Henry's Sisters Read Online Free PDF

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    To get a full picture of Momma, blend together an older, blonde Scarlett O’Hara and the steely coldness of the Queen of England. Except Scarlett and the Queen were not conceived on the banks of the Columbia River, which is how Momma got her name.
    River Bommarito has ash-blonde hair that curves into a stylish bell to her shoulders. When we were younger, it was either elegantly brushed or wedged onto her head. The wedging happened if she was spending days or weeks in bed, her depression getting the best of her, as she screamed at us to get the hell out .
    One day, for some mysterious reason, after she’d moulted, decayed, and sunk deeper into her own emotional pit, she’d get up, shower, apply her make-up, slip on a dress and heels, and it was like her depression never happened.
    She’d get another job, usually a soul-shredding one, or her old boss would take her back because she made him so much money, and that was that. No explanation, no apology, no thanks to the three young daughters in the house for keeping things together while she dissolved into an almost-catatonic state.
    No family meeting to discuss the trauma we’d recently lived through. The traumas became family secrets, never discussed or let out of the locked box.
    Fortunately, after we sisters moved away, and Momma got older and the very same Grandma Momma she had once called, to her face, ‘a wrinkled, mean hag-monster,’ slipped and slid into dementia, she rarely took to her bed.
    Maybe Momma was hoping to enjoy as many sane days as she could before Grandma’s dementia caught up with her through the gene pool. Or maybe, because she was no longer in dire emotional and financial straits, she didn’t get depressed.
    Or maybe she took drugs. She’d told us she didn’t take medication, but I wasn’t sure about that. Not sure at all.
    Next to me Janie started counting, her fingertips meeting as she muttered each number. ‘One…two…three…four…’
    I stuck my chin up a fraction of an inch.
    Cecilia whispered, ‘Speak, witch.’
    Momma glared at us, like we were larvae, then stood, carefully placing the walnut cracker on the table and swishing her hands together to get rid of any nut residue, her intense gaze never leaving ours.
    ‘So, the impossible girls have finally returned to help. Guilt has finally got the best of you after years of neglecting this family, hasn’t it?’ River is tiny like a ballerina and has the same eyes as Janie, bright green, but River’s eyes are a murky sea with a light on all the time behind the irises. ‘I’ve changed my mind. Throw out those pink letters I sent you. I’ve decided that we don’t need your help.’
    Ah. So it would be this way. We grew up with her demands, her retractions, the guilt trips, righteous self-anger. I know what she is, and isn’t, but when I’m with her I can get things all screwed up, as if my head is in a blender and the blender is turned on to ‘grind’. ‘Momma, you’re going in for open-heart surgery. We got your letters, we came, we want to help you.’
    ‘I can handle it myself. Your presence here is no longer needed.’ Her green eyes shot tiny emerald-tipped daggers at us. We were bad larvae, she told us without saying a word. Bad larvae.
    ‘One…two…three…four…’ Janie whimpered.
    ‘You can’t do it all, Momma. You can’t take care of Grandma and Henry and the bakery and yourself.’
    ‘Cecilia can do it. Cecilia can help with Henry. She can move into this house and watch him and she can keep an eye on Grandma.’ She adjusted the starched white collar of her shirt. She wore a light pink sweater over it, pearl earrings, and beige slacks. Understated elegance. Prim and proper. ‘Cecilia has always been here for me.’
    I glanced at Cecilia and felt my chest get all tight and emotional, if a chest can get emotional. The emotional toll for being ‘there’ for Momma had about puréed poor Cecilia.
    ‘Cecilia works as a kindergarten teacher,