Of being no fun.
“Hey, buddy.” Janelle crossed the room to sit down next to him. “How’s it going?”
“Good.” Eyes on the game, Bennett manipulated the controller back and forth. “Just leveled up, killed the big boss, now I’m almost out of health and I need to get to the next save point.”
“Can you pause for a second?”
With a hefty sigh, he did, not giving her his full attention until she held up the tests. “Want to tell me how come you didn’t show me these? I thought we agreed you’d show me every test you got, and the homework, too.”
As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she regretted them, but there they were. She couldn’t take them back. Instead, she settled papers on top of the dresser and sat on the edge of his bed.
“I was afraid you’d be mad,” he admitted. “Because I didn’t get A’s.”
“Oh, Bennett. Did you do your best?”
He nodded.
Janelle sighed, wondering if there was ever any easy way to be a parent. “When we talked about your grades, I never said I expected you to only get A’s. B’s are great, so long as you did your best. That’s a good grade.”
Bennett shrugged, still looking at the screen, though the game was paused and his eyes glittered suspiciously. “Okay.”
Janelle opened her mouth to say more, but she could still taste the regret from her words of moments before. Sure, she could talk this to death. She could be stern or lecture. She could make certain he understood the consequences of not showing her the tests, the consequences she’d promised for the next time he hid something from her.
Or she could let it go.
In her day, Super Mario had been a big deal. This game system had cost as much as her car payment, and featured graphics and stories as complicated and impressive as movies shown on the big screen. Janelle had never had any desire to do more than watch for a few minutes, but now she gestured at the monitor.
“Can I play?”
Bennett looked up. “What?”
“The game. Can I play?”
He laughed. “Oh, Mom.”
“I’m serious! What, you think your mom can’t shoot a zombie?”
Bennett shook his head, still chuckling, then saw she was serious. He handed her the controller. “Okay. Go ahead.”
She had no idea what she was doing, which made him laugh all the harder. When she got killed, the screen filled with dripping, gory blood. Bennett didn’t take the controller from her. He put his hand over hers and showed her how to manipulate the buttons and levers. Then he reset the game.
“Go,” Bennett said.
She did her best, which was really all she could do.
FORTY-FOUR
Then
EVERYTHING’S GONE WRONG, and it’s all Gabe’s fault.
Probably everything has always been, ever since the beginning, when whatever he’d done as a kid had sent his mother packing. It’s something inside him, so deeply rooted he can’t pull it out. Not without killing himself in the process, anyway, and yeah...he’s thought about that. More than once.
He asked Janelle to do it—to fool around with his brothers—because he wanted Andy to feel better. He wanted him not to focus so much on what the old man had done, which wasn’t Andy’s fault. It was Gabe’s fault, just like everything else was. So he’d tried to fix it, tried to get Andy to see that no matter what the old man had done, Andy was fine. He was good. He was okay. He wasn’t any of those names the old man had called him. And even if he was—the way Mikey might be, shielded in his desire to become a priest, as if giving his life to the church would make it easier to forget what he really wanted—well, even if Andy was a fag like the old man had said, Gabe wanted to show him that it didn’t matter. It just didn’t fucking matter.
But it did.
Now he can’t even look at Janelle without thinking about her kissing his brothers. Touching them. Them touching her. He thought because he trusted her more than anyone else, that she was the right one to ask, and the fact she’d agreed told him he was right.... But that didn’t help things now, when she was sitting on his bed with her face streaked with tears and her knees clamped tight. She’d chewed her lower lip so hard it bled, and he shouldn’t be an ass, he should hand her a hanky or something, but he doesn’t.
“So,” she says. “That’s it? It’s over?”
“Nothing’s over. For something to be over, you have to start it.” Those words taste bitter and mean.
That’s how they must sound, too, because Janelle flinches. She’s not the sort to just take anything lying down, though. Her lips thin. Her eyes narrow. She raises her hand slowly, slowly, giving him the middle finger.
But when she gets up to push past him, something makes him put out a hand to stop her. His grip’s too tight, he sees that immediately by the way she winces when he grabs her, but he can’t make it softer. He needs her to leave, but he can’t make himself let her go. He should tell her he’s sorry. About this, about the other things. About everything. But the words don’t come.
“You’re hurting me.” Janelle manages to sound dignified even though her voice shakes. She doesn’t try to yank her arm from his grip. She just looks at him as if he’s something she scraped off the bottom of her shoe.
It makes him mad. Furious, even. Because he already knows he’s being an asshole, that he’s worthless, a piece of shit. She doesn’t have to look at him like that. Like she’s never made a mistake, never done anything wrong. He wants to shake that look right off her face.
He wants to kiss her.
He wants to maybe even hit her, and she juts her chin forward as if she’s just waiting for him to do it. But Gabe won’t give her the satisfaction. Instead, he lets her go. Janelle rubs her arm, the pale skin already going dark. He left his mark on her, and that seems fair enough, since she sure as hell left hers on him.
“You told me,” she says in a stiff, rough voice, “that it would help make things better for them. I saw how Andy was acting in school. I know he’s in trouble. I love your brothers.”
She doesn’t say she loves him, and though he deserves that slap, it still stings.
“You told me it would help them, but I did it for you! You asked me for a favor, and I did it!”
He knows that’s true, but it doesn’t make him feel better. “Yeah. You did it. Now you can get out.”
“I didn’t know it would change things....”
That’s it; he can’t stand it anymore. Everything is swirling and tipping and twisting all around him; the whole world has gone dark and he doesn’t know what to do to make it stop. All he has is the power of his words, and knowing which ones, exactly, will hurt her the most.
“Change what? What could it change, Janelle? Us? What about us could this change?”
He’s so angry he spits when he talks. She wipes the splash away with a knuckle. He thinks she shouldn’t be able to look him in the face, but she does.
“Everything! Us! What we’ve been doing. What we are.” Her voice dips low. Becomes sad. “I thought we were friends, at least.”
This forces a harsh laugh from him. Sharp like barbed wire. Like breaking glass. She flinches in the face of that laugh, which feels as if it cut him open from guts to throat.
“I was just convenient for you. That’s all. Someone who could get you high and get you off.” Even as he says it, Gabe knows it’s too much. He’s gone too far. She will never forgive him.
“What is the matter with you?” she cries. “Why are you doing this?”
Because he has to. Because he can’t stand it. Because if she knew the truth about what’s been going on in this house, she will hate him, and he’d rather have her hate him for this.
He’d rather hate her.
“I wish you’d never come here,” he tells her. He doesn’t mean it, but that’s what pours out. “You fucked everything up, Janelle. I wish you’d never come into my life.”
Janelle’s mouth opens. She blinks, fast. She
breathes fast, too. She straightens her back, squares her shoulders. “You don’t mean it.”
His lip curls.
She takes a step backward. Then another. At the doorway she turns to look over her shoulder, everything about her tense and angry, and worst of all, betrayed and sad. He did that to her. He did it.
“It’s not how someone comes into your life that fucks it up,” she says. “It’s always how they go out of it. It’s the leaving that makes the difference, Gabe, don’t you get it? Is this how you want me to leave?”
He wants to tell her to come back. He wants to get on his knees and beg her. He doesn’t. She’s right, he thinks, as he watches her go.
It’s always the leaving that matters.
FORTY-FIVE
“WHAT ARE YOU thinking about?” That sort of question usually wasn’t a good one, but it slipped out of her before she could stop it. Besides, she wanted to know. Janelle traced the line of Gabe’s ribs and waited for him not to answer her.
He surprised her. “The day you left.”
“Oh. That.” She rolled onto her back and blew the hair out of her face. From outside she heard the faint and far-off noise of a lawn mower. It seemed impossible that summer was almost here. “That was a long time ago.”
“I know. But...don’t you?”
“Think about how you were such a jerk to me? Broke my heart?” She squinted at him. He frowned, and she felt bad for an instant. “Sorry. Guess I’m more bitter about it than I thought.”
“You should be. I was an asshole.”
“Some people would say you’re still an asshole.”
He laughed at that, without shame. “Well. Yeah.”
She rolled onto her side again, her head propped on one elbow. She couldn’t stop herself from running her fingertip over his belly and the jut of his hip bone. Gabe had always been tall and lean, but time had given him muscle and weight that suited him. Or maybe her tastes had changed. Grown up.
“What were you thinking about it?”
“That I was sure you’d never forgive me,” he answered at once, with no pretense. He was being honest.
She liked that about him, how he said what had to be said even when it might be easier not to. “I didn’t, not for a long, long time.”
He tucked one arm under his head and stared up at the ceiling. “What did you think after you left, and you found out what happened?”
“I was horrified. Of course. I felt terrible. Like it was somehow my fault.”
“It wasn’t.”
Janelle shrugged. “I still feel like at least part of it was.”
Gabe looked at her, brows knitted and mouth thin. “It wasn’t.”
“You saying so doesn’t just take that away,” she answered, annoyed. They lay in silence for a few minutes. “Gabe. How come you never went away?”
She thought she knew the answer, but wanted to hear him say it.
“I couldn’t.”
“I know you felt like you couldn’t,” she said softly.
He looked at her. “Who would’ve taken care of Andy? The old man couldn’t. Mike couldn’t. My mother sure as hell couldn’t. How about you, anyway? You didn’t become a dancer. I thought you would.”
She laughed, a little embarrassed. “Oh. Well, turns out you need to actually train and stuff if you want to be really good. I was never great, just good enough. Did some dancing in different shows, always the chorus. I was in Vegas for a while.”
“Really?”
She smiled. “Yes. I was a nudie dancer in a Vegas show. That’s what you really wanted to know, right?”
Gabe shook his head, then nodded. “Why’d you quit?”
“Got hurt in a car accident. Got pregnant. I thought being a mom was more important than dancing.”
He kissed her slowly. “You used to think nothing was more important than dancing.”
If that was how he remembered it, she wasn’t going to correct him. She looked at the clock. “Helen said she’d have Nan back by nine. Andy and Bennett should be finished at the movies about that time, too. I told them they could walk home this time. We should get up.”
Gabe nodded and started to dress as Janelle watched him from the tangle of her sheets. She didn’t want to move just yet. Didn’t want to pull on her clothes over skin that still smelled of him. She admired the play of his muscles as he bent to grab his shirt and pull it over his head. He caught her looking and gave her a small smile.
“What?”
“You,” she said. “So much has changed, and yet...so much hasn’t.”
His expression clouded briefly. Then he surprised her by sitting next to her. Taking her hand. He kissed the knuckles, each one, then held her palm to his mouth. He said nothing.
Janelle stroked a hand over his hair and pulled him a little closer. “What?”
He shook his head. His shoulders lifted and dropped as he sighed. He pressed her hand to his lips as if he meant his kiss to keep him from speaking.
Gently, Janelle took her hand away to cup his face. She searched his gaze. “Gabe. Talk to me.”
“I’m shit with words.”
“You’re not.”
He shook his head again. “You’re the only person who ever made me feel like I could...just...talk. Like I could say anything to you, and it would be okay.”
This honesty speared her. She let her thumbs stroke the line of his jaw. “You can.”
Gabe said nothing for another few heartbeats, another few breaths. At last he blinked rapidly and put his hands over hers to take them away from his face. He held them tight. “What did you think when you heard what had happened?”
It wasn’t what she’d figured he’d say. “I thought I’d pushed you to it, somehow. Because of the favor. I thought about how I left, how bad it was. I spent a long time thinking that if only I’d been better, Gabe, a better person, that if I hadn’t ever started up with you like that... Well. I thought if I’d been better, none of that would’ve happened.”
“When you heard...did you believe it?”
“I didn’t want to.” She searched his gaze again, trying to figure out what, exactly, he was getting at. She thought of that day in the woods when he’d taught her to shoot. Of how he’d taught her son. “Because...it wasn’t true, was it? I mean, it wasn’t an accident.”
Gabe pushed her away, gently but firmly. He got up to look out the window. “It was not an accident. No.”
Janelle got out of bed and dressed slowly, waiting for him to say more, and not surprised when he didn’t. They had only another few minutes before Nan would be back, and Gabe needed to be out of her bedroom before then. “Let’s go downstairs. We can have a drink. You can tell me about it.”
They got downstairs mere seconds before Helen’s car pulled into the driveway. Nan was beaming, full of stories about the card club, but clearly exhausted. She didn’t give Gabe more than a second glance as she went to her room.
“Be careful with him,” she warned as Janelle tucked her into bed. “He’s always been trouble for you.”
“Oh, Nan.”
Nan shook a gnarled finger, but gently. “You thought I didn’t know, back then?”
Heat flushed Janelle’s cheeks. “There was nothing to know, Nan. Gabe and I were friends. We are friends.”
Her grandmother snorted softly. “He’s got troubles.”
“Don’t we all?”
Nan softened at that and patted Janelle’s hand as her eyes closed. She took up almost no space beneath the blankets; her head barely made a dent in the pillow. She looked younger in sleep. More peaceful, maybe. Janelle sat by her side for another minute or so, counting each rise and fall of Nan’s chest as she breathed.
“When Bennett was a baby,” she said to Gabe, who was waiting for her in the kitchen with two open beers, “I would creep into his room at night just to put a hand on his back and make sure he was still breathing. It’s like that all over again. I feel like any moment she could be gone.”
It seemed
natural enough for him to take her in his arms then. Janelle closed her eyes to breathe in his scent—beer and cigarettes and sex, and something else that had always been there and would never change. She put her arms around him, her cheek on his chest. She breathed.
She breathed.
She moved too slow when the back door opened and Bennett burst through on a wave of excited chatter, Andy on his heels. Bennett paused at the sight of them, but didn’t spare a beat before launching into a description about the explosions, the spaceships, the alien spores. Janelle let go of Gabe as he let go of her, not a big deal.
Andy stopped in the doorway. “What are you doing here?”
“Just leaving,” Gabe said with a look at her.
Without another word, Andy turned on his heel and stalked out of the kitchen. The back door slammed behind him. Bennett, still chattering, didn’t seem to notice. But Gabe did. He sighed and rubbed his eyes, then gave her a look she couldn’t interpret.
“Go brush your teeth,” she told her son. “It’s late.”
“But tomorrow’s Saturday—”
“Yes,” she said. “So you can watch TV in your room or whatever, but it’s still late now. Go.”
Bennett mumbled something that any other time would’ve earned him a reprimand, but this time Janelle let it go. She snagged Gabe’s sleeve as he made for the back door. Her fingertips skidded on his shirt’s soft flannel.
“Gabe. What’s going on?”