The Favor (38 page)

“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. The 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.

Gabe sat next to his brother, close enough that their knees touched. He could’ve taken the gun, but he didn’t. He simply sat, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. Their feet, next to one another, were the same size, and he couldn’t remember when the hell that had happened.

They sat in silence long enough for the night to fully arrive and the first few stars to come out. Gabe took a cigarette from his breast pocket, tucked it between his lips. The Zippo in his pocket was heavy, and heavier in his palm when he took it out to flip open the lid. He lit the flame, which was set too high. The afterimage of the flames stayed with him when he closed the lid and blinked against the sudden dark.

“I told Bennett he should go home, watch some TV,” Andy said. “That I’d be there in a few minutes to hang out with him, we could maybe play some of that new Sky Shooter game.”

He lifted the gun from his knee, letting it dangle from his finger. Then he opened the cylinder and emptied the bullets from inside. They clattered onto the concrete steps below his feet. He handed the gun to Gabe, who took it and set it to the side.

“I sent him home f-f-first,” Andy said, and took a breath to stop the stutter. He looked at the sky. “I made sure he wasn’t there. And that he was okay, I made sure he was okay, Gabe. And he was. When I came in and saw them, saw the old man putting his hand on his shoulder like that, that look on his face, that smile, I thought,
No. Not the kid. Not the kid, too.
Do you know why I thought that, Gabe?”

“Yeah, Andy. I do.”

Andy shuddered. He rubbed his face with both hands. He bent forward to press his cheeks against his knees, but only for a moment before he sat up again. He looked at his brother. “Me, too. I remember. I remember...not everything. But enough, I think.”

“I’m sorry, Andy.”

Andy nodded, once. “I think I didn’t want to remember, not for a long time. But when I saw him with Bennett, I couldn’t afford to keep forgetting.”

Gabe had no answer for this. So he did what he thought he should’ve done years and years ago, when he had the chance to make things different. He put his arm around his brother’s shoulders and held him tight. Andy buried his face in Gabe’s neck and clung to him, his skin hot. But only for a couple seconds. Then he took a long, deep breath, sat up straight and looked Gabe in the eyes.

“I could’ve done it,” he said. “This time, I really could’ve. But I didn’t.”

Then they sat in silence again for a long time.

FIFTY-FOUR

NAN WAS GONE.

There was grief, but there was no denying there was also relief. Janelle had slept through the night without interruption every night for the past week, and that simple, human luxury had made all the difference. She woke now without an alarm.

The family would be descending on her in a few hours. There’d be food and laughter and no small amount of tears. She had envelopes of photos to distribute, along with a list Nan had left for specific items she wanted given to certain people. Janelle sat, stretched. Swung her legs over the edge of the bed, the bare floor cool under her toes, though the day would get much hotter.

She looked through the window next door, but the curtains were drawn, the way they’d been for the past week. She’d seen Andy at Nan’s funeral. He’d been at the church and the meal in the social hall after. He’d hugged her hard, his eyes bright, and had ruffled Bennett’s hair. She hadn’t seen Gabe since the night Nan died and he’d told her everything.

Showered and dressed, she checked on Bennett, who was still sleeping. It was summer, and he’d been up late playing his video games the night before. He’d grown, she thought as her gaze traced the familiar lines and curves of his face. He would always keep growing.

Downstairs, Janelle made a pot of coffee and pulled a plastic bag of Nan’s cinnamon rolls from the freezer. She defrosted one and tucked the rest back behind the frozen peas and broccoli, where nobody would find them. She had three dozen of Nan’s rolls, and she intended to make them last as long as she could. Eyes closed, Janelle savored the sweet icing and let herself mourn.

She didn’t open her eyes at the click of the back door opening, but she knew who it was. Not Andy. Not Gabe.

“Dad,” she said quietly.

Time had been harsh. He still wore his hair long, but it had gone thin and mostly gray, the ponytail at the back of his neck straggly. Lines had carved themselves into his forehead, and bracketed his mouth and nose. His shoulders were a little hunched, though his clothes—a pair of faded jeans, cowboy boots and a faded black concert T-shirt—were the same as she remembered. His smile hadn’t changed much, but it faded quickly when she didn’t return it.

“Your uncle Bobby said you’re all getting together today.”

“He invited you?”

Her dad had the grace to look a little uncomfortable. “No.”

“I didn’t think so.” Janelle gestured at the coffeepot. “You want some coffee before you leave?”