Henry's Sisters (11 page)

I could hardly move. It was Father Mike.

I got all choked up. The man had practically saved my life.

‘Isabelle, Isabelle, Isabelle! You dear girl!’ he said, hobbling over to me, his hip in bad shape from where he’d taken shrapnel in the Korean War. ‘I’ve missed you!’

I put the cupcakes down and gave him a hug, and it was like hugging safety and comfort and friendship all in one, but dear God, if this man only knew the multitude of sins I had engaged in since I left Trillium River, I didn’t think he’d be hugging me now.

What would Father Mike think of my bra burning and the events that led up to it? What would he think of the men? The selfishness?

He wiped the tears off his cheeks with both hands, then boomed, ‘Dear girl, I need you in the choir immediately.’

Now that was Father Mike. Hey, how you doin’, come on in to the church and help me. All within two seconds. ‘Hello! I need someone to lead Sunday school for the fourth graders and I hear you’re a former teacher! How about starting next week?’ Or ‘I hear you moved to Trillium River! What instrument do you play? The trumpet! Wonderful! Well, go and get it, you’re playing solo today between communion and the offering!’

Funny thing was, I could tell you at least thirty families who were still here after that initial invitation from Father Mike.

‘Oh, no, Father Mike. I don’t sing anymore.’

‘Isabelle Bommarito! Raise the melody of your voice to God once again and say Hallelujah! You were such an addition to our choir when you lived here! Such! An! Addition!’

I had sung in the choir because Father Mike made me. He told Momma I could ‘sing like a nightingale, fifty nightingales,’ and she made me, too. Ironic, but the Wednesday night’s church choir had been led by a gal (
moi
) who was an Expert Sinner.

‘It’s only for thirty minutes,’ Father Mike said. ‘Thirty minutes! The kids all sing together. Rock songs. Christian rock. We get the drums going.’ He imitated playing the drums, his age-spotted hands surprisingly limber. ‘The electric and acoustic guitars rolling.’ He imitated playing the guitars, rocking his hips back and forth. ‘I need you! Janice! Janice!’ He waved over a plump, smiling, grey-haired woman who appeared harried and rushed. ‘Here’s a blessed lady for your choir. She sings! Like a nightingale, like fifty nightingales!’

‘But I can’
t—’

Janice fell all over me, she was so relieved. ‘Perfect. Outstanding. So outstanding! We definitely need someone who can sing.’ She patted her hair and spoke with no pauses. ‘The kids will be coming in seconds they sound like a herd of charging buffalo so watch out dear now most of the band is made up of the high schoolers but our guitarist got sick and the two girls who sing well…’ She fluttered and flustered as she shoved me up towards the altar, where teenagers were milling around with their instruments.

‘Let’s say they’re beginning singers and leave it at that. There’s a little stage here where you’ll be with the others dear, come along.’

‘But I don’
t—’

‘We’ll give you the sheet music. Joshua, here’s your new singer.’

Josh was a young boy with a pierced nose and a pierced ear. ‘Cool. Hey, how are ya?’ He stuck out one hand for me to shake and handed me sheet music with the other. ‘Let’s rock.’

‘Rock and roll,’ I told him.

‘Dig the braids,’ he told me, nodding in approval.

‘Thank you.’ I flipped them back. ‘Dig the pierced nose.’

He gave me a three fingers up, two down sign.

‘God in heaven, calm my nerves and thank you for this singer,’ Janice said, still fluttering, flittering.

Father Mike grinned at me, mimicked playing the guitar, and wiggled his eyebrows. This wasn’t going to happen. No way. No. I got off the stage.

‘Oh, dear, dear,’ Janice said, following me, tut-tutting. ‘We have only minutes,
minutes,
honey, don’t you want to study the music?’

‘Father Mike,’ I said, trying not to pant. ‘Father Mike!’

‘What is it, Isabelle? Are you troubled?’ He smiled at me. So dear, so innocent. But he knew what he was up to. He was a sneaky priest, I thought.
Sneaky
. Trying to get me up there to sing Christian rock.

‘Father Mike.’ How to put this into words? How could I? I choked. Janice patted my arm.

‘You can do it, love, Father Mike has faith in your voice and so do I,’ she cheered, her face flushed.

I pulled the two of them to a quieter corner as the teenagers rushed in like a herd of charging buffalo in heat.

‘I’m not fit,’ I whispered.

They were both utterly baffled.

I tried again. ‘
I’m not fit
.’

Janice eyed my body. ‘Well, dear. You could have fooled me! You’re thin.’ She squeezed my upper arms. ‘And you have muscles but don’t worry about that at all you don’t have to be in shape to sing here at church!’ She yanked my arm. She was surprisingly strong.

‘No, no.’ I stood still, dug my heels in. Getting up on that stage in high school to sing was one thing. I was a kid. I was messing around, but I was a kid. The sins had grown deeper and wider since then and the sins had been deliberately made by a fully responsible and turbo-charged, whacked-out adult.

‘I mean, I’m not fit… I’m not fit to be up there.’

Understanding dawned in Father Mike’s eyes.

‘What? Ooo…ah…ohhhh…’ Understanding dawned in Janice’s eyes.

‘I can’t. I’m not a practising Catholic. I don’t even go to church anymore. I can’t imagine God wants to see me here. If I went to confession, Father Mike, we would be there for hours. I mean hours. I’d be saying Hail Marys ’til I was eighty, and that would only cover what I’ve done in the last few years. I can’
t—’

Father Mike smiled, spread his arms. ‘Jesus loves all of us, Isabelle. We’re all sinners. Who am I to judge you or anyone else?’

I felt this tiny warmth in my heart. I always felt that way when I was around Father Mike.

‘Oh, he’s faithfully right!’ Janice flutter-flittered. ‘There’s no judging going on here please, dear, I don’t care what you’ve done I personally used to be a drug addict before God came and got me I even sold drugs to get drugs it was a terrible life and terrible deeds!’ I felt my mouth drop open to my ankles. Janice was a drug dealer?

Father Mike beamed at Janice, his hands outstretched upward. ‘Praise God! You see! Janice is here now in the church! God loved her so much he pulled her out of her own hell and brought her here! She runs the music program! She handles the seniors’ choir, kids’ choir, teenagers’ choir. She organises the choir for Sunday, too, and we have eighty people! An eighty-person choir, all because of Janice! She knows how to reach people’s hearts through music. God gave her a difficult path to follow so she could later use her own experience to help lead people away from the sins of drugs and alcohol, bless his name!
Bless his name!
’

‘Oh!’ Janice squeaked, pulling a handkerchief from the pocket of her dress and swishing it about. ‘Oh! When I hear you say those words, Father Mike, I…’ She sniffled. ‘
I have to cry!
’

‘Tears of joy!’ Father Mike thundered. ‘Tears of joy! Utter joy for God’s great works! We walk through the fires of hell and come out on the other side with a bucket full of holy water to pour on others who are sinning to make them new again and join all of us in our love for our Father!’

Janice sniffled in her handkerchief, waving a hand in the air. ‘Praise God,’ she squeaked, blew her nose. ‘Praise God!’

‘Janice opens the door with her music so the words of Christ that I speak on Sunday can fall into people’s hearts!’

‘God saves the worst of us, Isabelle,’ Janice said, fanning herself with her handkerchief. ‘I’m living proof of that. Now, up you go heavens! The teenagers are coming in!’ She caught her breath. The tears gone, purpose behind those eyes. She got behind me and – I am not kidding you – she pushed me until I was up on that stage in a not-so-Christian way.

And that’s how I started singing Christian rock again. I was rough at first, but by the end of it, well, I was rockin’.

At the end of the worship music, the kids were cheering and we had not been struck by lightning, swarms of locusts, or flooding, and there were no reports of the Red Sea parting again.

‘You sing good, Is,’ Henry told me, rocking back and forth. ‘Jesus loves you!’

I rolled my eyes.

Father Mike clapped.

He’s a sneaky priest.

Momma had come down with an infection and was staying at the hospital.

Janie and I baked like fiends; Cecilia taught school, then baked, while often swearing. Kayla and Riley helped. Kayla wore a toga (studying Greek religion) and Riley lectured all of us on recent scientific discoveries.

But we could not have functioned without Velvet. She kept an eye on Grandma and Henry while we worked and visited The Viper in the hospital.

Late one night, after drinking her homemade lemonade, lemonade so tart it could have made a bull drop his balls, we got on the subject of men.

‘Isabelle, darlin’,’ Velvet drawled honey-thick while she rocked on the wicker rocker on the porch, ‘I was so sick of fakin’ orgasms I could not bring myself to marry again for the fourth time. It astonishes the heck out of me how old, fat, white men can
believe
they’re so good in bed they can actually get a woman to scream.’

Her voice was so soft, so melodious, and clashed so dramatically with what she was saying, I blew ball-dropping lemonade straight out of my nose.

‘How can they think they’re so suave? So skilled? Beer bellies are not sexy. Sweating men are not a turn-on, darlin’, you know this. The only man who could ever turn my ticker and rev me up was Robert Redford, and he has consistently ignored my letters and calls.’

‘You faked all of them?’ I asked.

‘For years I did, sugar. Menopause hit me hard. Like a desert sandstorm come to settle in my nether regions. Before that, I was a she-devil.’ She fanned herself.

‘Once those hot flushes and night sweats came they carried off my sex drive. I sweated out all my desires. I was reduced to fakin’ it then. Pantin’, moanin’, gnashin’ of my teeth, a tremble here and there, my head way back in supposed ecstasy, holdin’ onto their backs as if I thought my head would explode, the pleasure so, so intense.’ She clucked. ‘Honey, I sure as a hanging possum should have been given an award for my efforts!’

‘You should have. I’ll give you the I Faked More Orgasms Than Anyone Award.’ I tilted my head. If I was still a photographer, I could shoot her. Her face was craggy and mysterious…but I’m not a photographer anymore, so I won’t. I smashed down the feelings of utter loss that assailed me.

‘I have earned it, darlin’, I have. But now I’ve got myself a huge house by the prettiest river in the west, a Cadillac, and a trust fund over two million dollars thanks to Jonathon, Earl, Mack. I call it the JEM Fund. Do you get that, love? Each husband’s name is a letter.’ She laughed.

‘You are so clever, Velvet.’

‘All of us southern women are clever, we have to be. But here’s what I learnt from my mother: if you give a man a couple of drinks before you start up, his engine is softened and he’ll get done in the time it would take to pull a skunk’s tail. Quick as a wink you can go about your business.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Quick as a wink!’

‘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.’