Henry's Sisters. Cathy Lamb

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      The list Momma had compiled of things we needed to do while she was in the hospital was extensive and detailed. I will not share each glorious detail here because if I did, you would probably want to check your own self into a nice, quiet, mental ward and a nice, quiet straitjacket.

      Beyond obsessive detail on how to keep the house cleaned in her absence (corners, girls!) and admonishes to not eat too much or we’d get fatter (Cecilia), or too little and appear corpselike (Janie), and not to sleep with the gardener (me), Momma detailed Henry’s schedule.

      Henry helped at the bakery at least twice a week. He also had to be at the church on Sunday from 8:00 to 1:45. Henry was in charge of bringing the boxes of doughnuts in from Mrs. McQueeney’s car. A description of Mrs. McQueeney followed: “Her facial features are a cross between a nutria and a carrot. She has large nostrils.”

      Henry got the coffeepots out and ready, then sat in the front row for both 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 СКАЧАТЬ