The Favour

Bless us, Oh Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Janelle hadn’t said that or any prayer in years, but the words rose as easily to her lips as they once had. Bennett, brows raised, looked at her, and a sudden pang struck her. The blessing and the after-holiday turkey soup with mashed potatoes mixed into it had been a staple of her childhood visits to Nan’s house. But just like the prayers she’d never taught him, when had she ever made a turkey, much less kept the leftovers to make soup? Never. The traditions of Janelle’s childhood had split and splintered after her dad disappeared for good, and after leaving St. Marys that last time she’d carried forward only the ones from her mom’s side of the family.

“It’s good.” She plopped a hefty portion of potatoes into her own soup and stirred it into a thick stew, not reaching for the salt or pepper because Nan would have already seasoned it to perfection. Janelle blew on it and took a bite before it was cool enough, suddenly eager for the familiar flavors. She burned her tongue and didn’t care.

“It’s good,” Nan agreed. “Eat up, Benny. I have ice cream for dessert.”

Nan always had ice cream for dessert. Vanilla and chocolate and strawberry. Always in a bowl, never in a cone because you could fit more in a bowl. The bowls were the same. The spoons. The laughter was the same, too, Janelle thought as Nan listened to Bennett’s silly jokes and told a few of her own.

Nan was different, but Janelle supposed she was, too. That’s what happened with the passing of time. People got older. They got sick. They died.

But not yet, Janelle thought. Please, God. Not just yet.

FOUR

Then

THOSE MOTHERLESS TIERNEY boys. That’s what people always called them, with a mixture of pity and fond disapproval. When they show up in mismatched clothes, their hair a mess, chocolate milk on their upper lips. When they miss school altogether. Or church. Blaming the fact they don’t have a mom is an excuse, it makes people feel better, that’s what Gabe figures. If people can point at them, they don’t have to pay attention to themselves.

Andy and Mikey don’t remember Mom, not even from pictures, because their dad threw them all away. There used to be a big photo of her and Dad on the wall in the living room, but one day Gabe came downstairs and found only a bare spot where it had hung, the paint a little lighter than the rest. The frame was in the garbage, but the picture was gone. Gabe did have a picture of her holding him when he was a baby. He had it tucked away in his drawer, way at the back, but his dad didn’t know about that one. If he did, he’d probably throw it away, too.

Gabe remembers his mom, the way she smelled and the feeling of her hair on his face when she bent to pick him up, but that was from a long, long time ago. Sometimes he thinks he might just have imagined all of it. If it wasn’t for Gabe’s picture he could believe he came out from under a cabbage leaf, just like Mrs. Moser says.

Mrs. Moser gives them cookies while they’re doing their homework. The twins hardly have anything to do because they’re only in kindergarten, but Gabe’s in the fourth grade and he’s got so much schoolwork he can hardly get through it some nights. Right now he’s struggling with some social studies maps he’s supposed to color, but all the crayons are broken or worn down to nubs. Dad said he’d bring home another box, but he’s not home from work yet. Maybe he won’t be home until it’s too late, when Gabe will be asleep. And this is due tomorrow.

“Finish up your work so you can watch some cartoons while I finish dinner.” Mrs. Moser talks in a thick German accent. She’s kind of fat and has grayish hair, and her arms are flabby, but she makes great cookies. If she was around all the time, Gabe thinks, nobody would ever have any reason to look at them with pity, because they’d always be clean and their clothes would match.

But Mrs. Moser comes in to do for his dad only a couple days a week. Sometimes she doesn’t show up for weeks in a row, because she has a bad back and has to take a break. Or because his dad hollers about something she didn’t do right, like buying the wrong kind of shampoo or getting the lunch meat sliced too thin. Ralph Tierney likes things the way he likes them, that’s what he always says.

Gabe knows for sure his dad doesn’t like him. When he looks at Gabe, his face wrinkles up as if he smelled something bad. He loves the twins, though. They sit on his lap while he reads them books. They get away with everything Gabe never could. They cry and stamp their feet and throw tantrums to get their way, and Gabe’s not even allowed to say a word. If they hit him, he can’t hit them back. If they take his stuff and break it, he’s not allowed to complain. If he does, there’s a good chance Dad will blame him for whatever happened, anyway, so he says nothing. But if he can get in a punch when nobody’s looking...

“Gabriel. Are you finished with your work?”

Gabe shows Mrs. Moser the unfinished map. “I need crayons.”

“What happened to yours?”

Andy broke them all up and mixed the pieces together, then put them in the oven to melt into a “supercrayon.” Gabe shrugs, the truth not worth saying. Mrs. Moser clucks her tongue.

“You should be more careful with your things, Gabriel. Your father—” she says it like fazza “—he works hard.”

Gabe feels his entire face wrinkle like a raisin. “I need them for school! It’s not my fault Andy broke them! I’m tired of everyone blaming me for stuff that’s not my fault! I hate it!”

Crash goes the chair. Bang goes the table when he slams it. Slap go the papers when he shoves them to the floor. Mikey looks all goggle-eyed, his upper lip pink from the punch Mrs. Moser let him have with his snack, because milk gives him a bellyache. Andy looks scared.

Gabe is a dragon, he’s a bear, he’s a dinosaur. His fingers hook into claws. He roars and stamps, and it feels good, letting all this out. Making noise. It feels good to watch his brothers cry and squirm away from him. It even feels good to run away from Mrs. Moser, because she’s too old and fat to catch him.

He’s still running around the table when Dad shows up in the doorway. Gabe runs right into him. Dad’s solid, like a mountain. Gabe hits and bounces off, lands on his butt so hard tears fill his eyes from the pain.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph! What’s going on in here?”

Andy and Mikey start up with the wailing while Gabe struggles to get to his feet. Mrs. Moser tries to explain, but Dad reaches down to grab the front of Gabe’s shirt and haul him upright. Dad smells like sweat and dirt and cigarettes. He shakes Gabe, hard.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I was just playing.”

“Playing like an idiot. Jesus Christ.” Dad wipes his face with one big hand. His eyebrows are big and bushy. His breath stinks like the peppermint candies he’s always sucking. He shifts one now from side to side, clicking it against his teeth.

When Dad lets him go, Gabe stumbles. His butt still hurts, bad. His back, too. It will hurt for almost a week, and when he twists to look in the mirror later, a huge bunch of bruises will have blossomed there.

“I don’t understand you, Gabe. I swear to God, I don’t.” Dad shakes his head. “Go to your room.”

“He hasn’t finished his homework,” Mrs. Moser says.

Dad looks at her. “Well. That’s his own damn fault, isn’t it? Go to your room. Where’s my goddamned dinner?”

Gabe goes to his room. He’s not tired, but he gets into bed, anyway. There’s nothing else to do. His teacher will be mad if he doesn’t do his work, but he can’t make himself care. He can’t finish the project without crayons, so what difference does it make?

He sleeps, finally. Wakes a little when Mrs. Moser brings the little boys up and oversees them getting into their pajamas, brushing their teeth, tucking them into their matching twin beds in the room across the hall from Gabe’s. He keeps his eyes shut tight, his face to the wall, so she doesn’t know he’s awake. He drifts back to sleep amid the whistling snores of his brothers, who both have colds.

He wakes again when the stairs creak, and once more keeps his eyes shut tight, his face turned to the wall. Maybe tonight those footsteps will move past his doorway and not come inside. Maybe not.

The floor also creaks. It makes music. It’s like the school chorus Gabe didn’t try out for, but had to participate in, anyway, for the Christmas show. Every voice blends together to make a whole song. Each step on this creaking, squeaking floor has a different voice, but most every night it sings the same song.

Tonight the footsteps don’t stop across the hall. They keep moving toward Gabe’s bed. His eyes squinch tighter, tighter, his fists clutching at the sheets. He doesn’t dare move or breathe or shift or so much as let his eyelids twitch.

A big hand brushes over his hair. Gabe braces himself, but the hand retreats. The floor creaks, the song changes. When at last he dares to open his eyes and look to make sure the bogeyman has indeed retreated, he sees something on the dresser that wasn’t there before. He has to sit up in bed to make sure. The light in the room is dim, so he also has to touch it. But when he does, he takes the offering into bed with him, lifting the lid and breathing in the best smell in the whole world, over and over.

A box of brand-new crayons.

* * *

Gabe thought of those crayons, that fresh and brand-new box of crayons, when he saw what the old man had left him on the kitchen table. He poked it with a fingertip, his lip slightly curled. Couple packs of cigarettes, his brand.

“What’s this for?” he asked from the living room doorway.

The old man didn’t even look up from the TV. “Had Andy bring ’em home for you. What, you don’t want ’em?”

It wasn’t that Gabe didn’t want the cigarettes. Smokes weren’t cheap, and if his father wanted to gift him with a couple packs, he wasn’t going to complain. But the old man’s gifts never came without a price, and Gabe wanted to know what it would be before he accepted.

“What do you want?” he asked evenly.

His dad still didn’t look at him, another sign he was working up to something. “Nothing. Why do I always have to want something?”

“Because you always do.” Gabe came into the room to look him over. “Shit, old man. You stink. Why don’t you take a shower once in a while?”

“Why don’t you shut your pie hole,” the old man muttered, shifting in his recliner. The flickering light of the television reflected in his eyes for another few seconds before he finally looked at his son. “I need you to take me to the doctor tomorrow.”