Henry's Sisters Read online

  ‘Breakfast today?’ I asked. I had put a white apron around my waist and my braids were back in a ponytail. I knew there was flour in them already. Wouldn’t surprise me if I had purple marzipan icing on my cheek, either.

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Coffee?’

  She smelt like honeysuckle and mint. I learnt later that she somehow always had a plastic bottle of scented lotion with her.

  ‘Juice?’

  I saw a flash of confusion in her eyes, then she opened a sugar packet and tipped it into her mouth. She did it with a second one, too.

  I thought I’d leave her to her sugar. ‘I’ll come back in a minute.’

  I returned to icing about two dozen blue, pink, and green whale cookies.

  Ten minutes later I headed back out. ‘Decided yet? I have cookies in whale shapes.’

  No answer. A smile.

  About three seconds later, she leant over and curled up on the red bench. She made a gurgling sound in her throat.

  She slept.

  ‘Ma’am?’ I shook her shoulder softly. ‘Ma’am? No whale cookies?’

  A snore escaped her nose.

  We learnt later her name was Belinda.

  Life had not been a whale of fun for her.

  At three o’clock, we’d been mass cooking all day, and we were still empty. Belinda had woken up, snuffled, snorted, and left after using the bathroom. I could tell she’d used our sink to take a mini-shower, though the bathroom was perfectly cleaned up when I checked.

  I had dug through the trash where Janie and I had tossed pies and cookies and bread. Now, to be fair, these goodies were several days old and wouldn’t taste fresh.

  Still. The bread tasted like sand and water mixed with a dead scorpion thrown in. The doughnuts tasted like soggy sugar and the cookies tasted like corrugated cardboard laced with paper. I gave a bite to Janie. She spat it out.

  ‘Good. That helps me with my book. I needed to know what dead flesh would taste like.’

  ‘It wasn’t dead flesh.’

  ‘I know. But I needed a way to describe it.’

  What do you say to things like that?

  People ambled on by outside, some carrying windsurfing boards, others pushing strollers. Two women with briefcases. A man wearing a blue apron. Three teenage girls giggling, followed by three strutting teenage boys.

  Now why weren’t they all in here? Spending money?

  Easy. The food sucked.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  That night we went to see Momma in the ICU. Janie drove her Porsche, which means we got there only slightly ahead of a turtle travelling backward.

  Eventually our turtle made it to the hospital.

  On the way my brain had a fight with my emotions over Momma. I loved her, but sometimes I hated her. I did.

  Nothing I had ever done was good enough for her and I had stopped trying to get approval or kindness from her long ago. Cecilia had never stopped, and Momma still scared the intestines out of Janie.

  Momma would never think I was anything more than a wandering, difficult, loose daughter she couldn’t possibly relate to. Not having Momma’s approval about ripped my heart out for years, but somewhere along the way, probably about the time I went home to visit her in my late twenties after being shot in Afghanistan and still had a bandage wrapped around my upper arm and she told me I was a ‘slut’ and a ‘disappointment’ as a child, I had let it go.

  I had to. It was let it go or die emotionally. I was already half dead emotionally anyhow, and survival instincts kicked in.

  But I wanted Momma to recover. I did.

  I’m not that vengeful. Vengeful, but not that bad. Bad, but not murderously so.

  But, man, she was a damn terror.

  We met with the doctor on call first. Dr Gordon was about fifty, short, African-American, and had studious glasses and big green-grey eyes.

  ‘How’s our momma?’

  The doctor tensed a bit.

  ‘She’s not bouncing back like we’d like. No energy. Physically lethargic. Complains of pain. So you can go in and see her for a few minutes, but her recovery time is going to be lengthened. She’ll need to stay here longer than we expected.’

  ‘Oh!’ Janie whispered. ‘Tranquillity. Serenity.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘Bummer.’

  ‘That’s hellaciously good news,’ Cecilia mused.

  ‘Why good?’ the doctor asked, tilting his head.

  Cecilia cackled. ‘Ah. I see. You have not spoken with our momma much, have you?’

  ‘I had the pleasure of making your mother’s acquaintance.’ The doctor stared at the ceiling and stroked his chin. ‘She could hardly speak, but I heard something about how I was too young and too short and was I really black? As in black black? Were my great-grandparents slaves?’

  Janie leant against a wall. I exhaled, slumped. So tactful, our momma. So sweet.

  ‘I believe she also said that I was not, under any circumstances, to burst into any rap songs or play rap music at any time. I had to reassure her I have never belonged to a gang nor did I carry a gun.’

  ‘That would be our momma,’ I sang out. ‘Cheerful and filled with goodwill and love for all.’

  Janie and Cecilia and I then apologised at one time. How many times had we had to do that? A thousand? Eighty god-zillion?

  The doctor smiled. ‘Hey, it’s no problem unless I want to join a gang here at the hospital. Come on in. I’ll walk you there.’ He politely held the door open for us.

  Even I was shocked to see her.

  She was white white white, like crinkled paper, her mouth a crooked slash, her eyes sunken. Our tough, Scarlett O’Hara, perfectly made-up momma (when she wasn’t drowning in one of her tarlike depressions) was one step away from a corpse.

  ‘Momma,’ we all said together. ‘Momma.’

  There was no response.

  I leant over her and felt her breath on my cheek. ‘She’s still breathing.’

  Janie put a hand on Momma’s chest over her heart.

  ‘Her heart is still beating.’

  ‘Good God!’ Cecilia said. ‘She’s shrunk. Shrunk and shrivelled.’

  ‘Shhh,’ said Janie, wringing her hands together. ‘She can still hear you!’

  ‘How can she hear me?’ Cecilia said, flicking her blonde hair back. ‘She’s not even fully conscious. She’s whacked out.’

  ‘Do you have to say whacked out?’ I asked, my tone mild. I felt like having a Kahlúa snack.

  ‘Yeah, I do have to say whacked out. Because that’s what she is. Watch this.’ She leant in close. ‘Momma! Momma!’ No response. ‘See? She’s whacked out. For once she’s not nagging. Or criticising. Or telling me I’m fat, and “enlarging” each day. For once.’

  ‘You shouldn’t…’ Janie said.

  ‘Shouldn’t what, Janie?’ Cecilia stage whispered. ‘Shouldn’t raise my voice? Shouldn’t be honest? Maybe I should be like you. Over there with your hair in a bun and those brown shoes you always wear. Always quiet, cringing around Momma, scared to death, not sticking up for yourself. Don’t you ever want to scream, Janie? Scream because you had a lousy childhood and your momma tells you, to your face, that you’re insane and that you drive her insane? Don’t you?’

  ‘Stop it, Cecilia,’ I said, moving in front of Janie. ‘This isn’t the place for you to slash and dash Janie.’

  Janie swallowed hard. ‘You’re making me nervous.’

  ‘I’m making you nervous?’ Cecilia said. ‘Too bad. I make myself nervous. My life makes me nervous. Momma makes me nervous. My kids make me nervous. I’m nervous all the time. I want to kill Parker, but at least I don’t hide, don’t cower, don’t mutter to myself.’

  ‘Why are you so mad at me, Cecilia?’ Janie said, her eyes filling up, her fists clenched. ‘Why are you attacking me? I have done nothing to you. Nothing.’

  That stopped Cecilia up short.

  I pushed my braids back. ‘Well? What, specifically, has Janie done t
o you to make you so mad at her?’

  ‘I’m not mad at her,’ Cecilia spat out.

  ‘Then you hate me. You hate me. And that’s fine.’ Janie’s voice was ragged. She stepped in front of me. ‘You always have. I don’t care.’

  ‘You don’t care? I do.’

  I could tell that Cecilia was pretty miffed about not hating Janie.

  ‘And I don’t hate you, Janie.’

  ‘Must we hammer out our hatred now?’ I asked. ‘Momma is pale and ghastly in that bed. Surely there’s a better time for this?’

  ‘Why not now?’ Janie demanded, those tears spilling out. ‘Momma can’t hear and I want to know. I’m sick of this! Sick of you, Cecilia! Sick of your condescension, your criticisms. Nothing I do is right. You think I’m a head case, a loser. I am not a loser.’

  I could tell that Janie, who was definitely not a loser, was losing it. I reached out to pat her arm. I hurt for Janie. ‘Janie, chill.’

  ‘No, I won’t! Tell me, Cecilia!’ She spoke through clenched teeth, tears pouring down those perfectly carved cheeks of hers. ‘Tell me. Why do you hate me? Why?’

  Cecilia’s anger seemed to deflate as fast as it flared up in the face of Janie’s ragged anguish.

  ‘Why do you hate me?’

  Janie’s words were bordering on a scream. ‘Janie, get ahold of yourself,’ I said. ‘We’re in a hospital.’

  ‘I know we’re in a hospital!’ She yanked her arm away from me and swiped at a few stray hairs, her voice pitched and shaky. ‘And I want to know why that mean, fat bitch hates me!’

  Cecilia and I froze. Janie rarely swore. It wasn’t in her nature. Though she might torpedo people with flying saws for her books, she preferred speaking in the same civilised manner as English women in the 1800s.

  ‘Janie, I—’ Cecilia started, cupping her face with her hands.

  ‘What?’ Janie hissed, charging towards her. She compacted her emotions right into a box of obsessions and checking. I had never seen her this mad. ‘You what? Tell me. Do you hate me because I’m obsessive? Compulsive? Odd? Ugly? Frumpy? Which is it? Or is it all of them, Cecilia?’ Her nose ran, but she didn’t bother to wipe it. ‘Because I am sick of not knowing. I am sick of being attacked by you. I am sick of it and sick of you!’

  Cecilia sank into a chair.

  I should have gone to Cecilia, but I couldn’t. Part of me was glad that Janie had drawn on the war paint. Cecilia deserved it.

  ‘Janie…’ Cecilia started, then patted her chest where her heart was. ‘Janie.’

  Some machine blipped, which caught my attention. Why can’t family arguments ever occur at the right moments, the right places? Why do they always explode exactly when an explosion is not needed?

  ‘I’m jealous of you, Janie,’ Cecilia said, voice weak.

  ‘Oh, now there’s a revelation,’ I murmured. ‘I’m floored. Shocked.’

  ‘You’re jealous?’ Janie sputtered, red and mottled in the face. ‘Jealous? How can you be? You’ve told me yourself that I’m the biggest head case you’ve ever met.’

  ‘I’m jealous,’ Cecilia whispered, finally meeting Janie’s gaze. ‘You left Trillium River.’

  ‘Not that again,’ I complained. I was so sick of that jealousy. We’d been around and through it ad nauseum.

  Janie clasped her hands over her ears. ‘Cecilia, I can’t hear you whine for one more minute about being stuck here. I’ve heard it until I want to throw my pink-and-white china off my back deck at passing boats in groups of four! Please, shut up about that, shut up shut up shut up!’

  ‘Can you let me finish?’ Cecilia said, her anger flashing, as she kept patting her chest. ‘I’m jealous because you left and made something of yourself. You’re a bestselling writer. You’re thin. You have a cool houseboat and cool things. You’re only frumpy because you don’t want attention from men. You play down how naturally beautiful you are. You hide. You try to disappear. I’m frumpy because I’m the size of a cow.’

  ‘I worked to get what I have, Cecilia,’ Janie shrieked, her body shaking. ‘I worked hard. I still work hard. I’m a workaholic. Do you think it’s fun to have murderers running through your head? Do you think it’s fun to have all these crime scenes lurching about on the pages in front of you and you have to study all the sick, tiny details? Do you think it’s fun to watch people get strangled in your mind? Or bludgeoned with hammers? It’s not, Cecilia, it’s not! I write because I have to write. I can’t not write. You get that? I can’t not write.’

  ‘But, Janie, your obsession with writing has got your skinny ass famous. You being a recluse only makes you more famous. I’m a kindergarten teacher. That’s it. I teach kids how to count. How to read. We sing clean-up songs and songs about love and flowers and a whale who yodels. I teach the boys how to pee in the toilet without spraying the walls. The other day I got peed on.’

  Cecilia tried to lasso in her emotions. ‘I’m so damn fat. I hate myself. I can hardly move some days. I can hardly get up. I put my fat face in the mirror and all I see is fat. I will probably die young because of it, but I can’t stop myself. Yesterday I had eight tacos. The night before I made myself a stuffed turkey!’

  If Cecilia thought her confession was going to soften up Janie, she had another thing coming. ‘Cecilia, your weight is your issue,’ Janie roared, fists clenched. ‘It’s you who has chosen to stuff your mouth full of food until your guts are gonna explode. You got that? It’s you. It’s your fault you’re fat and I have zero pity for you. You have no right to chip away at me, to find my weak spots and attack, all because you don’t like yourself and the way your life turned out. You’re responsible for yourself and you are a miserable, miserable person and you make me miserable, too. Miserable! Sometimes when I’m with you I want to take a shovel to my own head after digging a grave for myself to fall into!’

  Janie shrieked that last part, then sunk into a chair on the opposite side of the room and pulled her body into a tight ball.

  Cecilia leant over her knees and sobbed.

  I hardly knew which sister to go to first. I was smack in the middle of a fight. That’s the worst. If either sister thought I was siding with the other, I’d get jumped. I’d be pulled in as sure as a tsunami’s gonna take out the palm trees when it barrels on through. Sisters do that to each other. Neutral doesn’t work.

  But then Momma took care of the problem.

  ‘For God’s sakes, Cecilia, stop that infernal snuffling,’ she said, eyes still shut. ‘Janie’s right, you are a terrible bitch to her. She can’t help it that she’s thin and you’re fat and she’s a writer and you’re a kindergarten teacher. What was she supposed to do? Become a gas station attendant so you wouldn’t feel bad? And what’s to feel bad about anyhow? Those little brats love you. God, I cannot stand small children. They make me ill. And, Janie, Cecilia’s right. You are so meek and so odd it makes me feel like smashing my coloured-bottle collection. Get it together before we all jump over a cliff.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve raised a fat girl, a slut, and a wacko.’

  I snorted through my nose. Now you might think this was insensitive of me, but with Momma you have to either laugh or move to Baghdad to get a little peace.

  And if you can’t laugh, then you’ll fall into this black pit infested with horrible thoughts and agonising aloneness and hopelessness and fear. I should know. I’ve been there.

  ‘And you, Isabelle,’ Momma croaked from the bed. ‘Please don’t make a slut of yourself in Trillium River again. The last time you did, it ruined my reputation as a mother. Ruined it. I was ruined. Ruined.’

  I snorted again. See what I mean about laughing?

  ‘I’ll try, Momma. But I feel some sluttiness overtaking me right now and who knows what your reputation will be like when you get home.’

  ‘I won’t tolerate it, Isabelle,’ she wheezed out. ‘Get out of here, girls. Get out. Out.’

  We needed no further prodding.

  We were outta there.

  We drove back
to Trillium River in silence.

  It’s the silence that only simmering sisters can produce together. That rigid, tight, resentful silence that is about as bad as if we started blasting cannonballs at each other’s brains.

  Sometimes the silence lasts minutes. Hours. Days. Weeks. It can last years.

  Depends on the sisters.

  The problem I see with fights between sisters is that the fights can degenerate to scorching meanness so quick, the words cutting right to the marrow, because sisters know how to hurt each other with pinpoint accuracy. They have history and hurts and slights and jealousies and resentment and they don’t know how to rein it in, filter, or how not to be brutally honest with one another.

  Sometimes it’s a lovely relationship.

  Sometimes it’s a disastrous relationship.

  Sometimes it’s both.

  Cecilia dropped us off.

  None of us said goodnight.

  The silent treatment, I am sure, was engineered and developed by cavewomen fighting with their sisters over who got to spear the mastodon.

  The next day we worked at the bakery starting in those wee hours again. It was the weekend, so Cecilia was there, too. She had hired a sitter to spend the night.

  The atmosphere was frigid. Like the back of a polar bear’s butt if he’d been sitting on the ice for six years straight. Janie turned on sad classical music and kept looking wistfully at her therapist’s face.

  We worked perfectly together, as if we were teenagers again, our steps choreographed, our movements fast but never in the way of anyone else, efficient and quick and good.

  We were so good.

  Until I heard Janie’s whimper.

  Cecilia heard it, too.

  Janie went into the freezer and shut the door.

  Cecilia and I followed her into the freezer.

  ‘Honey,’ Cecilia said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  Janie nodded her head, up and down, like a bobble head. ‘Me-Me-Me-too. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I love you, Janie.’

  ‘I love-lo-lov-you, too, Cecilia. And Is. Love you, Is.’

  We hugged. We were tearful messes, trembling and carrying on with great drama.

  Sisters are the worst. And they are the best. A sister can be awful and complicated and loving and protective and petty and competitive, and when you die she is the person you want beside you holding your hand.