Precious and Fragile Things

  She heard the back door open as Todd went out through the pantry and to the lean-to for something. Gilly touched her breasts, her belly, the triangle of pink material between her legs. This was what was hers. She’d brought these things with her, and she didn’t owe him anything for them.

  The frigid air outside forced a gasp when she stepped out onto the front porch. Gilly didn’t bother to shut the door behind her. She went down the rickety steps into the knee-deep snow outside.

  It was cold. Very cold. She shuddered and kept walking, fixing the picture of roses in her mind. Her feet went numb so fast she could easily forget she wasn’t wearing boots. Her hands reached out as though she were blind, though everything in front of her was as crisp and clear as if she were viewing it all through a magnifying glass.

  She didn’t know what she was doing, or why, just that his touch had made her feel unclean. Fire could burn it away; ice could sear her clean. She stumbled and went to one knee. The snow, when she threw out her hands to catch her fall, covered her arms all the way to the shoulders.

  Hadn’t he been good to her? Hadn’t he been nice? He’d bought her clothes, he hadn’t hurt her. She thought of the pale worm of a scar twisting across the softness of his belly, of cigarette smoke curling dragonlike from his nostrils, of the way his eyes glowed when he grinned. Gilly’s stomach rose again at the feeling of his cheek on hers. Not because it had been repulsive, but because it had not.

  He’s right. You were glad to let him take you away. You wanted to be taken away, so you wouldn’t have to run. Because then you could blame someone else for what you really wanted. He’s right, you did this. This is all you, Gillian. All you.

  She let out a small cry, unable to tell if it was of anger or despair. She forced herself to her feet. Chunks of ice littered the snow, and she’d cut her hand on one of them. A crimson rose, her blood, bloomed on the otherwise pristine surface of the drift. She swept it away with her hand, punching at it. Her fist broke through the thin crust of ice, smearing the blood into the soft snow beneath.

  He’d taken her, but she’d allowed it. Nothing could ever change that. No amount of screaming, no number of accusations or lies. Todd hadn’t done this to her, she’d done it to herself.

  How many times did you wish for someone or something to take you away? How many times did you imagine how nice it would be to get sick, really sick, so you could be hospitalized and have someone else take care of you for a change?

  The thoughts penetrated her mind over and over as she scrubbed herself with snow. Her skin turned pink, then red, and still Gilly forced her deadened hands to scoop more and rub it all over.

  “The fuck are you doing?”

  Todd grabbed her up out of the snow. His fingers must have dug into her skin, but she didn’t feel them. He shook her so hard her teeth rattled. Gilly got to her feet and kicked out at him, feeling nothing as her bare toes crunched on his shin.

  “Jesus Christ, Gilly!”

  “Let me go!” The chattering of her teeth made the words a gobbledygook.

  “You’re out of your goddamned mind! You’re crazy, you know that?”

  She swung at him, but feebly, and he held her off as easily as if she hadn’t even tried. “Don’t touch me!”

  “It’s freezing out here, you dumb bitch. Get inside.” Todd yanked her arm, his fingers pinching down on numbed flesh.

  Gilly resisted with a strength that surprised them both. She slipped from his grasp and went sprawling back into the snow. Todd grabbed her up again, shrugging out of his battered gray sweatshirt and wrapping it around her shoulders. Gilly had no more strength to fight.

  “Let me go,” she thought she whispered, but neither one of them heard.

  When he saw she couldn’t walk he scooped her up. In the movies he would’ve strode through the snow cradling her against his chest without faltering. But this was not the movies, it was real life, and Gilly was no anorexic starlet. Todd stumbled and went onto one knee, dropping her.

  He ground out a curse and picked her up again. He staggered up the steps and tripped through the open doorway. Gilly spilled out of his arms and onto the living room floor next to the table.

  “Goddamn it.” Todd grabbed her under the arms and dragged her in front of the woodstove, her heels thumping on the floorboards as she hung limp in his grasp. He began chafing her hands. “The fuck was that all about?”

  She couldn’t explain, not even to herself. Sheer stupidity had made her go out there, and it made no sense. It had felt right, that was all. She yelped as the feeling began returning to her hands and feet, and swatted him away.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  He backed off, hands in the air. He went to the table and grabbed up the pile of clothes she’d left there. He came back, knelt beside her, tried to wrap her in the clothes. She shoved him away and struggled into them by herself.

  “Don’t touch me,” she repeated. “Ever again.”

  He backed off again and pulled out another smoke. She felt his eyes on her as he lit up. The curl of smoke rising from the tip of the cigarette wavered in the air. His hands were shaking.

  “You scared the shit out of me,” he said.

  Now that she was warming up her teeth chattered incessantly. She’d been out there for perhaps only fifteen minutes, but that was long enough for the first angry red patches to appear on the backs of her hands and probably other places, too. She hitched closer to the stove. Shudders racked her body.

  “I want to go home.” It wasn’t what she’d thought she was going to say.

  “I know you do.”

  “I miss my kids,” she whispered. “And Seth.”

  He sighed. “I know. But you can’t.”

  A sob hitched from her chest, burning her throat. “I want to go home, Todd. Where it’s warm. With my family. I want to tell them that I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have let you keep me….”

  She sank to the floor, pressing her face to the faded rug. It smelled of dust and age. She closed her eyes, aware of the rug’s nubbly surface making grooves in her skin but too tired to care.

  From somewhere very far away she heard him say her name, but then she didn’t hear anything else.

  13

  His hands were on her again, but Gilly couldn’t fight them. He held her too tightly. A mountain of blankets covered her, suffocating. She kicked at them, writhing, and whimpered in gratitude at the blessed blast of cool air that covered her.

  “Water,” she begged, and he pressed a glass to her lips.

  It choked her and she gagged. Bile burned her throat and tongue. He was there with a basin, whispered soothing things to calm her as she retched. He pushed the hair back from her forehead and gave her a cool cloth for her forehead.

  Gilly sank back on her pillow, exhausted. The headache that had been plaguing her for weeks had become agonizing again. Even blinking made her head throb worse than a thumb hit by a hammer.

  She remembered her stupid run out into the snow, and looked at her hands. They were still red and chapped, but it didn’t look like she’d lose any fingers. She wiggled her toes under the heavy weight of the blankets, relieved to feel them all.

  Todd sat back, watching her, the expression in his dark eyes veiled. “You okay?”

  She nodded, though fresh pain flared behind her eyes at the movement. Gilly pressed her thumbs just inside the curve of her eye socket. It didn’t help.

  “Advil,” she managed to say. Then as an afterthought, “Please.”

  “I have aspirin.” Todd left and returned a few minutes later with a gigantic bottle in one hand. “This okay?”

  Aspirin would barely touch the horrendous throbbing, but Gilly took the two white pills he shook out and offered. “Two more.”

  Todd looked at the bottle and squinted. “It says…”

  “I know what the dose is,” Gilly said, careful not to raise her voice and send spears of agony ripping through her head. “It’s not enough. It won’t help me.”

  ?
??I don’t want you to OD on me,” Todd said, but he shook out two more pills into her outstretched hand.

  She struggled to sit up. Todd slipped a hand behind her elbow to help her, and she stiffened. “Don’t.”

  He dropped her arm as though her words had burned him. “Jesus, sorry.”

  Gilly shifted herself upright, which helped relieve some of the pressure. She took the cup of water he offered and swallowed the aspirin, fighting back the urge to puke it all up again.

  Already she felt herself drifting again. Her eyes became heavy lidded, her limbs leaden. Gilly let herself sink back into sleep.

  “You want to go up to bed?”

  She did, but didn’t want him to take her. Gilly opened her eyes. The room blurred. She forced herself to sit and waited until everything around her stopped spinning.

  “I can do it,” she said quietly when Todd made a move to help her.

  She made it to the kitchen where she drank a full glass of cold water, then refilled it and took it with her upstairs. Her former aches and pains had intensified along with the throbbing agony in her head. She thought again of her old wish to be taken so ill she’d need nursing. She put the cup close at hand on the dresser, then slipped into bed.

  Her cheeks flushed, hot with fever or, more likely, embarrassment at her run out into the snow. She’d been stupid, not even trying to get away. Not even sure what she was trying. Todd must think she was nuts, and…well, wasn’t she?

  Her chest felt tight, her throat ticklish. Gilly coughed experimentally and groaned at the throb in her temples. She didn’t think she’d be able to sleep, but she did, and dreamed.

  Not of her mother, or of Seth and the children. Not even of Todd. Gilly dreamed of fields of roses, vast acres of red blooms and green stems. Beautiful, vibrant roses protected by thorns. She grabbed and grabbed again until blood ran slick and hot from her fists, and it was the same as dreaming of all of them.

  14

  She woke again, this time to darkness. She’d thrown off the layers of blankets and now chills assaulted her. Gilly shuddered, twisting against the pillow and struggling to pull the covers back up. Just as she did, her cheeks flared with sudden, urgent heat.

  She understood in the back of her mind that she was feverish but could do nothing about it. She seemed to float in the darkness, and without the bed beneath her to anchor her to the earth, Gilly wondered if she might have just floated all the way to heaven.

  She groped for the cup of water. Her fingers tipped the cup, spilling it onto her pillow. She pressed her cheek against the welcome wetness, but all too soon even that brief chill was gone. The heat from her face was so great it dried the tiny spill in no time.

  She thought about calling for Seth, knowing even as she did so that he wouldn’t come. She couldn’t exactly remember why and didn’t want to try. Where were her pills, the extrastrength antibiotics and heavy-duty decongestants that worked to make the pain in her head disappear?

  She must be sicker now. Was she at home? Gilly had the sudden fear that her wish had come true. That she’d been hospitalized, taken from her children. Who was with them if she was here?

  She cried their names, reaching into the blackness as though she might find their faces there beneath her fingertips. She found only frigid air and emptiness. Gilly plunged her hands back beneath the covers, hugging herself and burying her face in the pillow.

  Someone had wrapped her in cotton. The thickness of it, the weight, surrounded her, pressed in on all sides. Someone had covered her eyes with gauze, so that even the blackness had taken on a fine white haze. Someone had gloved her hand, so that all she touched seemed faraway and unrecognizable.

  Hands stroked her forehead. Fingers ran a delicate pattern down her cheek. Gilly turned her head, her hand trapped beneath the cotton and the gloves, unable to fight off the caresses she did not want.

  “No,” she mumbled. “The drugs…it’s not safe….”

  Antibiotics interfered with the effectiveness of birth control pills. She couldn’t let Seth make love to her, not this cycle, not without some other protection. They hadn’t used other protection in years.

  “No,” Gilly muttered as she gained the strength to push at the hands now slipping beneath her shoulders. “Don’t touch me.”

  Not until after her next period, when the cycle would be unaffected. But when would that be? Thinking was hard, the effort enormous and ineffective, because she couldn’t remember anyway. Two weeks? One? A few days?

  “Don’t touch me!” She found the force of will to say, and the hands underneath her slipped away and left her alone.

  She had to get to the children. Baby Gandy was crying for her. Gilly’s breasts tingled with a surge that meant it was feeding time.

  Then she realized it was not baby Gandy sobbing for her to nurse him, but Arwen crying out for her. “Mama!” Then it was the two of them, crying her name over and over, the sound of it agonizing to hear.

  She had to go to them, had to get to her babies. Gilly struggled free of the covers anchoring her to the bed. Even the darkness would not prevent her from finding them.

  Her hands paddled at the air, swimming through it, but gaining no purchase. Her legs were leaden. She couldn’t move them. She managed to push herself out of bed.

  She hit the floor with a thud that jarred her head so badly she cried out. The ceaseless cries of “mama” stopped abruptly, and a sob of despair threatened to rip from her throat. Something was wrong with her babies. She had to get to them, had to.

  The wood floor scraped at her cheek. Gilly pushed against it with little result, too weak to sit up, much less stand. Her breath whistled in her lungs, forcing her to cough until bright sparks flashed in her vision.

  She couldn’t breathe. Gilly gasped for air, but it felt like soup in her lungs, thick and suffocating. She struggled, choking and coughing, flopping on the floor.

  Her mind cleared a little, and she remembered where she was. But she had heard someone saying “mama.” She hadn’t imagined it. Gilly pushed again at the floor, but couldn’t really move.

  The dark began to turn gray, but not because the sun was coming up. Fringes of red flickered in the gray. She was going to pass out.

  She’d been sleeping a long time, she could sense that. Dozing in and out for hours. Maybe even days. But now true unconsciousness threatened, and Gilly fought it as though it were a physical being. The red fringes thickened and clung together, taking over the gray.

  The darkness had been difficult, frightening but not terrifying. It was natural, part of the night. The gray and red were horrifying in their casual replacement of the simple darkness; the gray and the red were not outside of her, they were in her mind.

  Her arms stiffened even as she twitched. Every meager breath she managed to take sounded like a freight train, rumbling. Gilly wheezed, unable to do anything more now than clutch at the pain in her head, squeezing her temples with frozen fingers.

  She was losing the battle. She could not get up from the floor; she could not get to her children. She’d abandoned them. Even as unconsciousness threatened, her thoughts became clear.

  The gray and the red had been replaced by blackness, black as ink, as tar, as eternity. Not the darkness of night, but of the void. Gilly fought it, too, but fared no better. She closed her eyes but the blackness followed her even there.

  She would never see her children or Seth again. Whatever sickness she’d been fighting for the past few weeks had taken root and bloomed. Without medicine to battle it, and with the circumstances to aid it, it was going to overtake her.

  She coughed again, feebly, unable to bring up the mess in her lungs stealing her ability to breathe. Gilly choked and choked, unable to stop.

  Slow down. One breath at a time. Breathe in slow, breathe out slow.

  It didn’t help. Her breath was too thick. It lodged in her throat, refusing to get down into her lungs. The floor beneath her spun.

  Was this it? The blackness filled her vis
ion from side to side so there was nothing left. Gilly couldn’t win.

  Gilly dives to the bottom of the lake on a dare to retrieve a weighted ring. She makes it to the muddy bottom, finds the garish-colored piece of plastic, but the search has taken her too long. She hasn’t gone more than a quarter of the way back to the surface before her lungs begin to burn. Halfway back her legs stop kicking hard enough to get her back to the surface in time.

  She sees daylight, golden as it slants through green water, and beyond that the shimmery image of the wooden raft moored at the lake’s center. She glimpses her friend’s faces, watching, laughing, pointing. Gilly lets go of the weight, feels it knock against her ribs and snag the lilac nylon of her bathing suit. She reaches to the sky, grasps for the air, but cannot reach it.

  What of all the boys she’ll never kiss? The songs she’ll never hear? She’ll never finish school, marry, move from her parents’ house. Regret and yearning give her enough strength to kick once, twice more, but it isn’t enough. A flurry of bubbles, the last desperate few, escape her lips like butterflies dancing in the breeze.

  Only one of her friends has seen her distress. David Phillips reaches one of his long arms down into the water and hauls Gilly out by her hair. She breaks the surface choking and gasping, breathing in deep. Shaking while everyone laughs. For the rest of the day, she endures the good-natured teasing of the group at losing the weight and thus the dare, but Gilly won’t so much as dip a toe in the water for the rest of that summer.

  She’d only nearly drowned then, but she was going to drown now. This time there would be no hand reaching down to pluck her to safety. This time, she had so much more to regret losing.

  She heard her name and thought it part of the dream. The voice came again, louder this time. Hands grasped her own and pulled. Gilly didn’t fight the touch this time, recognizing they were saving her from drowning. From dying.