The Favor Read online

  He won’t. This will be the last time he sees her for a long, long time, and he knew that before he came. She watches them from the doorway as they drive away, but though she raises her hand in a wave, Gabe doesn’t wave back.

  He doesn’t head for home right away. He goes into town, parks on a side street in front of a small hospital thrift store. The mannequins in the window don’t have heads, and one’s missing an arm. There’s a shelf of sad stuffed toys at their feet. He needs to sit for a few minutes before he can drive home and face his brothers, knowing this secret they don’t.

  Janelle doesn’t ask him if he’s okay. She sits with him in silence for a minute or so. Then she punches him in the arm.

  “Let’s go in there.” She points at the thrift shop. “I love places like that.”

  Because she did something for him without question, Gabe gets out of the truck and follows her into the dusty smelling shop, where she flips through old record albums and sorts through countless paperback novels. She passes up the housewares section, but stops in front of the large glass jewelry case to stare down at the velvet-covered boards glittering with costume pins. On top of the case are several spinning racks, and Janelle turns them slowly.

  Her fingers push at the dangling chains and beads, the rosaries. She lifts a pendant engraved with the face of the Virgin Mary, and studies it longer than she has any of the others. Her fingertips cradle it before she lets it go, swinging on the peg.

  “You think Jesus ever got mad that his real dad was never around?” Janelle looks at Gabe, totally serious. “I mean...he knew Joseph wasn’t his real dad, right? But his real father wasn’t around, and then he ended up dying for him.”

  Gabe goes to church because his dad makes him, but he hasn’t prayed in a long time. He has no opinion on Jesus or his mother. “I’m never having kids.”

  “Me, neither.” She twirls the rack again slowly, stopping once more at the dangling Virgin pendant. “If you ask me, she ought to have dumped Joseph and never told Jesus where he came from. Having no dad is better than having a shitty one. I guess having no mom is better than having a shitty mom, too.”

  Janelle looks at him. “C’mon, Gabe. Let’s go home and get a little high.”

  At home in his bed, her back pressed to his front and his chin tucked into her neck, both of them pleasantly buzzed, she curls her fingers in his again and holds them tight against her.

  “How come you asked me to go with you?” she asks.

  He thinks for a minute before he answers. “Because I knew you’d say yes.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I just...knew,” Gabe says. “I knew you’d do something for me if I needed it.”

  She shakes a little. He wants to ask her if she’s crying, but is afraid she’ll say yes, and after a while she stops. She turns to face him, her eyes dry. She slides her hand against him, inside his jeans, and then that’s all he can think about.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  WHEN THE PHONE rang, jangling, Janelle picked it up automatically without looking at the caller ID. Nan was napping after having been awake on and off for another night, calling for Janelle to help her, which should not have been, but was, worse than if she’d tried to rearrange the fridge by herself, or any of the other useless tasks that took hold of her in the wee hours. She got argumentative when Janelle told her she needed to go back to sleep. Nan had been sick, too, dry heaving. Not since Bennett was a baby had Janelle been operating on such constantly interrupted sleep, and it was taking its toll.

  She snapped up the phone with a curt “Hello.” Silence greeted her, going on for so long she was just about to hang up when a rough male voice said her name. She froze, twisting the cord of Nan’s old-fashioned landline in one hand.

  “Dad.”

  “Hey. Yeah.” He sounded pleased she recognized him.

  She cut that sentiment off at the knees. “What do you want?”

  “You never answered the messages I left on your cell. I thought I’d call directly.”

  “What do you want,” she repeated, keeping her voice down so that not only wouldn’t it wake Nan, but she couldn’t possibly overhear if she was awake.

  “I want to see my mother. And you. And my grandson.” He must’ve known she’d protest, because he added quickly, before she could speak, “You have every right to be pissed off at me, Janelle. But just listen...”

  “There’s no money for you.”

  He paused. When he spoke again, he sounded angry, not contrite. Typical. “Don’t you think I care more about saying goodbye to my dying mother than money?”

  “I have no idea what sort of things you care about, but being there for your family has never seemed to be one of them.” Janelle twisted the cord harder, tighter around her fingers, until it hurt. She didn’t unwind it, either.

  “You can’t keep me from coming to see her.” Another pause, then his voice was softer. “Look. I understand if you don’t want to have anything to do with me. But I want to see her before it’s too late. And it’s not your decision, Janny. It’s hers.”

  “She won’t want to see you.” Even as she said it, Janelle knew it wasn’t true. Her uncles would want their brother to stay far away, but Nan... Well, Janelle had a son. She was pretty sure Nan would want to see her oldest boy, no matter what he’d done.

  “Ask her.”

  “She’s sleeping now.”

  He sighed. “Fine. So ask her when she wakes up. I can come next Wednesday. Around noon.”

  “No,” Janelle said automatically, then recanted. At noon Bennett would still be in school, assuming there was no more trouble. She hadn’t had a call since the last one. “Fine. Noon. But you can’t stay more than an hour. She tires easily, and I don’t want you here when my son gets home from school.”

  “You sound like your mother when you talk that way, you know it?” He sounded begrudgingly admiring, not mad. “Fine. I’ll be there at noon. I’ll stay an hour. We’ll work from there. Okay?”

  “Fine.” She hung up without saying goodbye, her stomach sour and her mouth dry.

  Nan called out from the bedroom, crying Janelle’s name over and over again in a voice that rose in pitch until it was nearly a scream. Janelle got there as fast as she could and found her grandmother fighting at the sheets tangled around her. She clawed at them, kicking feebly.

  “Nan, calm down. You’re fine. Did you have a bad dream or something?”

  “Get me out of here,” Nan cried.

  Janelle tried to ease her out of the blankets, but Nan kept fighting. Her hand came up and smacked Janelle in the face, hard enough to make her see stars. She staggered back, her hand on her nose.

  Nan quieted at once. “Oh, oh, honey, I’m so sorry!”

  “It’s okay.” Eyes watering, nose starting to run, Janelle grabbed a tissue. “It was an accident. I’m okay.”

  Really, her nose hurt like hell and she wanted to scream, but she pasted on a smile and sat on the edge of the bed to let Nan take her hand. They sat that way for a few seconds, Nan patting her over and over. When her grandma had quieted, Janelle extracted her from the sheets and helped her sit up.

  “Are you okay, Nan? Were you dreaming?”

  She shook her head. “They were calling my name again, that’s all. I heard them, clear as a bell. And I thought they were leaving without me.” She smiled sadly. “I’m a silly old lady.”

  Janelle squeezed her hand. “You’re not. Let’s get you up and changed. We can have a snack, watch some TV until Bennett gets home, how’s that?”

  Nan nodded and allowed Janelle to help her swing her legs over the edge of the bed. “Did I hear the phone ring?”

  Janelle paused, focusing on making sure both of Nan’s feet, clad in thick slipper socks, were firmly settled on the floor before she helped her stand. “Oh. Yeah.”

  “Was it Helen? I told her I’d let her know about that recipe I was telling her about.” Nan struggled to get up, but couldn’t quite manage to push herself off th