Precious and Fragile Things

  Todd set a plate of crackers and aerosol cheese in front of her. “Here.”

  She grimaced.

  He looked serious. “All we got for snacks. Better eat it. Besides, Gilly, it’s cheese. Good for you and the baby.”

  He hadn’t asked again to call the child after his uncle. Gilly picked up the plate and looked at it critically. “Todd, this stuff has more sodium and chemicals in it than anything else. I don’t think it even came from a cow.”

  He snatched one of the crackers and tucked into his mouth, chewing solemnly. “Yeah, but this and a handful of Slim Jims is like eating a piece of heaven.”

  Gilly snorted. “There’s no accounting for taste.”

  Her stomach rumbled, and she ate a cracker. She was taking her mother’s advice and being happy with what she had. Which wasn’t much.

  “When the snow melts, I’ll hike out to the main road and hitch a ride to town. Get us a truck. Buy some stuff.”

  The utter improbability of what he proposed made Gilly stuff another cracker in her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. His face showed he was serious. He meant that she should stay with him. Have her baby here in this cabin. Raise it together like some perverted Little House in the Big Woods family.

  “I know you don’t think it’s going to work,” Todd said in a low voice.

  “Oh, Todd.” Gilly took a deep breath. “Don’t talk about it. There’s nothing we can do about it right now, anyway.”

  “I’m a fucking moron, ain’t I?” His self-deprecating question had the lilt of humor in it, but Todd wasn’t smiling. “A foron. A stupid foron.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t want to stay with me,” Todd said matter-of-factly. “No matter what you said before.”

  Gilly faced him, the taste of slick processed cheese bitter on her tongue. “So, what are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing.” Todd met her eyes. “I told you before I couldn’t ever let you go. But I know you think about getting away. I know you’re going to try.”

  Had she really thought she could continue to lie to him? That she could convince him of her willingness to stay and raise her child with him? She’d underestimated him.

  “Yes. When the snow melts.” Gilly touched his hand. “I have to.”

  “Even if you promised not to tell them anything, they’d come here, wouldn’t they? They’d find me. Even if I ran, I guess they would. I’d have no chance, huh?”

  “I don’t think so. And I couldn’t promise you I wouldn’t say anything. I’d have to, you know. Tell them something.”

  “I’d go to jail. Or I’d cut myself and bleed to death up here, all alone. Not much of a choice.” He poked at one of the crackers, then swallowed it.

  Gilly rested her hands on her belly. “No. I’d say it’s not.”

  “A good person would give up, let you go. I wish I was a good person.” He said suddenly, “But I just ain’t!”

  “People can change.”

  Todd shook his head. “Tell me again that you’ll stay here with me.”

  “I’ll stay here with you,” Gilly said.

  He stretched out beside her and put his head in her lap. “Wouldn’t it be nice if that were true?”

  She threaded her fingers through his hair. “Sure it would.”

  He closed his eyes and nestled close to her. Gilly stroked his hair, watching the sun paint lines on the planes of his face. When he slept, she watched the rise and fall of his chest. How hard would he hang on to life, she thought, when she tried to take it away?

  52

  Todd was balancing a straw on the end of his nose. Arms out at shoulder height, fingers spread, he bobbed and weaved, trying to keep the straw from falling. The sight was completely ridiculous, especially since he went about the feat with so much determination.

  “I seen this on TV once,” he said as the straw hit the floor again. “You’re supposed to watch the end. Then you can balance it.”

  He watched the end all right, but since the straw was so short, watching it crossed his eyes. Gilly bit her lip against a giggle. Todd caught the gesture from the corner of his eye and let the straw fall off without retrieving it.

  “Aren’t you ever going to laugh? Not ever?”

  Gilly shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Not ever again?”

  Not here, with him. Gilly just shook her head again, unwilling to answer. Todd scowled and left the kitchen.

  A few minutes later, she heard him call her name. She looked across to the living room to see what her college roommate had fondly called a “moon.” Gilly clapped her hands over her eyes in mortification.

  “Todd!”

  “Make you laugh?”

  “No!” she cried, and covered her eyes.

  “Shit.”

  She peeked through her fingers to see him tucking in his shirt. “That was really uncalled-for.”

  “I just wanted to see if I could make you laugh.” Todd sauntered closer. “Figured the sight of my hairy a—”

  “Todd! For goodness’ sakes!” Gilly felt a burble of hilarity in her chest, but it didn’t come out. She smiled, but kept her laughter to herself as she had vowed to do.

  “Whatever.” He shrugged, then waggled his eyebrows. “It sure made your cheeks go all pink.”

  Gilly rolled her eyes. “I guess it did.”

  Todd leaned against the half wall, ducking his head to peer under the hanging cabinets at her. “Tell me something.”

  “About what?” she asked, thinking he had something specific in mind.

  He waved his hand at her. “I don’t know. Just something. Anything.”

  “Are we going to tell stories, is that it?”

  Todd didn’t smile back. “I figure you know a hell of a lot about me. Thought maybe I ought to get to know you.”

  “There isn’t much to tell.” Gilly thought. That wasn’t really true, was it? She had lots of stories, none quite so tragic and horrendous as Todd’s, but tales of her life that showed why she had become the woman she was.

  “What about your family?” Todd tapped the counter restlessly, and she could tell he was missing his smokes.

  “I told you about my family.”

  “Not all of it.”

  Gilly came around the counter and motioned with her head for him to follow her to the couch. “You sure you want to know?”

  “What the hell else is there to do?”

  Todd flopped onto the couch and spread out his arms and legs, then patted the seat beside him. Gilly looked at the couch across from him but sat where he’d indicated. His thigh touched hers, but there was no point in moving away. Not now. They’d come too far for her to play at coyness, or to pretend she didn’t recognize their closeness.

  She looked outside, where snow still covered every surface though the sun had risen high in the sky. “My family. Okay. Well, my mother was an alcoholic with paranoid and depressive tendencies. She spent a lot of time in the hospital when I was in my early teens. By the time she got on the proper medication and stopped drinking, I was in college. She died before my children were born.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  Unexpected tears stung her eyes. “Sometimes. Yes. I miss her.”

  Todd made a low noise. “Even though she was all messed up?”

  Gilly’s memories could in no way compete with Todd’s for heartbreak, but her childhood and adolescence had been far from the sweetness and light of a television sitcom. “Yes. Even though she was all messed up.”

  He bit at his nails, a habit he’d taken up since running out of cigarettes. “Why do you think that is?”

  “Because she was my mother,” Gilly said in surprise, as though the answer should be obvious. Well, it should be. But she understood his question, and why he asked it. “Because…no matter how much bad she gave me, I loved her.”

  “Because she was your mom.”

  “Yes.”

  Todd sighed heavily, leaning his he
ad back on the couch. A moment later he slouched down to rest it on Gilly’s shoulder. He’d washed his hair that morning, cursing and shouting at the cold water, but now the cropped strands smelled faintly of citrus. It tickled her cheek.

  “What made you decide to have kids?” Todd reached over and took her hand. He turned it palm up and traced the lines there. “Did you think you’d be a better mother than yours?”

  “Oh, no,” Gilly said. “I wasn’t sure I’d be a good mother at all. I didn’t think I knew how.” She trailed off, picturing her children. “I’m still not sure I know how.”

  “But you love your kids.”

  “Of course. You know I do.”

  “And you’re going to have another one,” Todd said, resting his hand on her belly.

  Gilly snorted. “Not on purpose, believe me.”

  “But you’ll love it, right?” He peered up at her, the slinking dog look returning after long absence. “Even though you didn’t want it?”

  Gilly placed her hand over his. “Yes. I will love this child. And I will protect it.”

  “I never wanted kids.” The weight of his hand was not unwelcome on her stomach. “I knew I’d fuck them up. Bigtime.”

  “Understandable that you would feel that way.” Gilly leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

  “Do you think I could be a good father?”

  She cracked open one eye to look down at him, but his attention was focused on her stomach. “It’s not something anyone can know until it happens.”

  “Funny thing is,” he said, “I think I might like to try. I think I could be okay at it.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah.” Now he looked at her, a light of excitement in his eyes. His hand rubbed slow, hypnotizing circles on her stomach. “How long until it comes?”

  Gilly thought. “Six or seven months.”

  “My birthday is in November,” Todd told her. “Maybe it’ll come on my birthday.”

  “You never know.” The slow rhythm of his hand was putting her to sleep. The conversation had become dreamlike. Unreal. She knew what he was asking but could not answer him.

  “Stay with me,” he whispered, and she was awake as instantly as if someone had popped a balloon in her ear. “Let me show you. Help me be good, Gilly.”

  “Only you can make that choice, Todd.”

  “I think I could love a baby. A kid.”

  “They’re hard not to love,” Gilly said.

  They fell silent together, and she thought of mothers who didn’t love their children, and those who loved them in the wrong way. Perhaps Todd was thinking of that, too. But since he didn’t speak, Gilly didn’t know.

  53

  The sound of rushing water had been constant over the past few days. Bright sunshine every day. Warmth. The snow was melting, finally. Not quite there yet. And then…

  Gilly gasped when she saw green. Grass, showing through one of the bare patches from where they’d rolled the snowman. She pressed her face to the glass, unable to believe it. Only one small patch, and only in the places they’d already mostly cleared. But there.

  “Spring,” she murmured, then said a blessing. “Baruch Ha-Shem. Thank you, God.”

  It was time to get prepared.

  Her hands went to her belly automatically as she thought. She would still need appropriate clothes. Food. Water. She didn’t know how long it would take to hike the road, if she even could, but…she would do it, now. She had to.

  She heard Todd’s heavy tread upstairs, and turned from the window as he came down. “Todd…”

  But she couldn’t tell him that the snow was melting, not with so much joy in her voice. She wouldn’t be able to hide it. She couldn’t be deliberately cruel to him. Not anymore.

  He looked at her curiously. “Yeah?”

  “Nothing,” Gilly replied with a smile that felt as though it stretched across her entire face.

  She wanted to run outside, to throw herself down in the tiny emerald patch, to rub her face and hands all over it. Her hands shook with the desire, so intense she had to shove her hands in her pockets to stop their trembling. She forced herself to look away from it. To pretend it wasn’t there.

  “It’s hot in here,” Todd said. “I won’t even have to light the stove today.”

  Gilly nodded and walked on stiff legs to the dining table. She’d begun another puzzle, this one of a thousand different kinds of lollipops. Her fingers patted the scattered pieces, but she did not place any. She would not, if God was willing, finish this puzzle.

  It was almost time for her to go home.

  54

  “I’m so hungry I could eat a bowl of cigarette butts with a hair in it.” Gilly groaned and grabbed her stomach. “Hurry up with those potatoes!”

  “Calm down.” Todd brandished his knife. “They’ve got a million eyes in them, all over the place.”

  “You’re going to cut off your fingers. Use a paring knife.”

  Todd concentrated on gouging out another eye, then tossed the edible potato into the pot with the others. “This is the sharpest knife we got.”

  “Just be careful, that’s all. I don’t want to have to stitch you up.” Gilly went to the window over the sink. It seemed that for almost three months, all she’d done was look, from one window or the other, out at the white wasteland of imprisonment.

  No more. Water ran from the gutters with a sound like a running brook. Large patches had rotted in the snow, revealing the brown and green of earth underneath. At the edge of the woods, the first shoots of crocuses poked their purple and yellow heads up to reach the sun.

  She couldn’t sit still. Gilly paced constantly, like a tiger in a cage. Each day she’d woken to brilliant sunshine was one she was closer to release.

  “That’s the last of the oil,” Todd said, setting a pot of it on the stove.

  She’d been craving French fries since yesterday. Today, Todd had pulled out the last crinkly sack of potatoes that had weathered the winter. Some of them had been salvageable.

  In contrast to Gilly’s edginess and constant monitoring of spring’s progress, Todd was actively ignoring the season’s change. He had to notice, had to see, but Gilly didn’t mention the decreasing blanket of snow outside and neither did he.

  His nightmares had returned, and his cries often woke her from her own dreams. The fields of roses had stopped blooming. Now she dreamed of rows and rows of barren, thorn-ridden stems. Each time she soothed him and herself back to sleep with wordless lullabies. It was easy to do, in the dark, with his tears wetting her shoulder. Easy to pretend he was just another child to care for.

  In the light of day, it was different. She watched him without looking at him. Saw how his face had grown thinner and haggard over the past few days, while her own in the mirror glowed with vibrant, unvoiced joy. If she was kinder to him then, it was because she was helpless to be anything else.

  Their time together was running short. She knew it, and he had to know it, too. Every hour that passed took her farther away from him, though she hadn’t gone anywhere at all.

  “Stay with me,” he asked her in the night, and her lie hung between them like the strands of a caterpillar’s silk. “Stay with me,” he whispered with increasing desperation, but only in the dark. In the light, Todd no longer asked.

  Gilly turned from the window, powerless to stop the smile stretching her lips. Sunshine filled her soul, her heart, even her womb, where the life inside gave her the strength she would need to do what she must. When he saw her face, Todd flinched, but recovered.

  “Almost done,” he said, and waved the huge knife at her and the potato. “French fries, coming right up.”

  “Yummy!” Gilly cried. Seeing the early spring flowers had made her positively giddy.

  The potato slipped from Todd’s fingers and landed on the floor. He reached for it, smacking his head on the table with a resounding thud and a muffled curse. The accident did what his silly jokes and awkward wordplay had not.


  Gilly laughed.

  The delight that filled her from the soft spring breeze now burst from her throat in a load guffaw. The noise was loud. It startled both of them. And it didn’t stop.

  Gilly laughed until her sides ached and tears streamed down her face. Todd, who could have been offended by her making such fun of his misfortune, merely gazed at her gape-mouthed. He reached up to rub the lump on his forehead, and hit himself in the eye with the potato.

  Gilly laughed harder. Todd met her with a smile, then a chortle. He joined her hilarity. They laughed together, and it was all right. She gave him the last secret part of herself she’d been holding back, and it didn’t matter.

  Todd put the knife on the table to hold his sides in laughter. Gilly’s eyes fell on it, the blade so huge and glinting. Her laughter stopped. She met Todd’s gaze.

  In that last moment, his smile faded. His eyes closed briefly and when they opened, she saw he knew what she meant to do. There was no future for Todd if Gilly left this place. There could be no future for her if she stayed.

  She had nothing more for him than this, a cruelty that was in fact a simple mercy.

  The knife was heavy in her hand, but her aim was true. She slashed once. Todd went to his knees in front of her as if he was praying, hands to his throat. Crimson jetted between his fingers.

  The knife fell, turning over and over, and clattered to the floor beside her, but Gilly didn’t pay attention. She went to her knees, too, arms reaching to catch him as he slumped.

  Not long ago she’d asked herself how hard he’d hold on to life when she took it away. She had her answer now. Todd didn’t struggle or fight. His back arched as his life ran out over his hands and hers. As she cradled him against her, fingers stroking in his hair.

  She sang to him, the same lullabies from their long nights together, all mixed up yet somehow making sense. A long stream of words and melody, broken now and again by the relentless hitch of her breath as she fought sobs. She didn’t make it through one verse.