Henry's Sisters (28 page)

‘I pray for Amelia, we fly the planes together, and Velvet, she my friend, hi, Velvet.’ Velvet waved, then held her lace handkerchief tight to her face.

‘And I pray for you. I pray for you. All my friends here I pray for you.’ He grinned. ‘I pray for you to be happy. Happy like me. Henry. I happy. I happy because you all my friends. That why I happy. Not all the people my friend when I little kid. Some bad people. They do mean things to me.’ His face got red and crumpled up a bit, but then, in a flash, it was gone. ‘You my friends.’ He clapped his hands. ‘But I sick. I have pain-cree-at-
ick
cancer. Like that.
Ick
. Jesus tell me in my dream I go home to him. I go soon. Up the moonbeam. Up the sun ray. That how you get to heaven.’

On the altar, Father Mike turned and knelt in front of the cross.

‘I love everybody here. Ha Ha! I love you guys. Amen amen.’

And all those muffled snuffles and tiny gasps and little sobs become big sniffles and big gasps and big sobs.

‘Jesus loves you!’ he yelled, waving again. ‘Yeah, yeah! Jesus loves you!’

It was as if the whole town was rising up in mourning, a giant, screaming wave of pain and all they knew how to do to alleviate that pain was cook.

We were bombarded with food.

On the dot at five, the brigade would begin. Lasagnes, casseroles, fruit salads, desserts. It was Henry’s idea to have people come in who were bringing food in on huge platters. ‘Hey! It the Wongs! The Wongs. You come on in!’ he’d shout or, ‘It the kids! From the church! Hey! You brought Henry pizza? I love that pizza.’

Now, at first, this put Momma into a tizzy. Momma did not entertain. Between Henry, Grandma, a house, and the bakery, she simply didn’t have time and, worse, she didn’t have friends. She was raised in Trillium River, but when she returned, she shut the friendship door.

If she did entertain, I can assure you it would have been with china and starched white tablecloths. But she couldn’t manage that now. She was grieving, she was sleepless, she was hopeless.

And yet.

And yet.

I saw Momma change over the next few weeks. At first she was anxious about the visitors, uptight, and did not know how to handle them and their gifts and their kindness.

But as one person in town after another reached out to her, reached out to us, I swear I saw Momma’s heart soften like melting butter. We were brought meals by old high school friends of hers still in the area. Neighbours. Cecilia’s students’ families. Acquaintances.

For a woman who had seen, close up, the ugliness of humans and human nature, she was seeing the beauty of sincere friendship.

Under the deluge of generosity and concern and the grief that people felt for her Henry, her special loving boy, who had not always been treated fairly or right, she started to open her heart up.

When Grandma would march into a room in her flight uniform and announce, ‘The weather’s perfect for flying. Please step outside to admire my new plane,’ or ‘The natives are back. Guard yourselves! They’re usually friendly, but not always. That’s why I carry a spear,’ and no one batted an eye when she did, indeed, swing a spear about, it further softened Momma.

This was her family. A special-needs boy, a mother who thought she was Amelia Earhart, and three daughters with varying problems who had become infamous during high school for any number of things. She had a history with much that she was ashamed about and needed to keep secret, poverty that almost killed her, and extreme depression she had fought back for years that finally seemed to settle itself out. (With a drug or two. I’d found the bottles.)

For the first time in her life, she and her quirky family were embraced.

We sat on the swing together one night after we’d had no fewer than thirty guests and she said, ‘Margaret Tribotti, the woman who owns the bike shop, brought me baked salmon with lemon butter sauce,’ then burst into tears. ‘Eduardo Chavez brought me homemade chocolate chunk ice cream. My girlfriend, Joyce Gonzales, from second grade, brought me a coconut cake made from her grandma Consuelo’s family recipe!’ She covered her face with a hankie.

I reached out and held her hand. To my surprise her fingers curled around mine, and we kept rocking under the light of the moon.

Shortly after that I saw Dad kiss Momma on the lips.

She bent her head after the kiss and I saw a tiny smile. He hugged her close.

The meals kept on coming.

Momma’s heart kept softening.

One morning, before I went to the bakery, I walked down to the river and sat in my usual spot. The windsurfer was there. Gliding, catching air, smooth. Thinking about nothing but the water, the sail, the wind.

I wanted to be him.

I really did.

Momma, Janie, Cecilia, and I took Henry to the hospital to try the chemo. To do or not to do chemo caused an earth-scorching family fight. I can only compare this to Mt St Helens blowing her top. It was pointy before it exploded, but when that giant ash cloud cleared, the top had been neatly slashed off and hellfire had scorched the mountain.

Our family hit the hellfire stage pretty damn quick.

Cecilia and Momma wanted him to do it. ‘It could save his life,’ Cecilia hissed, determined. ‘He could be one of the lucky ones, a miracle…’

‘Cecilia,’ Janie pleaded, hands twisting, four times this way, four times that way. ‘The doctor said there won’t be any miracles…’

‘Doctors schmocktors!’ Momma roared. ‘He’s doing it. My son is doing the chemo.’ She emphasised this by tossing an old purple bevelled bottle to the floor.

‘Momma, Henry has a limited number of days left,’ I said, hating the pain that streaked across her face. ‘The chemo is not going to cure him. I don’t want the last weeks of his life filled with doctors’ appointments and needles up his arms and throwing up and fatigue…’

‘This could slow the cancer down, Isabelle,’ Cecilia snapped. ‘It’s his only chance!’

‘You would rather see him dead?’ Momma shrieked, rising into irrationality at the speed of light. ‘Would you? Would you?’ She stepped over the broken glass to me.

Is there a worse argument to have with family? Chemo or no chemo for a terminally ill member?

‘I don’t want Henry to die, Momma, you know I don’t.’ I clenched my fists. She was awful. Uncontrollable. Critical. Mean. ‘How could you say that to me? How could you? I love Henry, you know that, or have you been so blinded by what you want,
what River wants
, that you weren’t able to see that?’

‘What I see is that you don’t want your brother to have treatment! You’re giving up on my son!’

‘Hell, Momma.’ I’d had it. Her son was dying, but I was at my limit with her. No, I’d crossed it. ‘I’m not going to take any more of your cruelty.
I won’t
. I know you’re hurting, I know you’re lashing out, which is what you’ve done our whole lives when things haven’t gone your way, but I won’t take this shit, your
meanness—’

Momma’s face froze, as if I’d slapped her with a table leg. ‘I am not being mean,’ she insisted, but her voice faltered.

‘You are.’ I clenched my fists. ‘You say things, Momma, and they hurt so much, and it lasts forever, but I’m done taking it with my trap shut. I love Henry and I would never give up on him, but I know reality, Momma, I know it and I know the chemo will do little for him, if anything at all.’ I hated being so honest. Hated it. ‘It will probably make him bald and sick and not add a day to his life.’

Cecilia slapped both hands to her face in frustration. ‘Argh! You don’t know that.’

‘Cecilia, wake up. You know what I know.’ And we knew a lot. We’d done research on the Internet. Now, this drives doctors crazy. People cruise like maniacs through the Internet and suddenly they’re experts on their disease and think they know more than the doctors, but metastasized pancreatic cancer doesn’t have much leeway in terms of survival or treatment, no matter where you cruise to.

‘Momma,’ Janie said, her voice surprisingly strident. ‘You heard the doctor. Take a second and think about what you’re asking him to do, how he may suffer! Do you actually want Henry –
Henry
– to go through this?’

I turned towards Janie, my breath held. She rarely stood up to Momma. Her usual reaction was to lie down, take the pot-shots Momma threw, and attempt to make peace.

‘No!’ Momma yelled, her face a bleak mask of unrelenting loss. ‘No, dammit, I don’t! But I don’t want my son to have cancer, either! I don’t want my son to be sick! I don’t want my son to die, for God’s sakes! Can’t you see that? Can’t you? We should fight. We should fight this cancer!’ She threw a short, red glass bottle to the floor. ‘We have to fight!’

‘No, we don’t have to fight,’ I interjected. ‘We have to choose the best possible route
for Henry
. Not for us. He deserves to live a life worth living as long as possible without the needles and the side effects.’

Momma’s body was shaking, head to foot. ‘Am I the only one who believes in Henry?’

Oh my God
.
Is she the only one who believes in Henry?

‘That isn’t fair, Momma!’ Janie raged, face red. ‘We have believed in him our whole lives! Don’t you dare say that!’

Whoa
,
Janie!

‘We changed his diapers when he was four, believing one day we wouldn’t have to because Henry would choose not to shit his pants!’ She clenched her fists and charged up to within six inches of Momma’s face, crunching glass beneath her feet. ‘We believed he would recover from being attacked by bullies his whole life because we comforted him. We taught him to read when his teachers said he couldn’t. We took him to the doctors for all his health problems and believed he would get better because we took care of him. We believed he would start talking again after Dad left and after he was raped, and he did, because we helped him. We believed that even though you spent half our childhood rotting in bed, or being mean to us three, that Henry would still turn out to be a great man, because we were always there for him! Don’t you accuse us of not believing in Henry! Don’t you do that, Momma!’

The silence in that room about blew my eardrums out. Janie panted, and Cecilia, for once, couldn’t find her voice.

‘This isn’t the time, Momma, for you to be bitchy,’ I told her, my chin up. ‘For once, don’t attack us when you’re unhappy. We’re all dying here.’

Momma covered her blonde bell-shaped hair with her arms. ‘He can do this, he can live through this,’ she raged, her body sagging against the wall. ‘My Henry is going to get better…’ She started to slide down the wall, sobbing. ‘My Henry will go to the doctors and the medicine will heal him…’ She swatted away Cecilia’s hands. ‘The doctor is going to fix this,’ she moaned.

‘Shit!’ Cecilia said. ‘Shit! Why did you have to upset her?’

‘Why did I? How about this, Cecilia? Why did she upset me?’ I said. ‘Why does she always feel that she can upset all of us, accuse us of terrible, untrue things, and get away with it? Do you think you’re the only one hurting here, Momma? Do you?’

For a second, Momma stared at me, her face collapsing. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t. Not only me.’

‘I’m hurting, Momma!’ Janie cried. ‘I hurt all the time!’

‘I am, too, Momma.
We all love Henry
,’ I said. ‘I believe in him. But I believe that this disease is not beatable.
By anyone
.’

Momma whimpered, a sound of utter defeat, then did something unpredictable, as she so often does. She reached out her hands to us. I hesitated, so did Janie, still so furious at her, so furious.

She saw our hesitation, and she bent her head, then looked us straight in the eye, her face awash in hot tears. ‘I’m sorry, girls. I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry. For you. For me. For Henry. I’m so sorry.’

Cecilia shot us darts from those blue eyes of hers until we grabbed Momma’s hands.

We ended up rocking Momma back and forth, her cries coming from the depths of a mother’s broken soul, this lost, hideous, thundering grief. ‘I don’t want my son to die, I don’t want my son to die, I don’t want my son to die.’

I buried my head in Cecilia’s heaving shoulder, Janie leant on me as her tears burnt my neck, and we all held tight to each other and to Momma as she keened back and forth.

Henry smiled as we took him into the hospital, greeting the receptionists by saying, ‘Hi. I Henry. I have the cancer. You gonna put some juice in me to kill it?’

One of the receptionists, smiling as if she were a restaurant hostess, took us to the Cancer-Killing-Chemo area, bright, window-filled and clean, with yellow walls.

‘Does she think she’s seating us at some damn wedding or something? What’s with the weird, maniacal smile?’ Cecilia muttered.

‘Can we please be nice to the people who work here? We need to be tranquil,’ Janie pleaded.

‘All I’m saying is that Miss Merry Sunshine doesn’t need to grin like a Cheshire cat. We’re here for chemo not to tip some champagne down our throats.’

‘Cecilia, chill out,’ I said. ‘Chill.’

‘She doesn’t need to be so happy,’ Cecilia sneered. ‘It makes me feel like hitting her.’

‘Lots of things make you feel like hitting,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you go hit yourself in the face? Knock yourself out, then we won’t have to listen to you complain about a smiling person.’

Cecilia nudged me. ‘I think I may hit you in the face…’

I whipped on her. ‘Do it. Do it hard. As hard as you
can—’

‘I would if we weren’t in a hospital. I’m so sick of you taking over, taking control, yapping your
mouth—’

‘And I’m sick of…’ I paused. What was I sick of with Cecilia? ‘I’m sick of…sick of… I’m sick of
something
that you do, Cecilia, I’ll think of it in a sec!’

Janie giggled.

As soon as I realised what I’d said, I giggled, too.

Cecilia’s scowl dropped and even she laughed. ‘I’ll think of something, Isabelle, that I do that makes you sick of me and I’ll tell you what it is so you’ll have something to throw in my face next time… Hey! Maybe it’ll be blueberry pie next time!’

I laughed. Oh gall. Life is ludicrous. Here I was at the hospital, and my sisters and I were laughing
and
fighting.

Laughing and grief. They are not always mutually exclusive. I reached for Cecilia’s hand. She held it.

Henry went right over to a coffee/hot chocolate cart they had set up. ‘Hey, sisters! Hey, Momma! We get free hot chocolate! Free! I have some. I have hot chocolate. I make you some!’

Momma nodded weakly. After we all had our free hot chocolates, mostly chocolate, hardly any water, we made our way back to a comfy blue leather armchair. Momma sank into the chair next to it, as if her knees were made of straw and the straw bent.

‘Hi!’ Henry said to a weak, pale woman with a blue headscarf in another armchair. ‘Hi. I Henry. Jesus loves you.’

She tilted her head up at Henry, the circles under her eyes purplish and puffy. Perhaps this was not her best day. ‘I don’t believe in Jesus.’

That did not throw Henry at all.

‘He believe in you. He believe in you.’

The woman glared. I did not think she wanted to have a conversation about Jesus, and I gently pushed Henry away from her.

‘What you reading?’ he asked the woman, grinning, undaunted.

She tipped the magazine cover up.

‘That a dog!’ Henry announced. ‘I take care of dogs at the shelter. I love dogs.’

She nodded. ‘I love dogs, too.’

‘You have a dog?’ His eyebrows shot up, curious and excited about this.

I tried to nudge Henry.

‘Yes, I have a dog.’

‘What his name? The dog. What his name. My name Henry.’

‘His name is Kermit.’

‘Kermit!’ Henry laughed and bent over to be eye to eye with her. ‘Kermit! Kermit the Frog, Kermit the dog! You have a dog named for a frog. I like that dog.’

The woman smiled a little. I could tell she was relaxing. ‘I like the dog, too.’

‘Kermit the Frog is a dog,’ Henry said. ‘Does he croak or does he bark? I go now. I have to get some juice in me so I get rid of the cancer. I got pain-cree-at-
ick
cancer. Bad.’

The woman’s tired face stilled. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Yeah. All the people’s sorry.’ Henry was still bent down eye to eye with her. ‘OK. I go. Jesus loves you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye to the mommy of Kermit the dog.’ He chuckled. ‘Kermit the dog!’

Henry said hello and chatted to a young man hooked up to an IV. His two young kids were sitting by him. He was bald. The kids were wearing Donald Duck baseball hats and he quacked at them. The young man was more cheerful and wished him a happy day.

‘You have happy day, too. Happy day.’

He had to say hello to the nurses. ‘I Henry. Who are you?’

They were Eric, Randy, and Bonnie.

‘I get some juice,’ he told them. ‘Juice me!’

We finally got Henry settled in the blue leather chair. Momma patted his shoulders. Janie stood to the side and breathed deep. I knew she might faint. Cecilia panted.

Henry loved the ‘magic chair’ and used the lever to lower the armchair up and down. He practised putting his feet on the footrest, taking them down, putting them up, down.

‘This good chair.’ He released the handle, which pushed him back up again. ‘Ha-ha! A magic, moving chair.’

Dr Remmer arrived, her grey hair back in a loose bun. She smiled at Henry. I could tell she was exhausted. What a pleasant job, being an oncologist.

‘Hey, hey. Dr Remmer. You pretty.’

Dr Remmer thanked him.

‘You got a dog name Snickers. He in looovvvee. Rex in love. Hey, your dogs get married yet? They marry?’ Henry laughed.

‘Not yet, Henry,’ she told him. ‘But soon. I think they’re engaged.’

‘Ha! Engaged! Two doggies. That funny!’ Henry hit the armrest and grinned. ‘You gonna put some juice in me to get my pain-cree-at-
ick
cancer?’

We had explained the chemo to Henry by telling him the medicine was like juice and it would be put into him to kill some cancer.

‘That’s what I’m going to do, Henry.’ The doctor held his hand.

Momma held his other hand, her eyes half shut, as if she couldn’t bear to watch this part.

‘I get it. Where the juice?’

‘I have the juice up here in these bags,’ the doctor said, smiling.

Henry tilted his head to examine the IV pole and smiled. ‘Ha-ha. That a joke. How you gonna put the juice in those bags in Henry? You gonna put a straw in them? Juice taste good?’

Momma rubbed her forehead. Janie swayed. I got her a chair. I hoped she wouldn’t faint. This was not going to be fun.

‘No, Henry, that’s not what we’re going to do. Me and Eric and Bonnie, we’re going to put this little tiny needle in your skin and the juice is going to go in you that way.’

He scrunched up his face. ‘I don’t get it. I don’t get it. I drink the juice. Free hot chocolate here, Dr Remmer. I had hot chocolate. My sisters and Momma, too. You want hot chocolate? I make it for you.’

‘I’m sorry, Henry, this is a special juice and it has to go into your body right here.’ She tapped the inside of his elbow.

I could hear Cecilia breathing heavily. Momma turned her head away.

He turned his arm and eyed that vulnerable spot. ‘No. Not there. You no do it there. I drink it.’ He grinned.

‘Henry,’ I said. ‘It’ll be fine. The doctor is going to give you the juice through your arm while you drink your hot chocolate and we play checkers.’

‘No. I don’t think so, Is. No. Thank you.’ He grinned as he played with the magic chair again, up and down, up and down.

‘Let me show you, Henry.’ The doctor unwrapped the IV. She showed him the tiny needle that would be inserted into his arm for the chemo.

‘That not go in my arm!’ Henry’s eyes flew open wide. He shook his head.

‘Yes, it’ll hurt only for a second and that’s it! All done.’

‘What?’ Henry’s voice pitched. ‘No. I no do that. No needles. Nope nope.’

‘Henry, it’ll only take a second,’ Cecilia pleaded, her eyes shiny with tears. ‘One second.’

‘I no take a second. I no want a shot. Hot chocolate!’

‘It’s not a shot,’ Janie said. ‘It’s the way the juice goes in. Think of it as a straw. An elbow straw.’

Henry stared at the needle. ‘That not a straw.’

‘Remember when you were in the hospital, honey?’ Momma said, leaning forward. I could tell she was an inch away from losing her mental grip. ‘You had something like this in your arm. It made you feel better.’

That was true. But Henry had had a sedative when they put that in.

Momma was shaking. ‘It’ll be fine, Henry, over quickly. As quick as you can make one of the dogs at the shelter roll over. As quick as you can get one of them to dance on their hind legs. It’s that quick. Quick as a lick!’

‘Let me show you,’ the doctor said, so helpfully.

In a flash, Henry flipped down the footrest and stood up. ‘No no no. I not doing this. You not put that in my arm. That hurt. Ow!’

‘Henry, this is the juice you need to get the cancer,’ Cecilia said, ‘so you need to sit down and take it.’

‘I no take the juice in the elbow with no needle.’ He shook his head back and forth, back and forth. ‘That shot.’

‘Henry, please,’ Cecilia begged, her voice down at a whisper, desperate. ‘Please. It won’t hurt. We’ll go get ice cream afterward. Two scoops. Whipped cream. Chocolate sauce.’

‘No. I go now.’ He turned to leave. I was not prepared for this wave of thick despair to cover me as he headed for the door. I hadn’t wanted him to do the chemo, but this was so…final. This was it. All there was.

He walked over to the father and the girls. ‘Have a happy day. Quack, quack.’

The girls quacked back at him.

He said to the woman with the dog magazine, ‘Say hi to Kermit the Frog dog for me. I go pet the dogs tomorrow.’

She assured him she would. A slip of a smile pulled on her mouth.

Cecilia impatiently swiped at her tears. ‘Henry, sit down. Sit down, now.’ She didn’t say it in a patient voice.

He whipped around, eyes wide. ‘You mad at me, Cecilia? Don’t be mad at Henry.’

‘I am mad at you. You need to get your medicine.’ Cecilia crossed her arms, her face flushed.

‘No.’ Henry crossed his arms back at her. He so seldom got angry, but he had the Bommarito temper and I knew it was igniting.

‘Yes!’ Cecilia said. ‘Yes, sit down right this minute!’ She pointed at the chair.

‘No! I no sit down!’ Henry shouted.

I saw Janie try to stand, then sink back down. Momma buried her face in her hands.

‘If you don’t sit down, I will pick you up and put you there!’ Cecilia raged.

‘No!’ Henry yelled. ‘No! I go home. I fly with Amelia. We go to Hawaii.’

‘Cecilia, please,’ I said. ‘It’s not going to work. Back off.’

But Cecilia wouldn’t listen. She loved Henry like no one’s business, and if she had to drag him over to that chair and strap him down while he had chemo pumped into his body, she would do it.

‘Cecilia,’ the doctor said. ‘He’s an adult.’

‘He’s an adult with disabilities,’ she spat, blinking another set of tears out. ‘He can’t make this decision for himself!’

‘He can,’ the doctor said. ‘Morally and legally.’

‘He can’t.’ Cecilia was shaking. ‘He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get that if he doesn’t take the medicine, he’s
going to die
. He doesn’t get the correlation.’

But Henry got it and he heard her. He spread his hands out. ‘I know I die, Cecilia! I already know it! Jesus told me in the dream I go see him soon and I not taking that juice in a needle!’

‘Cecilia,’ the doctor soothed. ‘I can’t force him to take this.’

‘You can’t or you
won’t?’ Cecilia argued.

‘I can’t, and I won’t,’ the doctor said. Firm. Resolute.

For a moment I thought Cecilia was going to hit her, she was so angry, so I grabbed her arm again and stood in front of her. ‘Calm down, Cecilia. For once rein in your anger, OK? Think about this, think about what you’re asking him to do.’

She fought against me, but I held firm, held tight. She swore; I shook her and told her to get a grip. ‘This is not about you, Cecilia, not about what
you
want.’ It was ugly.

Cecilia’s face crumbled. ‘It’s his only chance,
his only chance
, Is.’

‘It is. But it’s not a good chance. It’s an infinitesimal chance, at best. You know that.
You know that
.’ I pulled her close to me.

‘But I love him,’ Cecilia said, as if that was all that was needed. ‘
I love him
.’

Janie stumbled over and put an arm around Cecilia.
That’s sisters
,
fighting one minute
,
hugging the next
. We were pathetic in our grief.

Momma swayed in her seat, her face grey, and a nurse leant down to take her pulse.

‘I know you love him, Cecilia. We all do.’ Oh yeah, we all did. We loved Henry best.

‘Hey! Hey! Why Cecilia crying?’ Henry shouted. ‘Cecilia, why you cry?’

‘Because, Henry—’ She inhaled, wretched and broken. ‘I love you and the medicine could give you some more time to live. To fly with Grandma. To make a model plane with Dad. To help at the bakery icing cupcakes with us sisters and petting the dogs and you could serve doughnuts at church and sit in the front row.’

‘Hmm.’ Henry put his fist under his chin, then clapped three times. ‘Hmm. OK, I do it!’ He charged back to the magic chair and stuck an arm out. ‘I do it for Cecilia.’ He grinned at us. ‘I do it for my sisters. Henry’s sisters. No more fighting. I love my sisters.’

And that was that. Henry took the chemo. Was it ethical the way this was handled? Probably not. Moral? Probably not. Well-intentioned? Yes.

Janie fainted when the needle poked Henry’s arm and he squirmed and fussed, but we soothed him, Momma rocking Janie on the floor.

We played checkers with him. He took a nap. We drank the free hot chocolate and coffee Henry was so excited about. When we were done, we left. Momma leant on me for support, Cecilia was close to keeling over (I knew this because I could feel her exhaustion), a pale Janie clucked and fretted around Henry, and I felt as if I wanted to die. Right there die. I think a blend of stress and grief does that to you.

We went home. The Columbia River was the same as always, little waves frothing with white, the sun was headed downward, down to sleep, as Henry would say, the trees danced a stiff dance, and when we drove up the drive, the wind lifted our hair and swirled it around.