Henry's Sisters (10 page)

Henry started running, frantic, his frog hat flying off.

We sisters started running, too, towards the shits, only we kept it quiet, like we were executing an ambush. We had experience in these matters.

‘One…’ Cecilia panted when we were close to the three boys who were running after Henry. She was big then, but fast. ‘Two…’ The kids didn’t even hear us over the roar of their own feet and laughter and taunts of ‘Hey, fuckface. Hey, dummy! You’re retarded! Dumb shit!’

‘Three!’ Cecilia screamed. Her fury had runneth over.

On three we each dove for one of those shits.

We smashed them to the sidewalk, the air rushing out of their bodies with the force of our landing. I heard a
crack
from the body of my boy. We weren’t screwing around. We never did. Plus, we were pissed. Pissed off at those guys for torturing poor, sweet Henry, pissed off that Momma was in bed again, pissed off there was no food in the house, pissed off we had no dad, pissed off the phone was cut off again, pissed off at our dingy bras. It was endless what the Bommarito girls were pissed off about.

We hammered those kids with our fists, the recipients of our hate, while Henry ran home, as instructed, after he got his frog hat back on his head. Cecilia jammed her boy’s head into the sidewalk. I brought my knee up in one movement and shoved my fist into my guy’s nose at the same time.

Blood. All over his face.

Janie counted, ‘One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two—’ Each time she hit a number she hit the guy. Janie had brass knuckles so we’d let her tackle the biggest guy.

They struggled, but it was of no use.

After I’d punched my jerk in the gut, I whipped out a small knife. Cecilia and Janie yanked on their boys’ hair until they were forced to watch me sticking the tip of the knife into my guy’s neck.

‘Do. Not. Ever. Ever,’ I shouted, my face two inches from that petrified shit’s face, ‘come near our brother again. Do you get that? Do you get that, you shits? If you do, I will kill you. Got that, you shits?’

Janie’s kid tried to get up. Smash. ‘One. Two. Three. Four.’ Smash. Blood.

Cecilia’s prey tried to wrestle her off. ‘Get off of me, fat ass!’

Her anger went a-flamin’ away at that remark. He was crumpled in a ball by the time she was done with him, sobbing for his mother.

My guy didn’t move. I smiled at him sweetly, my knife still pricking. ‘Care to go to the prom together?’

He paled.

‘I could show you my other knives.’ I smiled again. Then I leant down and whispered, ‘I will make you into a woman if you come near my brother again, you got that?’ I dropped the knife to his crotch.

He whimpered. ‘OK. I wanna go home…home…’ Tears started streaming out of his eyes. He spat out a tooth.

‘One, two, three, four, let ’em go,’ Janie said. We all stood up, and Cecilia and Janie and I moved shoulder to shoulder. Janie fisted her brass knuckles; I held the knife out and smiled.

‘That date to the prom?’ I taunted.

‘That was fun!’ Janie declared. ‘I had a good time!’

The next morning we were sitting right across from those three bullies in the principal’s office.

The bullies were bruised and beaten. I snickered and flipped up my middle fingers at them. Janie counted out loud and Cecilia wrapped both hands around her neck, pretended to strangle herself, then pointed at them.

The principal, Mr Wong, who had apples on his tie and wore huge glasses, said, ‘These young men said that the three of you beat them up.’ He cocked an eyebrow at us.

The vice principal, a woman named Ms Drake, was sitting beside him. Both of them had satisfied expressions on their faces.

‘These boys have been in here before.
Many times
,’ Ms Drake drawled. She had white hair in a braid wrapped around her head. ‘We are quite familiar with them, but it’s always because they beat up somebody else. What’s happened here, girls?’

Janie exhaled and drummed up a few tears. We had all worn dresses and clean white socks that day, and had even shined up our shoes with toilet paper. We had practised our responses. ‘We
had
to, ma’am.’

‘You had to?’ Ms Drake asked. She chuckled, then coughed to cover it.

‘Yes, we had to. For protection. For safety.’ Janie dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief of Momma’s. I thought she appeared small and fragile. I tried not to giggle when I thought of how expertly she had wielded her brass knuckles.

‘What do you mean, for protection? They said you beat them up for no reason,’ Mr Wong said, fingering the apples. ‘None. Zero. Out of the blue.’

The boys squirmed. I stared at the crotch of my guy and made a scissor-cutting motion with my hands. He flushed.

‘We beat them up because they’re assholes,’ Cecilia interjected. She had not paid much attention to me and Janie when we had practised our victim-like responses last night.

I side-kicked Cecilia.

‘Young lady—’ the principal started.

‘I’m sorry, sir, ma’am,’ Cecilia said, contrite momentarily. ‘I won’t say the assholes are assholes again.’

‘Cecilia—’ Ms Drake warned.

‘I’m so sorry, ma’am, for my…my
impertinence
.’ She glared at the boys and mouthed, ‘Assholes.’

They squirmed in their chairs again.

‘Let’s start over here,’ Mr Wong insisted. ‘These boys are missing teeth, Shaw’s mouth is swollen up, and Damien’s got a bump on his head the size of Kansas. Their parents called and they want answers. What happened?’

‘We defended our brother, sir,’ I said, tilting my chin up. ‘They attacked Henry yesterday. They did it the day before, too. When we found out about it, we followed Henry on his way home from school to keep him safe and that’s when those three attacked him again. Twice. In two days they jumped him.’

The boys stared at the floor. I hummed a little song to freak them out.

‘
You what?
’ Mr Wong turned towards the boys. He was usually mild-mannered, but his son had special needs, too, and he and Henry played checkers together. When Henry didn’t come to school, the son threw fits.

‘
You attacked Henry?
Henry Bommarito?’ Mr Wong was aghast. That’d be the word for it,
aghast
.

Ms Drake lost her secret smile.

The boys started to stammer and stutter.

‘Damien did it. It was his
idea—’

‘Dirk started
it—’

‘I didn’t want to, but Shaw said if I didn’t help that he’d kick me out of the
club—’

‘It’s only Henry anyhow,’ Shaw muttered through his swollen lips. ‘He’s OK. He’s a stupid person, you know. He don’t got no brain like us.’

Well now, that did it.

‘
It’s only Henry?
’ Mr Wong bit out. He turned purplish red and got up and whacked each of them on the head with a sheaf of papers. ‘
He’s a human being.
’

‘But—’ Damien interrupted. ‘He ain’t like us. He ain’t normal.’

‘He is normal, you’re the ones who aren’t normal!’ Mr Wong yelled. ‘What kind of animal beats up on Henry? How sick.’ He thunked them each on the head again. ‘Sick. Sick. Sick.
Are you animals?
’

‘He made funny faces at us!’ one of the boys shouted.

‘Yeah, he’s always smiling and saying, “Jesus loves you!”’

‘He’s a retard!’ the third boy said. ‘Retard!’

Oh boy.

Chaos
.

We Bommarito girls
hate
that word.

That was one ugly scene. Cecilia, Janie, and I leapt at the three boys at one time. I landed on the middle one so hard I knocked him over.

The principal managed to catch Janie in mid-air as she flew at one of the other boys. She screamed and kicked and got one kick in right on Shaw’s swollen lips.

Cecilia torpedoed herself at the other kid and karate kicked him in the chest before the vice principal restrained her. We both noted later that Cecilia was allowed to get off one more banging good karate kick before the vice principal actually used some muscle to pull her off.

We were carried out of the principal’s office by force, our feet flailing in the air as we struggled, and tossed into chairs in the outer office.

Those bullying, creepy boys were expelled.

The principal and vice principal summoned us back to the office and we braced ourselves.

At first there was dead silence, then Mr Wong sighed heavily. He nodded at Ms Drake.

‘I hear you girls bake a tasty German chocolate cake,’ Ms Drake said, sitting up straight, smiling sweetly as if the melee that morning had never occurred. ‘And apple pies. I’d like one of each. I’ve had a hankering for apple pie for weeks now.’

What to say, what to say? No punishment?

‘My secretary said that you also bake a four-layer chocolate cake that tastes like heaven. My wife would like two for a family dinner we’re having,’ Mr Wong said. He fingered the apples on his tie.

We were speechless. Speech. Less.

Mr Wong swivelled in his chair. ‘If you’d like, girls, you can put an advertisement up in the staff room and an order sheet for your desserts…’

I about quivered I was so excited. No expulsion
and
a job opportunity.

‘Ha! The assholes are out and we’re in,’ Cecilia said, swinging her fists in the air.

Ms Drake hid her smile.

‘Yes!’ Janie leapt out of her chair. ‘Yes! We’ll do it! One, two, three, four!’

We did it.

And, for a while, we Bommarito girls had enough money for food and the electric bill.

There were other kids, in many other schools, and our knife, our brass knuckles, and our fists unfortunately were used many times to protect Henry. Henry, our sweet, innocent Henry, with the frog hat and a shirt that said, ‘Boo!’

So when Henry and the teenagers met up in front of the church, I could feel my blood pumping. Janie and I were ready to go, ready to rip. I heard her start counting beside me.

‘Hello!’ Henry said, smiling, waving to the teenagers. ‘Coming to church? We got doughnuts!’

One kid gave him a gentle pat on the back. He was dressed all in black and had two chains hanging from his belt. Another one had spiked green hair. He said, ‘Hey dude. What’s shakin’?’ which made Henry laugh.

‘I not shakin’,’ he said, his face lighting up. ‘You funny, Connor. Hey, Jesus loves you! He love you.’

We watched them walk up the steps together.

I loved Henry.

‘I love Henry,’ Janie sighed. ‘He reminds me of Vivaldi and Yo-Yo Ma. Blended.’

I couldn’t speak. I swear, the light that Henry has brought to my life has sometimes been the only light I had at all.

‘Come over.’

‘What?’ I leant back against the white wicker couch on the porch, my hand loosely holding the phone. Janie was stretched out on the floor. ‘Now, Cecilia?’

‘I can’t move,’ Janie said. ‘My bones are sticks, my muscles jelly.’

We hadn’t had a day off in well over a week. Word had got out about Bommarito’s Bakery and we were seeing a steady stream of people. We were baking like fiends, and even though Cecilia helped afternoons and on the weekends, we would probably have to hire workers. We couldn’t continue at this pace or my bones would shatter and dry up and be taken off by the wind to Holland.

‘Yes! Come over!’ Cecilia said, her voice gleeful. ‘The girls are in bed. I have to show you two something.’

‘What, specifically?’ I pictured my exhausted kidney on a stretcher, an IV line running through it, oxygen mask over the kidney’s face. Do kidneys have faces?

Janie whispered, ‘My body doesn’t work anymore. I am left with flesh and capillaries, a few arteries, no working bones.’

But Cecilia had splendiferous news: ‘I got the private investigator’s report back on Parker.’

I felt a few brain cells ping and pong.

‘And?’

She almost cock-a-doodle-doodled. ‘It’s a doozer. It’s a blast! It’s an explosion! A happy explosion!’

Ping-pong ping-pong!
I sat up.

‘Oh, I am dancing, yodelling, tootling!’ Cecilia sang. ‘It’s a glorious, victorious, vengeful night!’

Suddenly, I wasn’t much tired at all.

I relayed Cecilia’s message to the semi-comatose Janie.

We flew out of that house like we had falcon wings attached to our asses.

Cecilia sat up straight and folded her hands neatly across the thick blue folder in front of her at the table. The candles she lit to celebrate flickered under her chandelier.

Cecilia’s home is cosy, filled with bright colours, lush fabrics, thick rugs, and soft furniture. It sits on three acres, partially surrounded by apple orchards, and I swear you can smell those juicy apples in the house all year long.

‘Your home feels so much better without the varmint in it,’ I said.

‘Thank you. It’s unfortunate I didn’t poison the varmint before he left.’ Cecilia’s blonde hair was back in a ponytail and her eyes gleamed with satisfaction, I mean, they
gleamed
. Like there was a layer of olive oil over them, in a good way.

I could barely contain myself.

Janie
giggled
. She didn’t even count anything.

‘I have a kick-ass investigator,’ Cecilia intoned, all professional-like, after pouring champagne for each of us. ‘This is his report.’

I laughed. Janie’s giggle soared around that room, light and triumphant. Oh, she hated Parker even more than me. In fact, a man exactly like Parker was the killer in one of her books. The killer’s last name was Pakrer. She’d even described Parker’s cocky strut, how he used ‘big’ words to impress people, how he carried an old copy of Proust around to seem smart, and how he discussed opera but clearly didn’t have a clue about it.

Parker had been furious.

Janie had pled innocence.

Pakrer the murderer in the end had got his buttocks sliced off with a meat cleaver. Not realistic, but hey, Janie’s fans loved it.

Cecilia cleared her throat, signifying the importance of this grand moment. ‘I now know about Parker’s new girlfriend. Constance Lodge, whose real name is Bianca Landon Bach, was born in 1982 in Los Angeles. She has a slight criminal record, let’s see here, where is it? Ah. Here.’ She raised her eyebrows as she read the rap sheet: shoplifting, third-degree assault, credit card fraud, bank fraud, cheque-writing arrests, her own mother sued her for stealing from her, as have a number of other businesses and individuals.

‘A splendid girl to bring home to Parker’s momma!’ I declared. ‘Splendid! A perfect example of unblemished and pure womanhood!’

Cecilia hated Parker’s mother. The woman was tiny and creepy and rich and thought Parker was perfect and Cecilia a lame-duck wife. She’d told her that, too. ‘A lame-duck wife, that’s what Cecilia is, Parker sweetie. Look at her!’

‘In 2002, Bianca was charged with pros—’ Cecilia sputtered and giggled before getting a hold of herself. ‘
Prostitution
, how I love to say that word! And, in 2005, our capitalistic, opportunistic business buddy Bianca was charged with running her very own prostitution ring.’

I could barely get the words around my tongue I was so ecstatically befuddled. ‘So Parker is dating an ex-
madam
?’

Janie snorted.

‘Apparently,’ Cecilia gurgled, ‘Constance ran a ragingly successful business in San Francisco. When she was busted, she gave her little black book to the papers and no less than five local politicians, one US senator, two US representatives, six sports stars, university professors, and executives were publicly embarrassed at their own indisputable indiscretions.’

‘So she’s clever!’ I exalted. ‘Parker’s mother will love her ingenuity and shrewdness! I shall rejoice in telling her myself
after
the wedding!’

‘My private investigator has enclosed a few articles.’ She thunked a sheaf of papers on the table and we pored over those newspaper articles as one might pore over winning lottery tickets.

‘Does he know she’s an ex-madam?’ Janie asked.

‘I am sure that he doesn’t,’ Cecilia said. ‘He’s having a roll in the hay and can’t see past his dick. So what we know is a secret.’

‘It’s a spectacular, incredible secret!’ Janie picked up another article. ‘His karma has caught up with him. I relish his downfall.’

‘She’s also been married three times previously. My guy met up with one of the exes at the bar and, without revealing who he was, got the first ex to spill the beans. Look at this.’

‘Bianca stole me blind,’ we read, printed from the recorded conversation. ‘All I had. Gone. Poof. She told me she was a student. I thought she was sweet. Can you believe that?
Sweet
. Damn. She racked up my credit cards and took loans out on my house until I might as well have been living in a tent. I tried to keep her happy and she still cheated on me. Stupid bitch. You know how guys come home and catch their wives in bed with another guy? I caught her with another woman. But they weren’t even in bed. They were naked in my boat – the boat she insisted I buy her – doin’ it against the wheel. God, that’s sick. Totally sick. I was married to a lesbo.’

‘Cheers to Constance!’ Cecilia boomed, holding up a glass of champagne. ‘May she enjoy a new boat, bought with Parker’s credit card, and may she and her sexy girlfriend enjoy it, naked, against the wheel as Parker watches!’

‘Cheers to Constance!’ I echoed.

Sometimes life is so blissful, so jittery with justice, it makes one want to sing. ‘La, la la!’

We paid the price for our late-night visit to Cecilia the next day, but it was totally worth it. After we rejoiced in the report, we had too many Kahlúa and creams (it’s the family drink), and I laughed so hard I wet my pants and had to borrow a pair of sweats from Cecilia.

‘My tinkle smells like a Long Island Iced Tea!’ I shrieked.

‘Pee Tea!’ Cecilia declared.

‘Tea Tinkle!’ Janie said.

We laughed so hard we had to lie on the kitchen floor.

‘Get divorced as soon as you can, Cecilia,’ Janie said, as she waltzed herself around the room. ‘The sooner you do, the sooner his demise begins, his karma will crash, his aura will blacken.’

‘But I want to hang him—’ she protested. She wrapped her hands around her own neck and made a strangling face.

‘You’ve hung him,’ I said. ‘Let him hang himself.’

‘The oesophagus is crushed when a person’s hanged, it—’ Janie started.

‘Please, Janie,’ I said. ‘Don’t add to my nightmares.’

Needless to say, we slept at Cecilia’s.

Thank heavens for Velvet.

‘I can barely see, I’m so tired. I think my eyeballs are still in bed,’ Janie said as we left the house and I drove Janie’s Porsche through the darkened streets of Trillium River to the bakery at 4:30 the next morning. I reminded myself to go and get my own Porsche in Portland. We’d hobbled out of Cecilia’s house, gone home, showered, changed, and headed out.

‘I feel like squished oatmeal has taken the place of my brains,’ Janie whispered. ‘And I didn’t get to embroider last night…’

‘I feel like death has a seat in my head,’ I said. ‘And he’s kicking my cranium.’

When we got to the corner, Janie looked imploringly at me.

‘No,’ I told her.

She made a little squeaking sound in her throat.

‘You have got to get a grip.’

‘I’m trying.’

‘Not trying hard enough. Say yes to drugs.’

‘I won’t be able to concentrate,’ she whined. ‘All day, I’ll be unfocused. I’ll probably burn the orange-lemon muffins and the chocolate roll-up crepes with the skinny shavings and cream.’

‘For God and hell’s sakes,’ I spat out. I did a U-turn in the middle of the street. I had to give in. This would go on all day.

Janie sighed with relief.

We drove back up the hill to Grandma’s house. I parked in the driveway. Janie scampered out, her skirt flying behind her. She checked the door. She had locked it.

‘Eureka! What a surprise!’ I sang out to myself. She opened the door, ran into the house. I knew she was rechecking the stove and oven, the upstairs iron (which no one had turned on). I know she would tap the iron four times – on the side that could get hot, to make sure it wasn’t hot. She would tap the dials on the stove and oven, too, four times, to assure herself the house would not burn down.

I saw her dart out the front door. I saw her lock it.

She ran to the car.

‘You exhaust me,’ I told her.

She leant her head back. ‘I exhaust myself. Give me a hug, Is.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sakes.’ I gave her a hug and we breathed together, head to head. In and out. Quiet. Peaceful. The wind outside windy-ing around. ‘We’re pathetic.’

Problems can be so overwhelming. So huge. So unfixable. I believe that the human mind is a labyrinth of guilt and regrets and pleasure and passion and memories. But if you have someone to put your head together with, temple to temple, their heat sharing your heat, their pulse beating in time with yours, their warmth your warmth, life is better. Not perfect, it can’t ever be. But it’s better.

The next day a small Asian man limped into the bakery.

He was about five feet, three inches tall but hunched, as if he’d lived his life with pain in his back and the pain had permanently pushed him partway over.

Hard grooves were carved on both sides of his face, but what stood out to me was his neck. Curling over the perfectly clean, buttoned-up collar of his shirt was a scar, thick and wide and pink and shiny, scrawling halfway around his neck.

His eyes were black and gentle, but I felt like I was staring into two tunnels of pain.

‘Hello, welcome to Bommarito’s. Can I help you?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ he said, his voice quiet, accent heavy. ‘Please, sandwich bread.’

‘Alrighty, I’ll get it for you.’ I smiled, packaging up his bread. Janie had made garlic cheese bread this morning because she ‘felt like garlic. Ominous and hard and breakable.’

I eyed him again. I figured he was in his sixties. At least. He was staring at the cookies.

He was boney thin. Like a sad skeleton with a face.

I added two cookies in the shapes of seahorses in a separate little bag. I’d painted one seahorse pink with green dots and the other green with pink dots.

‘Oh no. I no order cookies,’ he said. ‘Bread. Thank you, I thank you.’

I handed him the bread and the cookies. ‘It’s a treat for you. A gift.’

‘A gift?’ His eyebrows shot up.

‘Yes.’

‘A gift,’ he said, so quietly. His face showed surprise, then a flush of pleasure. He bowed to me. I bowed to him. ‘Thank you,’ he said, his tone serious.

‘You’re welcome.’ I put an arm out to direct him to a window seat. I could tell he needed a rest. He reminded me of so many of the bedraggled, desperate people I’d met in war zones. ‘Please sit down.’

He didn’t move for long seconds. Hesitating. Unsure.

I smiled. ‘Please rest.’

‘Yes. I like that. I rest.’

He moved slowly, that limp making his right hip rise several inches each time he took a step. Settling into his seat took some time even though I helped him. I heard him sigh when he got settled.

‘I thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’ I handed him the cookies. He took them gently, with his right hand, his left hand still.

When he was settled, I went back to work. I was going to make a super-tall three-layer cake. Each layer would resemble a wrapped present. The bottom layer would be pink-and-white striped, the middle purple with simple flowers, and the top a beautiful blue box with a huge white ribbon on top.

I surreptitiously watched my customer while I worked. He was staring out the window, nibbling at the cookie. After each bite, he closed his eyes, as if in ecstasy. I smiled to myself. Well, our cookies were darn good!

He was so thin, fragile thin.

I learnt later that his name was Bao. He had immigrated from Vietnam.

I learnt that he lived a life of almost complete solitude, but not by choice.

And I learnt that hunched-over, gentle Bao lived with the haunting memories that snaked a scar around his throat, caused him to limp, and snuffed the light of life right out of his eyes.

Henry and I baked sixty cupcakes for church on Wednesday night. He insisted we use blue icing and each one had to have a white cross, ‘for Jesus.’

I didn’t want to go into the church, but packing sixty cupcakes up the steps without help would have been impossible, so there I was in jeans and a T-shirt with blue icing on it, trudging up the steps.

God must have been busy, for he did not send a smack of lightning into my kidneys when I entered the doors of the church, nor did the roof become engulfed with flames.

A priest stood in the doorway of the vestibule. He smiled when he saw me, then as recognition dawned, he spread his arms out wide like a black eagle, his hair whiter than white.