“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 licked 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.”
Janelle’s stomach tightened.