The Favor

  “Andy’s not home, he’s at work. But he said I could go next door and wait for him. He’ll be home as soon as he can get a ride.” Bennett stared at his great-grandma, who’d fallen back, panting softly. “Nan, you’ll be okay.”

  Nan’s head turned toward him. Incredibly, she managed a smile. She held out her hand, and Bennett, God love him, took it. Janelle had never been prouder of her boy than at that moment, when he gently squeezed Nan’s fingers despite the mess and smell. He stayed with her until the ambulance came ten minutes later.

  “You stay at the Tierneys’ until Gabe or Andy gets home, okay?” Janelle said from the back of the ambulance as the EMTs pushed Nan, strapped to the gurney, inside. “You call me when Andy gets there. No. Just text me, I’m not sure what I’ll be doing. And I’ll call or text you—”

  “Ma’am, we have to go.” The EMT said it respectfully, but without much patience.

  “Go,” Janelle said, and the ambulance doors closed off the sight of her son.

  FIFTY

  Then

  AFTER THE SCUFFLE in the twins’ room, the old man goes out and doesn’t come back for two days. Andy locks himself in his room and doesn’t go to work. Mike calls in for him, says he’s sick. Gabe doesn’t miss work—it’s a shitty job but it’s all he has until he can get out of this place. He knocks on the door the third morning and opens it even when Andy doesn’t tell him to come in.

  His brother sits at the window, still cracked but not broken, and stares outside. He doesn’t even turn to look around when Gabe comes in. His shoulders rise and fall with every breath, but other than that, he might as well be a statue.

  “You going to work today?”

  Andy says nothing.

  Gabe tries again, moving closer. He even puts a hand on his brother’s shoulder, but it’s like touching wood or stone or metal. Unmovable.

  “C’mon, Andy. You have to...you should go to work.”

  Andy says nothing.

  Gabe sighs and tries again. Mike got a job in the church office for the summer, but Andy’s working at the plant, same as Gabe. Same as their dad. “They’ll fire you.”

  His brother looks at him then, blue eyes shuttered, mouth closed tight against whatever words might be trying to make their escape. Andy’s always been a jokester, the silly one, a cut-up. Class clown. Just now it looks as if he’s never smiled in his life.

  “I couldn’t do it,” Andy says. “I tried. I wanted to. But I just couldn’t do it.”

  Gabe’s fingers squeeze. He thinks of Janelle and what she was willing to do for him, and he wants to punch a hole in the wall. She’s gone, and it’s too late to make things better. “It’s okay. Lots of guys have trouble the first time.”

  Andy blinks. Then again. And finally, brilliantly, he smiles.

  “No,” he says. “Not that. I wanted to kill the old man, and I couldn’t do it. When it came right down to it, I just couldn’t.”

  FIFTY-ONE

  IT WAS CLOSE to the end, and there was nothing to do but wait. It shouldn’t even have come as a surprise, but apparently things like this always did. That was what the doctor said, anyway. A young guy, he looked tired. He told Janelle they’d done everything they could for her grandmother, but with the cancer and her age...

  “I know,” Janelle said. She felt somehow as though she needed to reassure him, instead of the other way around.

  Nan had stabilized. They’d given her a cocktail of medications—some for the nausea and pain, some to prevent more seizures. Her blood pressure was completely out of control.

  “They doped me up,” Nan said in a wavery voice, her hand searching for Janelle’s.

  “I know, Nan. Just to keep you comfortable.”

  Nan nodded after a second or so, and closed her eyes. She kept them shut for so long that Janelle thought she’d fallen asleep; the rise and fall of her chest, however slight, told her she was still alive. She opened them when Janelle started to pull her hand free.

  “I expect you’ve made the phone calls.”

  Janelle nodded. Bobby and Donna were on the road, but wouldn’t get here for another few hours. Same with John and Lisa. “Yes. Joey and Deb will be here pretty soon. Marty and Kathy, too.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to tell them to come,” Nan protested, but weakly. Then she changed her mind and gave Janelle a trembling smile. “Well. I guess they should come, shouldn’t they? Will they let the children in, do you think?”

  “I’m not sure.” It was long past visiting hours, but this close to the end, and surely it was the end, wouldn’t someone have compassion?

  Nan closed her eyes again. “I b’lieve I’ll sleep for a little while. Would you... Will you bring Bennett?”

  “Yes. I think that would be a good idea.” Janelle waited another minute, but Nan’s soft, even breathing didn’t catch or stop. She didn’t open her eyes, either.

  In the hall, Janelle scrubbed at her face and waited to dissolve into tears, but found herself dry-eyed. Her stomach churned, and the idea of even sipping at a mug of gross hospital coffee made her throat sting with bile. She took her phone into the lobby to call Bennett, who didn’t answer. Nor did Andy when she tried his number.

  Janelle tried Bennett again. Then Andy. Again, neither picked up. She rang Nan’s house phone, thinking maybe they’d pick up, but there was no answer there, either. Worried now, she tapped her fingers against the phone and thought about what to do. She didn’t want to leave the hospital, she wanted to get her son, but without a way to get in touch with him...

  She dialed the only other number she could think of. When he answered, he sounded both so wary and so hopeful, it broke her heart. “Gabe,” she said. “I need you.”

  FIFTY-TWO

  Then

  THE KITCHEN STINKS of sour milk. Garbage overflows the pail. Gabe remembers the days when Mrs. Moser would be there waiting with fresh cookies and milk when he got home from school, but of course, it’s been years since she came to take care of them.

  It’s not time for him to be home yet, but he told the plant nurse he’d puked. When she left him with the thermometer, he pulled the old trick of holding it to the lamp to mimic a fever. He’s pretty sure she knows he was faking, but she sends him home, anyway.

  The kitchen is disgusting. If the old man comes home and sees it this way, there will be hell to pay. Gabe doesn’t care so much about that, nor about the fact that his father hasn’t been back in three days. If they’re really lucky, he thinks, maybe the old man won’t ever come home.

  He knew, Gabe thinks. The old man knew how close he’d come to pushing Andy over the edge. Maybe it scared him, just enough.

  Gabe thinks about washing the dishes and taking out the trash, but first he wants to check on his brothers. He climbs the stairs and pushes open his brothers’ bedroom door, prepared for a hundred different things except an empty room.

  The beds are perfectly made. Their identical desks are both cleared off, which isn’t strange for Mike’s, but is definitely out of character for Andy. A piece of lined paper on the dresser flutters when Gabe passes it; the breeze picks it up and carries it under the bed, where he’ll have to get on his hands and knees to pull it out.

  He almost doesn’t.

  But something tells him this piece of paper is important, and that even though he doesn’t want to know what it says, he’d better find out. He snags it with his fingertips and pulls it toward him. He knows Mike’s handwriting, which slants slightly to the left and is sloppy, considering how neat and tidy Mike is about everything else. The writing is Mike’s, but the words are Andy’s.

  If it can’t end one way, it has to another.

  Gabe crumples the note. Shoves it in his pocket. He looks in the closet for the guns, but already knows they aren’t there.

  And then he runs for his truck.

  The drive takes too long and at the end of it, he runs along the curving path strewn so thick with pine needles the thud of his sneakers barely registers. He can’t bre
athe. He chokes. He would spit if his mouth wasn’t so dry. He would scream his brothers’ names if he had any air. But he doesn’t and he can’t, so he runs until his legs burn, and the woods get thicker and trip him.

  He hits the clearing with a clatter and crash of snapping twigs, which tear both his clothes and his skin. His heart pounds so fast he can’t see anything but a blooming, shifting kaleidoscope of red and black and gray. He puts his hands on his knees and bends forward, thinking he might puke for real, but holds it back. He swallows again and again. Sweat stings in his eyes. He manages to say just one word.

  “No!”

  But it’s too late. Andy has aimed his gun at Mike, who stands a few feet away from him, doing the same. Mike’s hand shakes. Andy’s does not.

  It’s Andy who turns and looks at Gabe in the last second as Mike fires, and that’s probably what saves his life. Mikey’s, too. Andy’s head jerks back. His hand jerks, too. His shot goes wild, skidding off a tree and leaving a thick white mark.

  There’s blood. A lot of it. So much that at first Gabe can’t see his brother’s face. He thinks for sure that Andy’s dead, until he opens his eyes, startlingly blue among the dark red blood. Mike is screaming and fighting Gabe to get to Andy, but even with blood-slick hands, Gabe manages to keep Mike from getting in the way.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Mike says, over and over, though Gabe can’t tell if he’s apologizing for hitting his twin...or for missing.

  Gabe takes his shirt off to make a bandage for Andy’s head. He knows there’s something else he should be doing, probably a hundred other things, but all he can think of is to stop the bleeding. Andy’s eyes are closed, but his heart’s still beating. Gabe can feel it in Andy’s chest, beneath his palm.

  “We have to get him to the truck,” he says to Mike.

  Mike doesn’t move at first. He sits on his heels, rocking. His face is pale. He might pass out, Gabe thinks, and reaches without hesitation to slap a bloody hand across his brother’s face. Mike’s head rocks, but his eyes clear.

  “He’s not going to die,” Gabe says. “We’ll get him to the hospital.”

  “What will we tell them? What will we say?” Mike’s teeth chatter so hard he bites his tongue. Blood paints his lips and dribbles down his chin. “Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. Oh, holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners...now and...now and at the hour of our death....”

  Gabe presses the shirt to the wound in Andy’s skull. He doesn’t dare take it away to assess the damage, but he doesn’t think there are any brains splattered anywhere. “I told you, he’s not going to die!”

  “He wanted to!” Mike cries out. “We were both supposed to!”

  For Mike, this has to have been a serious decision. Suicide is a mortal sin, will send him straight to hell. No redemption. Gabe shakes his head.

  Mike staggers to his feet. “I didn’t want to, Gabe. But...he’s my brother.”

  Then Mike takes off running through the woods, leaving Gabe and Andy behind. All Gabe can do is cradle Andy and keep the pressure on the wound. The shirt is soaked through. Andy’s heartbeat flutters. He doesn’t open his eyes again.

  “He’s my brother,” Mike had said, as if that made every kind of sense, and Gabe supposes it does.

  “I’m your brother, too,” he says aloud, with only the trees to hear him. Maybe Andy does, too, in some far-off manner. It doesn’t matter. “I’m your brother, too.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  WHEN THE PHONE rang, Gabe almost didn’t answer. Just before it would’ve gone to voice mail, he thumbed the screen to take the call. He should’ve known she wasn’t calling just to chat.

  The hospital was between him and his house, and he got there within minutes. Nobody could like hospitals, he thought as he signed in and was informed he wouldn’t be allowed to go to Mrs. Decker’s room. He felt bad for the people who worked there. He was able to get Janelle to come meet him in the lobby, though. She looked beautiful and terrible at the same time.

  “How is she?”

  She shrugged. “Sleeping. She had two seizures at the house. Her blood pressure’s completely out of control. It’s close to the end, Gabe.”

  He was certain she wouldn’t allow him to hold her, but she did. “I’m sorry.”

  She tipped her face to his. “Thanks for coming. My uncle Joey got here just a few minutes ago, but...I don’t want to leave her. In case...you know. Can you get Bennett and bring him here?”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  “He’s at your house.” Janelle hadn’t moved out of his arms, had in fact snuggled close again, so her words were a little muffled.

  “My house?”

  “Yeah. Andy wasn’t home when we had to leave, but he said he would get there as soon as he could get a ride from work. He thought maybe an hour or so. And I know Bennett would’ve been okay by himself, but I didn’t want to leave him alone, worried.”

  “So you sent him to my house?” Gabe pushed back from her so he could look into her face. “Jesus, Janelle. Didn’t I tell you, that kid’s never supposed to go to my house?”

  Her brow furrowed. She stepped out of his arms. “What is your problem, exactly?”

  There was too much to say, too much to tell her, and this wasn’t the time or place. So he did what he’d always done. He walked away.

  He was already on the phone to his brother by the time he got to his car, but Andy wasn’t picking up. Gabe didn’t leave a message. He just disconnected and dialed again. Then again, when his brother didn’t answer. He sent a text as he pulled out of the parking lot, then set the phone on the dashboard in case it rang.

  Ten minutes to the house, twenty tops. He only slowed at stop signs, turned right on red in order to shave a few precious seconds off the trip. By the time he pulled into his driveway, his shirt clung to him with sweat. Gabe was out of the car and across the yard, up the front steps and through the front door in a flash. He didn’t bother slamming the door behind him. His boots skidded on the hardwood floor of the front entry.

  The old man wasn’t in his recliner. The chair had tipped onto its side. It was too heavy for the old man to have pushed it, which meant that Andy had done it.

  Gabe found his father at the kitchen table with his ever-present oxygen tank at his side. In front of him was a bottle of Old Knob and an empty glass. Also, a hammered-metal ashtray. A pack of cigarettes. The familiar Zippo lighter...Gabe’s lighter.

  “I hope you’re not going to smoke those,” Gabe said from the doorway.

  His father looked up, eyes rheumy, mouth wet. His hair stood on end. He looked as if he ought to be covered in blood and bruises, but Gabe couldn’t see any.

  “I should,” the old man said. “I should just light it up. Haven’t had a cigarette in years, and goddamn, do I miss them.”

  Gabe could relate to that, maybe the only thing he ever could’ve related to with his father. He moved slowly into the kitchen, scanning for signs of a struggle or some other uproar, like he’d seen in the living room. Everything seemed to be in its place...except for his dad. “Where’s Andy?”

  “He’s outside with that kid from next door.” The old man shook his head slowly, then ran a trembling hand through the few strands of hair he still vainly combed over his bald spot. “Should just light one up. Go out with a bang.”

  “Do me a favor and wait until I get out of here first.”

  His father looked at him. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you, you son of a bitch? Get rid of the old man for good. Don’t know why you’re in such a hurry. I don’t have shit to leave you when I go.”

  He didn’t have much to give him now, Gabe thought, but didn’t say. He looked through the back door, craning for a glimpse of Andy and Bennett. He saw something like a shadow and relaxed, just a little. He turned to his father.

  “What happened?”

  The old man shrugged and gave Gabe a defiant look that suddenly and alarmingly crumpled into despair. He slapped a hand over his eyes, bowed shoulders shaking. Th
e sight was enough to set Gabe back a few steps. His stomach knotted. He tasted bile.

  “What did you do, old man? What the hell did you do?”

  His father let out a low, racking sob, the noise like someone had dropped a beer mug in a blender. “Nothing. I didn’t do nothing.”

  Gabe didn’t believe that. Andy must not have believed it, either. Gabe slapped the old man’s hand away from his face and bent to get right up in it. “If I find out you did something to that kid...!”

  “I didn’t do nothing!” the old man shrieked.

  Spittle flew. Disgusted, Gabe wiped his face and backed up. The old man shook and shuddered, his face crimson, his nostrils flaring as he struggled to suck enough oxygen into his withered lungs.

  “I didn’t do a goddamned thing!” Ralph Tierney shouted. “He wanted to see my trains. That’s all. I just...I just thought I could show him the trains—”

  He broke off, wheezing and choking until he twisted the knob on the tank. He sucked in the oxygen as greedily as he’d consumed everything his entire life. He pointed at Gabe, then wilted.

  “Your brother came home. Came looking for us. And he just went...crazy,” the old man muttered with a cough. He didn’t look at Gabe again. “He said he was going to kill me.”

  Neither of them said a word about how it wasn’t the first time Andy had made such a threat, but Gabe could see the memory of it in his father’s eyes. Gabe put a hand on the back of a kitchen chair to keep himself upright. All at once it was all he could do not to sink to his hands and knees.

  “I should just light this goddamned cigarette,” the old man whispered hoarsely. “Just end it all. Make everyone happy.”

  If his father was looking for sympathy, he wasn’t going to find it here. Gabe grabbed his lighter and went out the back door to find Andy sitting on the porch steps. The gun was in his hand, lying loosely on his knee. Bennett wasn’t there, but the lights on in the house next door left him pretty confident the kid was at home.