The Favor

  “I’m not a baby!”

  “Nope,” Janelle says with a grin that melts something inside him that’s nothing like a smile, “you’re a jerk.”

  * * *

  Gabe Tierney was still a jerk. He knew it. Cultivated it, as a matter of fact, because it was easier that way. People gave you a wide berth if you were an asshole. They left you alone. Well, most people did. Some women didn’t. For them, a sneer was as good as a smile, maybe better. For them a kiss from a fist was better than nothing, but Gabe would never hit a woman, not even if she hit him first, and he’d had plenty of slaps to prove it. He’d deserved most of them, though if you asked him, any woman who went after a man who told her right up front he wasn’t ever going to be her boyfriend probably shouldn’t get bent out of shape when that turned out to be true.

  There were lights on in the Deckers’ second-floor bedroom, which meant he could see right in. There hadn’t been a light on upstairs in months, maybe even over a year. Mrs. Decker never went upstairs anymore, and though she sometimes had visitors, she didn’t have overnight company. Gabe moved closer to his window, hands on the sill. His breath fogged the glass, but he didn’t wipe it clean. He just waited patiently for it to clear.

  Earlier he’d seen the woman inside, moving back and forth, emptying boxes and arranging the furniture. Her hair was darker now than it had been in childhood, but still red. He bet she still had freckles across her nose, and that twisted sense of humor. Other things would’ve changed over time, they always did, but surely that would be the same.

  Janelle Decker had come back.

  The door to that other bedroom opened, and there she was again. In the dark, behind the shield of his curtain, Gabe watched, waiting to see if she’d look over. She didn’t. She straightened and slid an elastic band off her wrist, then used it to fasten her hair on top of her head. She stretched, rolling her neck and shoulders with a wince.

  Gabe had once sworn he’d get the hell out of this place and never look back, but Janelle had been the one to actually do it. At least until now. What was she doing back here? Easy enough to guess—Mrs. Decker was getting older and more frail. She’d fallen not too long ago, and Gabe supposed she needed caretaking. That explained the boxes and stuff in the upstairs bedroom, instead of only a suitcase or two.

  “So,” she says. “That’s it? It’s over?”

  “Nothing’s over. For something to be over, it has to start.”

  “I did it for you!” she cries. “You asked me for a favor, and I did it!”

  Then she’s leaving and his hands are on her. Too hard. He doesn’t know how to tell her he doesn’t want her to go, and he can’t make himself ask her to stay.

  And after that, everything fell apart.

  THREE

  IN WHAT BENNETT called the olden days, this big room, separated into four sections by a T-shaped half wall, had belonged to four of her uncles. The smaller bedroom across the hall had housed Janelle’s dad, the oldest of the five brothers, until he moved out and the next oldest took his place. Ricky, Marty, Bobby, Joey and John, the Decker brothers. Her dad had often joked that if the others had learned to play instruments the way he’d taken to the guitar, they could’ve had a band to rival the Oakridge Boys or maybe the Osmonds. All five had shared the bathroom off the hallway, and Janelle shuddered to think of what that must’ve been like—the stink alone must’ve been enough to kill a couple of elephants. And it wasn’t a big bathroom, she thought as she settled one more box of toiletries on the floor. It would be a hardship sharing it with one medium-size boy, much less an army of brothers.

  Of the five brothers, four remained in contact, though none of them had stayed in St. Marys. John and his wife, Lisa, lived three hours away in Aliquippa, their three kids and spouses and grandkids close by. Bobby and Donna lived an hour and a half away in Milesburg, their four kids and their families scattered across the country. Marty and Kathy in Dubois, close to Joey and his wife, Deb, but that was still about an hour away. Marty and Kathy’s daughter, Betsy, lived with her family twenty minutes away in Kersey, but her brother, Bill, was unmarried and traveled the world as a journalist. Joey and Deb had one son, Peter, who lived at home in their basement and, to be honest, sort of creeped Janelle out and always had.

  Janelle’s dad, on the other hand, had pretty much fallen off the face of the earth a few decades ago, and it was good riddance as far as she was concerned.

  “We were wondering if you’d be able to come and stay with Mom,” Joey had said without preamble three months ago when he’d called her. “She had a fall recently, and she’s been diagnosed with a brain tumor. Inoperable.”

  Janelle had barely had time to ask him how he and his family were before he’d leveled her with that bit of news. In retrospect, she appreciated the bluntness, but at the time it had sucked the wind from her lungs.

  I promise I’ll come back soon, Nan.

  It had been almost twenty years.

  “The doctor says she could have anywhere from a few months to a few years,” Joey had said. “She wasn’t showing any symptoms. They only found out because she hit her head, and they did an MRI. She says she’s going to be eighty-four years old and doesn’t want chemo or any sort of treatment like that. But she needs someone with her, Janelle. We thought...you might be able to. Whether it’s a few months or a few years, she doesn’t have a lot of time left. Even if you can’t come to stay, you should at least come to visit.”

  She’d never appreciated a guilt trip, especially not from an uncle she hadn’t spoken to since she was a teenager, but as it turned out, Joey wasn’t just asking her to come and take care of Nan in her last years. He, along with his brothers, were making her an offer she couldn’t refuse.

  Janelle would have medical power of attorney, with limited power of attorney granting her access to Nan’s checking and savings accounts for the purposes of maintaining her grandmother’s lifestyle. There had been a lot of legal paperwork stating that she would be responsible for maintaining the house until Nan passed away. After that, Janelle would be in charge of selling it and splitting the income among Nan’s sons. Janelle would keep her dad’s share of the proceeds for herself.

  Her uncles were buying her and making no real pretense otherwise. She respected that as much as Joey’s initial bluntness in telling her about Nan’s failing health. But Janelle could be blunt, too.

  “Why me? You live close by. Betsy and Peter do, too, right? None of you can check in on her?”

  “She needs someone there full-time,” Joey had said. “She won’t accept a nurse—we tried that. She won’t go into a home—we suggested that, too. And we all have houses and lives and families, Janelle. We can’t pick up and move in with her.”

  Janelle could’ve protested that she couldn’t, either, but the fact was, it made sense. She wanted out of California. St. Marys was a four-hour drive away from her mom and step-father, Randall, and also her brother, Kenny, and his family. That was far better than a six-hour flight. And really, what else did she have in California but debts she couldn’t seem to get out from under no matter what she did? In for a penny, in for a pound was one of Nan’s favorite sayings. Janelle had listed her house and its upside-down mortgage with a rental management company, sold most of her stuff and packed up the rest. Here she was.

  First things first. She’d unloaded most of her boxes from the truck. She should make the bed. Then create some order in the bathroom so she could convince her son to take a shower tonight before he went to bed. Bennett might not think he needed to face his first day in a new school with clean hair and clothes, but his mother did.

  Before she could do any of that, a quavery voice came from the bottom of the stairs. “Janelle? Will you and Benny be ready for supper soon?”

  Janelle went to the head of the steeply pitched staircase. “Yeah, Nan, I’ll be down in a couple minutes.”

  “I have leftovers from New Year’s dinner. I’m making turkey soup with spaetzle.”

  Janelle
’s stomach rumbled, and she immediately headed down the stairs. “Nan. You shouldn’t be cooking anything. Let me get that.”

  Her grandmother gripped the newel post with gnarled fingers. She’d always been short but pillowy. It hurt Janelle’s heart to see how frail she’d become. When Janelle impulsively bent to hug her, she could feel every one of the bones in Nan’s spine. She didn’t want to grip too hard, but found it almost impossible to let go.

  Nan tutted and waved her hands. “It’s already made. I just need to warm up the rolls....”

  “Nan, I’ll get it.”

  For half a second, her grandmother’s shoulders slumped. Then, feisty as ever despite the weight she’d lost and the cancer nibbling away at her, she shook her head. “No, no. You go upstairs and work on putting your room together. The soup’s heating up, and I have the rolls all ready. You go. Go!”

  Janelle had spent her entire life heeding Nan’s instructions. Even when she’d ignored Nan’s advice, even when she’d deliberately disobeyed her, Janelle had always at least made a show of listening. Old habits didn’t simply die hard, they rose like the undead and kept walking. Now she backed up the steep stairs, catching her heel on every one and keeping her eye on Nan, who took her time, centering herself with a hand on the newel post again before she was steady enough to move across the living room’s polished wooden floor.

  As she turned and went up the stairs, Janelle heard Nan singing, the tune familiar though she couldn’t place it until she got into her room and recognized it as a particularly filthy pop song by an up-and-coming rapper. Laughing, she slotted the bed rails into the head- and footboards, then wrestled the box spring and mattress onto it. The bed itself she pushed kitty-corner under one of the dormers.

  Then she looked out the window, hung with beige lace curtains, ugly and useless at blocking the light. Or the view. She could see right through them and into the second-floor bedroom of the house next door.

  As she’d been able to do back then.

  Just one minute. One nostalgic minute. That’s all she meant to take. The alley between the houses was so narrow that she could easily lean out her window and shake hands with someone doing the same on the other side. Close enough to string a tin-can telephone—and with the memory of that, she stood on her tiptoes to run her fingers along the top of the window frame. The piece of string was still there, stapled into the plaster, the end frayed where it had been cut years ago.

  Hello. Hello. Vienna calling.

  “Mom?”

  Janelle turned, easing onto her heels, and wiped her dusty fingertips on her jeans. This room would take more work than setting up the furniture and making her bed. “Yeah, buddy.”

  “I’m hungry. Is it time to eat yet?”

  “Yeah. Nan made us soup. Let’s take a break. How’s your room coming along?”

  Bennett shrugged. “It’s okay.”

  Which could mean anything, from he’d completely unpacked or hadn’t slit the tape on a single box. Janelle poked her head in his doorway and found the room in a state someplace in between. Books and clothes covered his bed, but the small combo television and DVD player, hooked up to his game system, had been set up on top of his dresser the way it had been in California. Priorities, clearly.

  “Bennett, c’mon. Get this stuff cleaned up and put away.”

  “I’m getting to it.”

  “No comics or video games until this room is clean,” Janelle said. “I mean it. And it’s early to bed tonight. School tomorrow.”

  Downstairs, the good smell of homemade soup was overshadowed by the acrid odor of smoke. A baking sheet of crescent rolls rested on the stove, the tops golden-brown, the bottoms burned black. Nan had opened both windows over the sink as well as the door leading to the enclosed porch, but the smell lingered. She was in the family room, setting a handful of spoons on the table.

  She turned a little when Janelle came in. “Where’s Benny?”

  “I’m here, Nan.” Bennett ducked around Janelle. “Something stinks.”

  “Bennett,” she warned.

  Nan laughed. “Oh, I burned those rolls all right. Lost track of time. Should’ve kept my eye on ’em, but oh, well. We can just tear the tops off, right, Benny? Janelle, grab that bowl of mashed potatoes and bring it in here.”

  “My mom burns them all the time,” Bennett said as he sidled around the table to sit in the chair closest to the wall. “Sometimes so bad we can’t even eat them. She catches the toaster on fire, too. And once she burned popcorn—”

  “Bennett! Just because something’s true doesn’t mean we have to tell the whole world.” Janelle set the ceramic bowl of mashed potatoes in the middle of the table next to the platter of cold sliced filling. Nan made the best filling and mashed potatoes in the whole world. Nan made the best everything.

  “Like this,” Nan said to Bennett when he put a spoonful of potatoes on the edge of his plate. She scooped some into her bowl, where the potatoes dissolved around the leftover turkey, corn and spaetzle to make the thin broth into something thick and creamy and delicious. “That’s how you do it. But first, let’s say grace.”

  Bless us, Oh Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

  Janelle hadn’t said that or any prayer in years, but the words rose as easily to her lips as they once had. Bennett, brows raised, looked at her, and a sudden pang struck her. The blessing and the after-holiday turkey soup with mashed potatoes mixed into it had been a staple of her childhood visits to Nan’s house. But just like the prayers she’d never taught him, when had she ever made a turkey, much less kept the leftovers to make soup? Never. The traditions of Janelle’s childhood had split and splintered after her dad disappeared for good, and after leaving St. Marys that last time she’d carried forward only the ones from her mom’s side of the family.

  “It’s good.” She plopped a hefty portion of potatoes into her own soup and stirred it into a thick stew, not reaching for the salt or pepper because Nan would have already seasoned it to perfection. Janelle blew on it and took a bite before it was cool enough, suddenly eager for the familiar flavors. She burned her tongue and didn’t care.

  “It’s good,” Nan agreed. “Eat up, Benny. I have ice cream for dessert.”

  Nan always had ice cream for dessert. Vanilla and chocolate and strawberry. Always in a bowl, never in a cone because you could fit more in a bowl. The bowls were the same. The spoons. The laughter was the same, too, Janelle thought as Nan listened to Bennett’s silly jokes and told a few of her own.

  Nan was different, but Janelle supposed she was, too. That’s what happened with the passing of time. People got older. They got sick. They died.

  But not yet, Janelle thought. Please, God. Not just yet.

  FOUR

  Then

  THOSE MOTHERLESS TIERNEY boys. That’s what people always called them, with a mixture of pity and fond disapproval. When they show up in mismatched clothes, their hair a mess, chocolate milk on their upper lips. When they miss school altogether. Or church. Blaming the fact they don’t have a mom is an excuse, it makes people feel better, that’s what Gabe figures. If people can point at them, they don’t have to pay attention to themselves.

  Andy and Mikey don’t remember Mom, not even from pictures, because their dad threw them all away. There used to be a big photo of her and Dad on the wall in the living room, but one day Gabe came downstairs and found only a bare spot where it had hung, the paint a little lighter than the rest. The frame was in the garbage, but the picture was gone. Gabe did have a picture of her holding him when he was a baby. He had it tucked away in his drawer, way at the back, but his dad didn’t know about that one. If he did, he’d probably throw it away, too.

  Gabe remembers his mom, the way she smelled and the feeling of her hair on his face when she bent to pick him up, but that was from a long, long time ago. Sometimes he thinks he might just have imagined all of it. If it wasn’t for Gabe’s picture he could
believe he came out from under a cabbage leaf, just like Mrs. Moser says.

  Mrs. Moser gives them cookies while they’re doing their homework. The twins hardly have anything to do because they’re only in kindergarten, but Gabe’s in the fourth grade and he’s got so much schoolwork he can hardly get through it some nights. Right now he’s struggling with some social studies maps he’s supposed to color, but all the crayons are broken or worn down to nubs. Dad said he’d bring home another box, but he’s not home from work yet. Maybe he won’t be home until it’s too late, when Gabe will be asleep. And this is due tomorrow.

  “Finish up your work so you can watch some cartoons while I finish dinner.” Mrs. Moser talks in a thick German accent. She’s kind of fat and has grayish hair, and her arms are flabby, but she makes great cookies. If she was around all the time, Gabe thinks, nobody would ever have any reason to look at them with pity, because they’d always be clean and their clothes would match.

  But Mrs. Moser comes in to do for his dad only a couple days a week. Sometimes she doesn’t show up for weeks in a row, because she has a bad back and has to take a break. Or because his dad hollers about something she didn’t do right, like buying the wrong kind of shampoo or getting the lunch meat sliced too thin. Ralph Tierney likes things the way he likes them, that’s what he always says.

  Gabe knows for sure his dad doesn’t like him. When he looks at Gabe, his face wrinkles up as if he smelled something bad. He loves the twins, though. They sit on his lap while he reads them books. They get away with everything Gabe never could. They cry and stamp their feet and throw tantrums to get their way, and Gabe’s not even allowed to say a word. If they hit him, he can’t hit them back. If they take his stuff and break it, he’s not allowed to complain. If he does, there’s a good chance Dad will blame him for whatever happened, anyway, so he says nothing. But if he can get in a punch when nobody’s looking...