Megan Hart - The Favour

Gabe didn’t crack even half a grin. “It’s been a long time.”

She knew that well enough. “Seems like it hasn’t been so long. Not much has changed.”

Gabe put a hand behind him to twist the knob of the front door without turning. It stuck, so he pushed it with his foot, hard enough to force it open. He shook his head once, twice, slowly. “Nothing ever does.”

Then he went inside.

Janelle let out a breath that frosted in front of her face. As kids they’d held their fingers to their lips and exhaled, pretending to smoke. As teenagers, they’d actually lit up. Now she let the air in front of her face fog her vision for a second or two before she took her foot off the front step.

“Nice to see you, too.” More frost hung the words in the air, frozen. If she reached out, maybe she might’ve been able to knock them to the ground like something solid, but instead Janelle slipped down the icy hill toward the back door of Nan’s house.

On the enclosed porch, she stamped snow from her boots and slipped them off, dancing a little in the cold that seemed strangely deeper now that she’d come inside. Unzipping her coat, she went into the family room to find Nan at the table. There was no formal dining room in the house, just this overlarge space where they all gathered to eat every meal and watch TV or talk. Oh, and play cards, she thought. That was where they did that, too.

Nan had an array of bottles set out in front of her, carefully lined up on a small plastic tray, with the labels facing her. She also had a piece of lined notebook paper filled with looping, familiar handwriting. She pointed to one of the lines. “What’s this say? I don’t have my glasses on.”

“Let me see.” Janelle craned her neck to look at the paper, which listed different medications for high blood pressure, anemia, pain management. “This says you need to take your Ferradix in the morning with food.”

Janelle read a few of the other instructions, most stating the dosage for each pill or liquid, the time of day it needed to be taken, with food or without. It was complicated, the paper creased and the ink smudged in places. She’d have to see if she could rewrite it, maybe even type it up on her laptop and print it out in bigger letters so Nan could see it more easily. She watched Nan fumble with one of the pill bottles, the childproof cap giving her trouble. The bottle slipped, and her grandmother hissed in pain or irritation.

“Nan, let me get that for you.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Nan looked up at her with both eyebrows raised. “I can do it.”

“I’m going to make myself some breakfast. Can I get you something?” Janelle backed off, careful to tread the line between being solicitous and overbearing. It was a line she often missed with her son, but for the moment Nan seemed happy enough to accept the offer.

“English muffin with some peanut butter, honey, thank you. I made coffee. You can bring me a cup of that, too.” Nan sighed and looked at the bottles. One of them had a small cup tipped over the lid, like a shot glass, and she poured a dose of brown liquid into it and tossed it back with a grimace. “Oh, that’s nasty.”

The coffee turned out to be pitch-black and full of grounds. Janelle had yet to unpack her own sleek coffeemaker that not only ground the beans but also had different temperature settings and a milk frother, but seeing this mess she resolved to make finding it a priority. Nobody who liked coffee could drink that swill, and Janelle didn’t just like coffee, she considered it its own necessary food group. When she lifted the plastic top to peek inside at the filter, she found the basket overflowing with sodden grounds that looked as though they hadn’t been dumped in weeks. Digging a cautious finger into the mess, she unearthed a patch of mold.

“Nan,” she said in the doorway, careful to keep her voice neutral. “When’s the last time you made coffee?”

Nan looked up from a bottle she was trying to open. “Oh. I don’t drink it much, when it’s just me. Making a whole pot seems like such a waste. But now that you’re here, honey, you’ll drink it, won’t you? You like coffee.”

Janelle did indeed, but the stuff in the kitchen looked like a harbinger of the zombie apocalypse or something. A couple swigs and she’d become Patient Zero. Still, Nan had her pride.

“Something happened to it. I need to make a fresh pot, okay? It will be a few minutes. Unless you’d rather have tea?”

Nan looked thoughtful. “I wouldn’t mind a nice cup of Earl Grey, honey. Sure. But if you want coffee...”

“I’m fine.” She’d have to be, at least until she cleaned the coffeemaker or unpacked her own.

Janelle filled a teakettle and found the tea in the corner cupboard where it had always been kept, on the shelf above the candy jar. The candy inside, sour balls in multiple colors, had melted and stuck together into an inedible mess. Janelle put the jar in the sink and filled it with hot water, hoping to dissolve the candy enough to wash it. Behind the jar she found a couple bags of unopened candy, the same sour balls and starlight mints, along with an ancient package of gummy spearmint leaves. It was the candy she remembered from her childhood, and from the look of the packages might’ve been purchased that long ago.

“Nan...” Janelle, candy in one hand, went to the doorway. At the table, her grandmother had put her face in her hands. Candy forgotten, Janelle rushed to her. “Nan! Are you okay?”

She looked up, her forehead creased and her mouth thin. She looked unfocused for a second, then pinned Janelle with her gaze. Her eyes had once been the color of a summer sky fluffed with clouds, but they’d gone a duller, dimmer blue. Washed out, Janelle thought. Everything about Nan had faded.

Janelle took her hand and chafed it gently, mindful of the arthritis. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, I just got a little headache. My pressure might be up a bit too high, that’s all. I b’lieve I’d better lie down for a while.” She drew in a shuddering breath, but found a smile and patted Janelle’s hands. “It’s time for my nap, anyway.”

“Nan, it’s, like, eight-thirty in the morning.”

Her laugh, at least, hadn’t faded. “When you’re as old as I am, honey, your sleep gets all messed up. I was up at four this morning.”

At four this morning, Janelle had been tossing and turning, in the midst of a series of weird dreams in which she tried desperately to send text messages, but was unable to read them. She remembered peeking at the clock around that time. Maybe a noise from downstairs had woken her. Knowing Nan had been up and about without anyone else awake made her frown.

“You don’t want to eat your muffin first? How about your tea?”

Nan shook her head. “If I drink it now I’ll just have to pee, and I don’t want to have to worry about getting to the bathroom on time. I don’t always make it.”

Something twisted inside Janelle at Nan’s casual admission, but she didn’t let it show. “How about I help you to your bedroom and let you sleep, then.”

“I don’t need you to help me,” Nan said. “I’m fine.”

“Of course you are.”

Still, Janelle pushed back her chair and held Nan’s arm to help her up from the table. The chair legs caught on the thick orange shag Janelle remembered from her childhood. She’d get one of those plastic mats from the office supply store, Janelle thought as her grandmother grunted but finally shoved the chair back far enough to get up. Or better yet, replace the old carpet with something more up-to-date and salable.

“I’m fine,” Nan said in a steely voice.

Against her better judgment, Janelle let go of her arm. When her grandmother sounded like that it was better to do what she said. Janelle stepped out of the way so Nan could get around the table, her slippers shuffling on the carpet, then on the linoleum. She walked slowly, bent, but she seemed steady enough. From the kitchen, the kettle whistled, and Janelle followed Nan to take it off the heat.