his return was selfish, that coming back would upend our lives, add stress and renew anger and hurt. But I’m so glad…’ she brushed at those bright eyes. ‘I’m so glad your dad came home.’

  ‘You’re still in love, after the turbulence you went through, the levelling negativity!’ Janie said. She put down a pile of classics she’d been clutching on her lap.

  ‘I am. I could never stop loving your dad, just like I can’t stop loving you three crazy girls and Henry.’ She glared at us, not wanting us to get all mushy.

  She slipped her hand in her pocket. ‘Anyhow, look what your silly dad gave me the other day.’ She pulled out a cheque made out to her and signed by Carl Bommarito. The sum was enormous. ‘He collected his back pay from the government – which was supposed to forward the money to me when you were kids, but didn’t because they lost their brains in their own bureaucracy.’

  I gaped. We all gaped.

  ‘It’s also the money his parents left him, in stocks, when they died. The money was supposed to go to me and you kids, but your dad left with two papers accidentally unsigned, so the money never reached us. He never knew. But see what happens when you leave your money in the stock market for thirty years, girls?’

  I leant back against the swing. Lord, she was rich. She would not have to worry about money again.

  ‘Your dad told me that I deserved it for all I went through. Silly man. He told me to give a cheque to you three girls, too. So here they are.’ She pulled out three cheques, signed by Dad, and handed them to us.

  I blinked.

  Sheesh.

  We sisters could forget about working, too.

  But all that money got us sisters thinking. I didn’t need the money, neither did Janie, who could buy France, and neither did Cecilia.

  But we knew something that did.

  The Henry Bommarito Animal Shelter opened eighteen months from the day our idea hatched. We donated our cheques from our dad, held several fundraisers, received money from many animal groups, money from the city, money from our friends (I can’t believe I can even say ‘our friends,’ as if the Bommaritos are normal people), money from Momma and Dad, and Dr Silverton, who had transferred to the high school before he’d asked Cecilia out on a single date but then…tra-la-la… Cecilia said, ‘We couldn’t resist.’ Momma liked Dr Silverton, calling him a fearless giant, not like Parker, who ‘thought like a man with a small dick.’

  We received a chunk of money from Cherie, and an awesome big chunk from Bob The Man in Charge. Bao gave (‘Hurting animals, hurting people, all the same,’ he said), and Belinda pledged two dollars a week for the cats. ‘I like cats,’ she told me. ‘They always smile.’

  Funny enough, we found out that Grandma actually did have a stash of money. Hearing all the excitement about the Henry Bommarito Animal Shelter, she whispered to us sisters, ‘Come with me. I’ll show you where my secret is hidden.’ We followed her up to the tower room at the top of the house on tiptoe, as she insisted. She then surprised us by picking up a hammer and smashing a hole clean through the wall.

  And there it was. Stacks and stacks of dollar bills. Grandma’s secret added up to $22,000.

  We pretended to donate the money, but it went right into a savings account for her. ‘Thank you, Amelia,’ we said, in all seriousness. ‘Thank you.’

  She saluted. ‘Anything for my co-pilot. I miss that man in my plane. So do the natives.’ She sniffled.

  ‘Me too, Amelia,’ I said,
hugging her close. ‘Me too.’

  ‘The natives here love me,’ she said, hugging me back. She farted. ‘Gas in the tank!’

  So we had our shelter.

  It was huge and clean and we put Paula Jay and Dawn in charge of it, and Paula Jay declared, ‘You see, your brother keeps on giving! He keeps on giving!’

  Janie and Cecilia and I held hands the night before the ‘grand opening’ party in front of the shelter, moonbeams beaming on down.

  The dogs and cats from the old shelter were going to be ceremoniously walked/carried to the new shelter down the street, parade style, with most everyone I knew in Trillium River coming. Janie had bought five hundred T-shirts with pictures of dogs and cats on them in front and ‘In Memory of Henry Bommarito’ written on the back, which we would be giving out for free.

  The high school band was playing, the church choirs were singing songs about animals, plus ‘Jesus Loves Me,’ the seniors were sponsoring a Bunco game to raise money for the shelter, the church parishioners were holding a silent auction, and the firefighters in town were serving a spaghetti dinner with ‘stringy cheese,’ Henry’s favourite.

  Momma and Dad and Grandma would walk next to Paula Jay. Momma would be carrying a picture of Henry. Father Mike would carry a banner the church made with Henry’s name and a shimmery gold cross on it. Cecilia and Janie and I and all the other people we love like crazy would come next. Riley was wearing a dog bandana and a shirt that said, ‘Scientists are sexiest.’ Kayla was wearing a grass skirt, and Velvet was wearing a new purple velvet dress and purple velvet hat.

  Belinda would carry Joe, that ragged cat, who I had bought a new pink bow for, and Bao would come after decorating the table centrepieces with flowers from his garden. Lytle would wear Henry’s favourite dog shirt.

  The students and teachers at Cecilia’s school made construction paper dog and cat hats with ears. There were also lizard hats, a goat, four cows, six monsters, a Tazmanian devil, King Kong, and a witch hat.

  We had invited Dr Remmer to come with her two dogs, and she agreed. When she arrived the next day, the male dog had a blue bow on, the female pink. A sign on their backs said, JUST MARRIED.

  We had dog and cat treats waiting for the four-legged animals and giant cakes in the shapes of mutts, German shepherds, and a big fluffy white dog ready for the two-legged animals. All of the Bommarito family had baked them, together.

  We’d commissioned an artist in Joseph, Oregon, to make a bronze statue of Henry for the entry. His curly hair was blowing in the wind, he was smiling and waving, and he was holding a fluffy dog, with a big mutt standing beside him and a cat slinking around his tennis shoes, Velcro snaps visible.

  We stood around that amazing statue holding hands, and we three sisters snuffled for our Henry, but we stopped when the wind suddenly kicked up and swished our short/fluffy/curly hair all over our heads.

  ‘I feel Henry,’ Janie sighed. ‘He’s in the wind.’

  ‘Knock it off, Henry,’ Cecilia snapped, although I saw the sheen in her eyes. ‘Dammit! I’ve got a date with Larry right after this and you’re messing up my hair!’

  I laughed. ‘You got big angel wings, didn’t you, Henry? Yeah, yeah, you did.’ I put my arms straight up in that windy air and twirled around under the moonbeams, under the stars, under heaven, right by Henry and his smile and his angel wings. ‘I love you, my brother. I love you. Yeah, yeah.’

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  Henry’s Sisters

  CATHY LAMB

  About this guide

  The suggested questions are included to enhance your group’s reading of Cathy Lamb’s Henry’s Sisters.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  Of the three sisters, whom do you relate to most? With whom would you most likely be friends? If you had to change places with one of the sisters for a month, which one would you trade places with? What would you do to change their lives in that month, if anything?

  How did Isabelle change from the beginning of the book to the end? Cecilia? Janie? What do you think is in the future for each of the sisters?

  Describe River Bommarito. Do you like her? River made many difficult decisions when the sisters and Henry were growing up. Was River backed into a corner, or were there different decisions she could have made? What would you have done? Is it judgmental to say that we would not have made the same decisions as she did if we were in her shoes?

  What kind of a man is Carl Bommarito? Do you agree with his decision to stay away from the family? Would you have been able to forgive your husband if he left for thirty years, given the same circumstances, as River did? Would you have been able to forgive your father for an absence of that length?

  Henry said, ‘You good sisters. We laugh. We cry. We play. We work at bakery and have spaghetti with stringy cheese. Happy life.’ Did Henry have a happy life? What made him happy? What could all of us learn from Henry?

  What role did Father Mike play in this book? How did his words help Isabelle recover from who she used to be? Would you describe Isabelle as religious?

  Velvet Eddow said, ‘Men are easily baffled, though, darlin’, don’t ever forget that. Their brains think like porn. That’s the only way I can describe it, darlin’, like porn… One part of their brain thinks, the other part is holding a breast in his hand, at all times.’ True? Not true?

  Isabelle said, ‘You get help for a mental illness? People start to steer clear. They are blockheaded, insensitive, narrow-minded morons who will never get past their own flaming ignorance, but they peg you in a hole, treat you with annoying kid gloves, condescension, and/or like they think you’re a weak, perhaps dangerous, eternally sick whack job, unsafe or unhealthy to be around. It’s beyond their minuscule minds to accept that people with mental illnesses get better all the time. All the time.’ Discuss this statement. Is it true? What specific events do you feel most helped Isabelle in her battle against depression?

  Parker, Cecilia’s cheating, mean, ex-husband, loses everything by the end of the book: his wife and kids, his beautiful home, his job, and his new wife. He acquires massive credit card debt from Constance, a boat he doesn’t want, an arrest record, a watered Corvette, and a job as a car salesman. Did he deserve these consequences? What did Cecilia learn about herself from that relationship?

  Janie says, ‘So I write about gruesome killings and kidnappings and have a few obsessions. It’s the way I am…odd. Who gives a shit?’ Has Janie finally come to accept herself? Do you think she will ever seek help for her ‘few obsessions’? Will she be able to maintain a relationship with The Man in Charge? Do you think you’ve accepted yourself – faults and idiosyncrasies and all?

  Cecilia and Isabelle had an intense emotional/physical twin connection to each other. Do you believe that these types of connections exist between twins, siblings, or family members? If so, how does this happen? Did this connection enhance the story?

  The sisters, and Henry, all suffered from their childhood. In the end, did it make them stronger? More compassionate? Or was the fallout so extreme for all of them that they’ll never fully recover? How did their childhoods affect their future careers?

  Isabelle said, ‘My experience has also led me to believe that men are much better at a distance, much better in our heads when we fantasise about them, and when we believe what we want to believe about them, than they are in real life. In real life, once the sheen is off, they’re just…men, deeply flawed and exhausting.’ What do you think of that statement? Is she right? Do you foresee Isabelle choosing to have a relationship in the future with a man? What are some of the stumbling blocks they will have to overcome together?

  How did Henry hold the family together? Do you agree with the author’s decision to have Henry die by the end of the book? Was there any other ending that would have worked?

  Describe the sisters’ relationships to one another. Are they typical sisters? Is the Bommarito family a functioning or a non-functioning family? Is your family like this to some extent?
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