The Favor by Hart Megan

Author:Hart, Megan [Hart, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780778314400
Publisher: Mira
Published: 2013-06-25T06:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FIVE

“I SAW YOUR brother at Mass last weekend.” Marlena Tierney’s red hair had gone gray long ago, but in the past few years she’d started dying it again.

The color was garish, unnatural. Clown-red. It matched the bright lipstick she still insisted on wearing. The nail polish. She wasn’t an old woman, but time hadn’t been particularly kind to her, and she knew it.

“He sends his love,” Gabe’s mother continued. “Said to tell you to make sure Andrew gets to church. You, too.”

Mike probably included their dad in that, but Marlena would’ve stuck her hand in a jar of angry wasps before she mentioned Ralph’s name. Gabe leaned forward to light the cigarette she held up. She gave him a coy smile, the way she always did, but refrained from cupping his hand the way she would’ve if he’d been another man and not her son. He knew her ways, all right.

“You should tell him we need to see him more often,” Gabe said, knowing it made no difference. “Andy misses him.”

“He’s very busy. He’s got an active congregation, you know that. His parishioners need him to be there for them. It’s not,” she said, “like he can just go on vacation or something any time he wants to.”

Since Gabe knew for a fact that his brother had indeed gone on a vacation, a cruise to Mexico and the Bahamas, no less, this argument held little weight with him. Gabe hadn’t taken a vacation in years, not unless you counted the hunting trips to camp, which he did not. “We live less than three hours from him. He could make a day trip more than once every six months.”

Marlena shrugged and drew in the smoke, holding it for a few seconds before letting it stream out the side of her mouth. She looked at him through squinted eyes. “You could go see him, too, you know. He’d love to see you. It wouldn’t kill you to go to church, either.”

“It might.” He smiled.

After half a minute, she smiled back. That was the mother he remembered best, or at least wanted to. The one who smiled and laughed and got down on the floor with him to play with Matchbox cars and LEGO. Not the one who sat and wept at the kitchen table or locked herself in the bathroom for hours. Not the one who’d left them. And not this present-day crone who’d asked Jesus for forgiveness plenty of times, but never her own sons.

“How is your brother?” Marlena asked after the clock’s second hand ticked in silence one time too many. “Andrew.”

“You could come see him yourself. Find out.”

Marlena stubbed out her cigarette only half smoked. “You know that’s not a good idea. What with the...problems.”

They’d been over this before, a dozen times over the years. Gabe guessed he’d go over it a dozen more without any expectation her decision would change. Marlena had come to the hospital to see Andy after the accident, when he was still unconscious. She’d stared at his bruised and bloodied face for a long time without a word, then turned on her heel.

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