by Megan Hart
“It’s good to see you again. I thought maybe...” She trailed off, sounding uncertain in a way he could never remember her being.
He didn’t want to hear any more. “Yeah. I’ll come. Let me grab my tools. Now?”
“Sure. Or another time, if you want, that’s fine. I mean, sooner rather than later, obviously.” She bounced again, rubbing her mittened hands together and blowing out a steamy breath. “God. So cold.”
“I guess it would be, when you’re used to California.”
Janelle paused, tilting her head just a little. “You know about that?”
He’d said too much. “I’ll be over in a few minutes.”
He shut the door in her face. The old man looked at him expectantly. “Was that the Decker girl? What did she want? Why’d you make her stay outside? Ashamed of your old man, that’s what you are.”
Ashamed wasn’t the right word. Gabe ignored him and got his tools from their place in the kitchen closet. He thought about going out the back door without a word, but the old man would wonder, and it would be worse when he came back.
“I’m going next door to the Deckers’ to see if I can fix the dishwasher.”
“Oh, she crooks her finger and you go running?”
“Dad, please. Shut up,” Gabe said. “You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, okay?”
The old man laughed heartily and pointed. “Maybe if I had a set of titties you’d be more interested in fixing things around this shit hole.”
Gabe’s jaw went tight, but he knew better than to rise to the old man’s jabs. Ralph Tierney wanted to be discontent and grouchy, and he’d always find a way to do it. Gabe lifted his tools in farewell instead, and left his father alone.
Next door, he entered a world of warmth and the good smells of something baking, and laughter. A boy, Janelle’s kid, slapped down an Uno card on the table and tossed back his head, his hair too long. He crowed with glee as Mrs. Decker, sitting across from him, fanned out her cards and shook her head.
They both looked up when he came in the door. Mrs. Decker appeared surprised, the kid only curious. Janelle poked her head around the kitchen doorway.
“Hey!”
“Gabe Tierney,” Nan said. “What on earth?”
“I asked him to come over and fix the dishwasher,” Janelle explained. “Come on in. Bennett, this is Mr. Tierney.”
“Gabe. Mr. Tierney’s my old man.”
“You’re Andy’s brother,” Bennett said. “He said you were good at fixing stuff.”
“I guess we’ll find out.” Gabe lifted the tools, uncomfortable under Mrs. Decker’s scrutiny.
She gave him a steady, solid look that made him feel like that seventeen-year-old punk again, the one defiling her granddaughter. He’d lived next door to Maureen Decker his entire life. She’d never been unkind to him, but she’d never been overly sweet to him, either, the way some adults had been while he was growing up. If “those Tierney boys” had ever curled Mrs. Decker’s lip or moved her to pity, she hadn’t shown it. She’d given him Popsicles and chased him out of her apple tree and put candy in his trick-or-treat bag. She’d hollered at him more than once, when she thought he needed it. She’d treated him like she treated all the other neighborhood kids, and Gabe had never forgotten that.
Janelle showed him the dishwasher. “It’s ancient. I’m not sure you can do anything for it, really.”
“I’ll take a look.” Gabe got on one knee and hunted for a screwdriver to open up the bottom panel. It came away easily enough, and what was inside wasn’t anything he’d never seen before. If anything, these older models were easier to fix because they didn’t rely on all the electronic bells and whistles the new ones did.
He was aware of Janelle watching him. Too aware. Her heavy winter clothes had been hiding a pair of black leggings and an oversize T-shirt cut at the neck so it hung off one shoulder. She wore thick, bunched socks and stood with one hip against the counter and her foot propped against the inside of her calf. It was strange seeing her as a redhead, even though that was how he’d always thought of her even when she’d been dying her hair black.
“Do you think you can fix it?”
“Yes. It’ll need a couple new parts, but you can get them at the hardware store. I’ll write a list.”
Janelle sighed. “Will they be expensive?”
Gabe looked up at her. From the living room came a burst of laughter that gave him pause before he answered. “Cheaper than a new dishwasher.”
“Yeah. Of course.” She laughed. “And better than washing all the dishes by hand, I guess.”
They didn’t have a dishwasher, working or broken, at the Tierney house. The old man had probably never washed a dish in his life. He’d firmly believed chores like that belonged to women and children...even grown children who still lived at home.
She was still watching him, her gaze a tickle on the back of his neck. Gabe carefully replaced the screws on the front panel and got to his feet. “Do you have some paper and a pen? I’ll write down what you need.”
“Yeah, sure. In the drawer.” She leaned past him to reach it.
She smelled good.
Gabe backed up a step. She noticed, of course. She was sharp like that. She pulled open the drawer, the contents rattling, and sighed.
“Huh, not here. I’ll have to get some from upstairs. Be right back.” She looked into his eyes when she moved past him, holding his gaze for several long seconds.
She’d been gone for only a minute when Bennett came into the kitchen. “Hi.”
“Hey.” Gabe looked up from the tool bag he was putting back in order. “Bennett, right?”
The kid nodded and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I came to get a drink.”
Gabe got out of the way, shoving his bag with a foot so it slid across the linoleum. The kid took a glass from the cupboard, then opened the fridge to pull out a gallon of milk. “You want some?”
“Uh...no, thanks.”
“You want a soda? Or my mom has a few beers in there.” The kid gave him that same curious head tilt his mother had.
Gabe shook his head. “No, thanks.”
Bennett sipped some milk and licked at the mustache it left behind. “Did you fix it?”
“Not yet.”
“But you will,” the kid said.
“I hope so. If I can get the right parts. It’s pretty old,” Gabe said. “But...I’ll do what I can.”
The kid beamed. “Good. Loading and unloading it is my chore, but if it’s broken, guess what my chore is.”
“Taking out the trash?”
“That, too,” Bennett said. “But also washing the dishes. It freaking sucks.”
A smile tugged at the corners of Gabe’s mouth, though he did his best to keep it straight. “Hey, language.”
Bennett looked surprised. “You think freaking’s a bad word?”
He didn’t, exactly, and it wasn’t even his place to have said anything to begin with. It had just slipped out automatically. To his horror, it was the sort of thing his old man would’ve said. Gabe grimaced.
Bennett frowned. “Don’t tell my mom, okay? She’ll be mad.”
In high school, Janelle had had a vast and colorful vocabulary. It had included a lot of creative curses that went well beyond the normal four-letter words. Freaking wouldn’t even have registered on her radar.
“You knew my mom when she was little, huh?”
It was weird the way he’d echoed Gabe’s thoughts from just a few moments ago, and Gabe stuttered a little bit on his answer. “Um, yeah. I did.”
Bennett nodded. “Nan said you did. She said you’ve lived next to her since you were born. How long is that?”
“A long time.”
“So you knew my mom when she lived here, with Nan?”
Gabe looked at the ceiling again, wondering if he could just write down the parts he needed at home and give them to Andy to bring over. Hell, he could just go to the hardware store himself a
nd buy them. He didn’t want to stand here talking to Janelle’s son about knowing her, but the kid was clearly waiting for an answer.
“Yeah, I knew her.”
“You went to school together?”
“Yeah.”
“Same grade?”
“Yes,” Gabe said, irritated now. “Jesus, kid. What’s with the interrogation?”
Bennett frowned for a second. “Sorry. My mom says the only way to ever find anything out is if you ask questions. I just wanted to know what she was like when she was younger.”
“So why don’t you ask her?”
Bennett shrugged. “Duh, you think the stories she tells me are the ones I’d think were more interesting to hear? Or just the sorts of things a parent tells a kid.”
“What kinds of things would you want to hear?” Gabe nudged his tool bag with a toe, getting ready to pick it up and make his exit.
“You know, the good stuff. Maybe you don’t know any good stuff.”
Gabe looked at the kid seriously. “If I did, you think I’d tell you?”
“Maybe.” Bennett shrugged again. “Andy knew my mom in high school, too—she says he did. But he doesn’t remember her at all. So I figured you must remember. Especially if you were good friends.”
“Did she...tell you that?” Gabe bent for the tool bag, hefting its weight so the contents jingled. “She talked about me?”
“Nope. Not really. But you knew each other. You lived next door. Went to school together.” The kid gave Gabe another of those curious head tilts; it made his hair fall in front of his face until he shook it out. “She talks a lot about her other friends. Mom says the friends you make in school are the ones you remember best, and if you’re lucky they stay with you.”
“Sometimes if you’re unlucky,” Gabe muttered.
“The kids here are dickweeds.”
Gabe shouldn’t have laughed; the kid was clearly serious. But he looked so much like his mother. It reminded Gabe of too much that had happened, and he couldn’t do anything but stare. Bennett’s smile, so much like Janelle’s, slid off his face.
“I’ve moved four times since I was born. Including this time, that’s five times.” Bennett ticked them off on his fingers. “We moved when I was a baby, two times. I don’t remember it. Then when I was in first grade. Third grade. Now here. I had friends in my old school, but I haven’t made any here yet.”
“You will.”
Bennett scowled. “I liked California better, but Mom says Pennsylvania’s nicer in the summer. And no earthquakes.”
The kid paused expectantly, waiting for Gabe to answer. Again, he had nothing to say. The kid was chatty. Weren’t kids supposed to be shyer than that? Most kids around here gave Gabe a wide berth.
“Bennett! I thought you were bringing me something to drink!” Mrs. Decker called from the other room. “Did you fall in the sink and go down the drain?”
“Just a minute, Nan.” Bennett filled a second glass with milk and put the jug back in the fridge. “Sure you don’t want anything, Mr. Tierney?”
“Call me Gabe.”
Bennett shrugged. “Okay, Gabe.”
That’s when Janelle finally came back into the kitchen, carrying a legal pad and a pen. Gabe saw what had taken her so long upstairs—she’d pulled her hair on top of her head into a soft bun that he knew from past experience looked casual and messy on purpose, but had really taken effort. She’d swiped on some gloss, maybe powder or something on her nose and cheeks to fade her freckles a little. Nothing major, nothing he was supposed to notice she’d done...but he did.
“Sorry it took so long. I have a lot of stuff still shoved in boxes.” Janelle smiled as she held out the paper and pen. “Here.”
In order to take it, Gabe had to set down the tools again. He did so quickly, ignoring the kid still standing there with the two glasses of milk, along with his mother and her makeup and her familiar smile. Gabe wrote the list, three items, scrawling the last so fast it was illegible.
“Your handwriting hasn’t changed much,” she noted.
“It says it’s a hose,” Gabe snapped. “Just look closer.”
Bennett took that as a cue to leave. Janelle looked at Gabe with her mouth slightly parted as though she meant to speak, but didn’t. After a second, her brow furrowed and her mouth thinned. She was pissed.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’ll get these things tomorrow. Maybe you can...”
“I’ll be busy tomorrow.” Gabe lifted the tool bag and moved past her into the living room, where Mrs. Decker was busy passing out cards.
Janelle followed him onto the back porch and beyond, catching him just outside the back door. “Gabe, wait.”
He didn’t turn at first, then did, slowly. “I have to go.”
“Just let me know when you can do it. I can pick up these things tomorrow and you can let me know. Okay?” She gave him a half-watt smile.
“I have a lot of jobs scheduled.”
“You can come anytime. I’ll be here....”
“I’ll be working. Or sleeping.” Gabe shifted the weight of the tool bag to his other hand. “Look, maybe you should call a service center. I’m not a dishwasher repairman. You should get a professional.”
“And here I thought you were a professional. What with your own business and all.” Janelle’s voice dipped the way it always had when she was doing her best to get her way. He hadn’t known back then when he was a stupid kid what she’d been up to, but a couple decades of experience with women had taught Gabe a lot.
He didn’t stop or turn again, but that didn’t keep Janelle from calling after him even as he hopped over the retaining wall and climbed the steps to his own back porch.
“I said I’d pay you, Gabe. It’s not like I’m asking you to do me a favor.”
There it was at last, the accusation he’d been waiting for, and could he blame her for sounding so pissed off about it?
“I only did it because you wanted me to,” she says. “Because you asked. I did it because you asked me to, Gabe! How can you blame me for that, when you asked me to do it?”
“Gabe!”
“Hire someone else,” was all he said as he went inside his own house. “You’ll be better off.”
ELEVEN
THEY’D MADE IT through the first couple weeks of the new school and new routines. Bennett was testing out of some of his classes but woefully behind in others. Apparently the academy had been great with providing plenty of alternative and arts education, but not so helpful when it came to standardized tests. Sure, her kid could identify a Van Gogh, a Dali and a Warhol, but he couldn’t figure out a word problem.
Nan had been in good spirits and perky, for the most part, but she insisted on doing so much for herself that Janelle felt run more ragged than if her grandma simply stayed on the couch and allowed herself to be waited on. If she wasn’t trying to cook something, setting off the smoke alarm, she was up at all hours of the night trying to run the washing machine or watching television with the volume set too loud. She’d lived alone too long, was Nan’s explanation, and she was used to doing for herself. At least as long as she could, anyway.
It would take some time to fully settle in. Janelle had expected that. She hadn’t imagined how exhausting it would be just trying to get into a routine that worked for all of them.
Tonight, Bennett’s own weariness showed in the faint circles below his eyes and the way he picked at his dinner. She’d ordered pizza, along with hot wings and garlic sticks and a two-liter bottle of soda. Friday night had always been pizza night at Nan’s house.
“How was school?”
He shrugged, silent.
It wasn’t an answer, but Janelle was too tired to push. She folded her slice in half to keep all the good grease from dripping out. “Nan, is anyone coming over?”
Nan had taken only a bread stick to start. She looked faintly surprised. “Who’d come over?”
“Betsy and the kids? Uncle Joey and Aunt Deb?” Janelle licke
d orange grease from the heel of her hand and gave a little moan of appreciation. Pizza in California was just not the same. On the other hand, she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to find any decent sushi in St. Marys.
“Why would they come over?”
“To visit?” Everyone had always gone to Nan’s house on Friday nights to play cards, eat pizza. Later, to watch rented movies on the VCR. The kids would play while the adults talked and drank beer. When Janelle was older, Friday night had still been pizza night, only the Tierney boys had usually come over for cards and late-night TV.
“Oh, honey, they’re all busy.”
“Too busy to visit you?” Janelle frowned.
Nan shrugged. “They have families of their own. It’s really too far to drive in just for the evening.”
Of course, Janelle had known that, but she’d forgotten what that really meant. St. Marys was at least an hour’s drive from Dubois, more on snowy, icy roads. But Betsy lived in Kersey. That wasn’t so far.
Nan picked apart the bread stick with shaky hands and put the pieces on her plate. She dabbed some marinara sauce next to them, but didn’t eat anything. She took a slice of pizza and began dissecting it the same way.
Janelle watched this carefully. She’d had a friend in high school who’d practiced the same sort of deception to hide an eating disorder. “Nan, if you don’t want pizza, I can make you something else.”
Nan frowned. “Don’t be silly. I love pizza.”
“Not enough to eat it,” Janelle pointed out.
Bennett, God love him, rallied and reached for another slice. “It’s good, Nan. This is the best pizza I ever ate.”
Both women looked at him. Bennett, unselfconscious, bit into the slice and tore the cheese from it in a huge, gloppy string that splashed sauce all over his shirt. He chewed, making snuffling sounds Janelle reprimanded with a look.
“Nan, let me make you some toast or something. I could heat up some soup. I have chicken noodle or tomato.”
Her grandmother shook her head, then covered her eyes with her hand, leaving her trembling mouth to show she fought tears. “I don’t want anything, honey, I just need to go to bed.”
