masses to help Father Mike, if necessary. (“For God’s sakes, Isabelle, don’t confess to Father Mike. It will humiliate me as a mother. Humiliate me. ”)
On Wednesdays Henry helped at the church for the high school youth group. On Thursdays he went to the senior center, served lunch, cleaned the tables, and set things up for Bunco. On Mondays and Friday mornings he went to the animal shelter and petted cats and dogs. (“If Janie is going to obsessively count the cats, keep her away!”)
When Henry helps in Cecilia’s classroom, “remind Henry to make Cecilia go out for recess with the kids. She needs the exercise!” On Saturdays he joined other special people for a day trip.
As for Grandma, aka Amelia Earhart, she had her activities, too. Grandma was picked up by one of those short senior buses and taken on day trips with other seniors. Not all of them had lost their marbles yet. They let Grandma come because when Grandma had her marbles still in her head, she’d made a large donation. (“Do not let Grandma bring the whiskey with her on these trips. Fred Kawa always drinks too much and ends up doing stripteases.”)
“Velvet will come in and help you with Grandma. She is a much better caregiver than the mothball you sent me last time and dear Henry likes her, bless him. She has already been informed to never, ever serve Henry orange juice. You know why. ”
Yes, we knew why. All too well, we knew why.
Grandma had been known to give Velvet the slip, though, so I should be prepared, wrote Momma, to leave the bakery “on the spin of a nickel” and help Velvet find Grandma. “Come immediately. You have a lazy bone, Isabelle, you are riddled with lazy bones, and I know, Janie, that you will have to do odd things before leaving the bakery. I don’t know where you got such strange habits, certainly not from me.”
Grandma could get dressed in her flight outfits herself, although she sometimes forgot underwear. “You must check Grandma’s bottom each day to make sure it’s appropriately covered.” I was to comb her hair, description given. She forgot to brush her teeth and would often give speeches in front of her mirror. If the speech grew too long and she was going to miss her day trip, I was to go into her bedroom, the same one she’d been sleeping in for sixty-four years, and say, “Mrs. Earhart, are you ready for takeoff? Your plane is on the runway.”
Grandma would then stop giving her speech, salute, and go downstairs to the bus.
Grandma had to have bran in the morning. “She has bowel problems. Without the bran, she’ll be stuffed to her ears. Make sure she eats it. She has hemorrhoids, which she calls her ‘bottom bullet wounds,’ and you will have to address that. Cream is on the dresser.
“Don’t push Grandma to do anything she doesn’t want to. I know you girls are control freaks, but control yourself. Control is important for any lady to have and you three need it.” I rolled my eyes at that one.
I already knew I was to address her as Amelia, or Mrs. Earhart. I was not to discuss her husband, Momma’s daddy, with her, because Mrs. Earhart would start swearing and expounding upon “killing the cheating bastard” or “He is not a man. He is a eunuch. No balls. Fucker.”
My grandpa Colin was a man, as legend has it, with an ego the size of Arkansas. He was a doctor, hence the house, and died when he was having a nighttime picnic with his receptionist up on a cliff. He drank too much and toppled off.
Momma was fourteen. She told me that Grandma’s response at the time was, “Wonderful. I was going to have to divorce him. Now I’ll take the life insurance and dance on his grave.” Apparently she did that, too. Danced on his grave every Friday night for five years while drinking his whiskey. She would scream at him, “Hey, pond scum. See who’s still dancing? See who’s decaying?”
So no Colin reminders.
The list reminded me that I was not to call her Grandma or “chatter on” about anything we did as kids. Ever. That confused her.
We also received directions on Bommarito’s Bakery, which we had all worked and cooked in, for hours each day, all through high school, despite Grandma’s protests that Momma was working us “hard enough to rip the skin off their bones.”
Momma took orders, and we baked cookies, cakes, breads, you name it, using our dad’s cookbooks. Ad nauseum.
“The bakery is a thriving business. Thriving. Don’t ruin things for me,” she wrote. “I have loyal, dear customers. I hope to the high heavens I still have them when I return.”
I rolled my eyes. She then detailed her recipes (many), what time I was to get to the bakery with Janie (5:00 A.M. ), what goods should be made first, and other inane details like frosting color. Again, I won’t list it. Think: straitjacket.
“Isabelle, don’t get into men’s beds. That was humiliating last time. Do you have to wear your hair in braids? Black people wear braids. Not you. Are you black? I raised you better than that, and you know it. Janie, please. No muttering or chanting. Ladies never mutter or chant.
“Get this right, girls.
“Momma.
“PS Keep Cecilia from eating any more than she already does. She is too fat already. I have done what I could for her.”
There was a silence when we all finished reading The List.
Cecilia’s chin was quivering.
I slung an arm around her shoulders.
“I can love myself even if I don’t feel loved by Momma I can love myself even if I don’t feel loved by Momma,” Janie chanted.
I went to hug Janie.
Cecilia made a move for the closet; Janie crawled in behind her. They shut the door.
I crumpled up the pink letter that smelled like nauseating flowers and opened the door to the closet. “Scoot over.”
Later that night Henry, Janie, and I lined up his shells on the floor and studied them. Same with his collection of rocks.
When he went to bed, we sang songs, and I brushed his curls back. “I love yous,” he murmured, when his almond eyes began to shut. “Yeah, yeah. I love yous. I so happy you home.”
No one in my life has ever been as excited to see me as Henry always is. No one has ever loved me as much as he does, either. Darn near made me tear up, thinking of that.
We snuck out when he was asleep. Janie went straight to her room and started murdering people. “I have a deadline and I still haven’t set out my doilies or peace candles, nor have I arranged a serenity corner or a positive breathing space.”
I hugged her good night, then I headed out to the porch swing. Momma was already in bed. She had not liked the dinner we cooked. The sauce was too spicy, the bread hard “like a suitcase,” the salad filled with salmonella.
You might think that Momma had lost it, like her Momma has, based on what she says. That would be incorrect. Momma has been like this since before our dad slung a bag over his shoulder and walked down our driveway, away from our home and swing set and into the soft lights of dawn. This is how River Bommarito is .
I pushed River out of my twirling mind and thought about Henry as I swung.
You would have thought that we sisters would have hated Henry for being Momma’s clear favorite.
Never happened.
From an early age, he was sick, helpless, loveable, pitiful, lost, cheerful, loving, and sweet.
It was an unbeatable combination.
He was completely unprepared for the shittiness of our childhood, for what had happened specifically to him, but unlike his sisters, he had learned to trust again. To hope. To reach out to others with innocence.
He was a blipping miracle.
I swung more, the country quiet, the wind a gentle rustle, calm, the land undulating like the soft swells of a green ocean, trees rustling overhead.