Megan Hart - The Favour

“I don’t know. I guess they could.” Janelle looked at the map on the wall and the framed documents telling the Decker’s Chapel history.

“Would you?”

She laughed. “Um...no.”

“How come? If you think it’s so cool and all that.” Bennett ran a finger along one of the half-size kneelers and gave her an innocent look that didn’t fool her for a second, because she’d seen it in her own reflection more than once.

Janelle rolled her eyes. “C’mon. Let’s go. I’m freezing.”

Back in the car, buckled up tight, she once again looked at her son in the rearview mirror. He’d already bent over his iPad again, thumbing the screen in some complicated game, his headphones firmly settled in the tangles of his too-long hair. This was her boy. Her life for the past twelve years. She hadn’t messed him up too badly so far.

But there was still time.

“Whoa, look at the size of that Pepsi cap!” Bennett sounded way more excited about that landmark than he had about the chapel. He added a chortle that cracked her up. As if the kid had never seen a giant Pepsi cap on the side of a building before. Come to think of it, he never had.

It took a few more than five minutes to get to Nan’s house. There was a lot more traffic than Janelle remembered, for one thing, and some of the roads had changed. The Diamond, as the locals called it, ran in one direction only, and though she knew she had to get off on the first street, somehow she ended up going all the way around the circle of traffic again before she could.

“Big Ben,” she murmured as they passed the town’s snow-covered Nativity scene, still holding pride of place in the square, though it was already the day after New Year’s. “Parliament.”

Bennett, familiar with the joke, though not the movie she was quoting, didn’t even look up. Janelle concentrated on getting off the Diamond and onto one of the side streets. G.C. Murphy’s, location of many a summer afternoon’s dawdling, was long gone. Janelle felt a sudden pang of nostalgia for Lee Press On Nails and Dep hair gel. Her car bump-bumped over the railroad tracks as she headed up Lafayette Street, pausing at the intersection to point out the elk heads, antlers alight with bulbs, adorning the building on the corner.

“This place has a lot of weird things,” Bennett said matter-of-factly. “Maybe they’re in your app, Mom. We should check them off.”

He meant the application on her phone that listed the odd and offbeat attractions littering the American countryside. Biggest balls of twine, and mystery spots, that sort of thing. They’d spent a good portion of their trip from California to Pennsylvania taking back roads to catch a glimpse of some forgotten storybook forest or an abandoned “Fountain of Youth” that turned out to be an algae-infested and crumbling well alive with frogs. In the past couple days, though, busy with the holidays at her mom’s house and then the final portion of this journey, they hadn’t even checked to see what weird delights might await.

They’d already passed a dozen landmarks that had always marked off the distance between her mom’s and this town like hash marks on a ruler. The Mount Nittany Inn, with its spectacular view. The child’s sneaker-shaped scooter attached for no good reason to a high fence, which she could remember looking for during every trip to visit Nan. Janelle had thought about rallying Bennett to scream out “Weed!” as they passed through the tiny town of Weedville, the way she and her dad always had, but knew he wouldn’t understand the joke—nor did she want to explain to him the old comedy skit about a pair of stoners incapable of keeping their stash a secret when visited by the cops.

Now she spotted another landmark Bennett wouldn’t really “get”—the Virgin Mary statue in the corner lot they were passing. Common enough in a town named for her, not so much in any place they’d lived. Janelle slowed a little as she passed to give the praying Virgin a silent nod.

Janelle hadn’t been inside a church for years, but she still wore the Blessed Virgin medallion she’d had since she was eighteen. It lay against the hollow of her throat, warmed by her flesh. She wore it constantly; it had become as much a part of her as the small but genuine diamond in her nose and the shooting star tattoo on the inside of her left wrist. She never took the necklace off unless she was getting dressed up to go somewhere fancy, and replaced it with her single strand of good pearls—and it had been a damn long time since she’d done that. She never thought much about it, in fact, unless she forgot to put it back on, and wasn’t that the way of things? You didn’t notice them until they weren’t where you expected them to be.

She traced the medallion with her fingertips, so familiar by touch, though honestly, if you’d asked her to identify it in a photo, she’d probably be unable. Mary’s features had become worn from the thousands of such touches over the years. The metal had tarnished. Janelle had replaced the chain twice that she could recall. It hardly looked like the same necklace that had been given to her so long ago.

Past Deprator’s Beverage, down one more street, one more turn. Her heart beat a little faster at the sight of the familiar green shingled house. She pulled into Nan’s driveway and let the truck idle for a minute or so before turning off the ignition.

Don’t be a stranger, Janelle. This will always be your home.

I know, Nan. I know.

Come back soon, Janelle. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.

I’ll come soon, Nan. I promise.

She’d had the heat going on the highest setting, but now the frigid air was finding its insidious way through the cracks and crevices. She told herself that’s why she shivered, why the hairs on the back of her neck rose, why her nipples pebbled beneath her multiple layers of clothes. She got out of the truck, one hand on the roof, one foot propped on the running board. Her sudden chill had little to do with the actual weather.

“We’re here,” Janelle said. “We’re home.”

TWO

Then

THERE’S A GIRL with red hair in the backyard of the house next door, and she’s blowing soap bubbles from a big plastic dish. She dips the wand in the liquid and holds it to her puckered lips, then laughs as the bubbles stream out, one after the other, like beads on a string. Like pearls, Gabe thinks. Like his mom’s pearls, the ones in the drawer in the back bedroom, in the box his dad doesn’t think Gabe knows about.

The girl with red hair glances up, sees him looking and frowns. Gabe stands on one of the cinder blocks that keep his yard from falling into hers. If he steps down he’ll be on her grass, so he stays where he is. His yard is higher, which is good because he thinks she’s taller than him, and that would be annoying.

“Hi,” she says. “You’re Gabe Tierney. My dad says you have twin baby brothers.”

He does. Michael and Andrew. Gabe doesn’t question how or why this girl’s dad would know that. Everyone knows about the Tierney boys. His bare toes curl over the edge of the cinder block, but he doesn’t step down.

The girl stands, her fist dripping with suds. “I have bubbles, look.”

“I have bubbles in a big jug. Had,” Gabe mutters. “I spilled ’em.”

It had been an accident, but he might as well have done it on purpose since he got in so much trouble for it. The soap had soaked into the rug in the front room, making a squishy patch he’d been unable to clean up no matter how much water he used. Mikey walked through it, then onto the linoleum floor in the kitchen, where he skidded and slipped, hitting his head on the table. Then Dad came through, yelling, and he slipped, too. Went down on his butt. It would’ve been funny, kind of like something on TV, except Dad didn’t laugh about it. He hadn’t spanked Gabe, but it might’ve been better if he had. He’d not only taken away the rest of the bubbles, but he’d sent Gabe to his room for a whole day. No lunch, no supper. Gabe’s belly had hurt from being empty.