Precious and Fragile Things

  Her throat was dry. She needed a drink. Gilly looked around the walls of the prison she’d inflicted upon herself. A wave of dizziness washed over her and she sat on the bed, then put her head on the pillow, hoping it would pass. She’d caught every flu bug Arwen brought home from kindergarten, from the nastiest stomach virus to the most persistent of colds. No amount of hand washing had seemed to help, and she was wary of overusing hand sanitizer, fearing the creation of a superbug more than risking the chance of catching yet another case of the sniffles. She’d been on antibiotics, on and off, for the past few weeks, to get rid of a bad sinus infection. Now she felt even worse, aching from head to toe and shivering with chills. She got up just long enough to slide back beneath the covers again and closed her eyes against the pain stabbing her behind the lids.

  If there was any relief for her, it had the same source as her anxiety. She felt sick; she could lie down without fear of little hands plucking at her, little voices calling her name. The last time she’d taken herself to bed, unable to stand up without the world spinning, Gandy had decided to remove all the DVDs from their cases and, for some reason known only to his toddler brain, stick them in and out of the jumbo-size tub of margarine she used for making grilled cheese. That had been the day she called Seth, desperate for him to come home early from work, and he had.

  There’d be no Seth to rescue her this time.

  Desperation gnawed at her, a frenzied yearning to burst into action. She forced herself still, resting. Nothing to be gained by wild action; she’d learned that lesson the hard way. She thought of the snow outside, and she thought of Todd.

  She supposed the real question was what did she think he would do to keep her, if he couldn’t or wouldn’t let her go? Did she think he would kill her if he had to? She remembered the desperation in his cry “I won’t go back to jail!” And she thought that yes, he might. He might be slow of thought, and he might be kind at heart, but something had happened to him that made him what he was today. Gilly didn’t think Todd had brought her here to kill her, but she did believe he would if he felt he had to.

  But hadn’t she determined that she’d do the same? If the chance arose, if she was left with nothing else. The thought of it now sent a shudder cascading up and down her spine, like cold fingers stroking the nape of her neck. She’d tried to change his mind, and she’d tried to escape. Both had failed. But what would happen if she killed him? The third option that had seemed so matter-of-fact and to-the-point didn’t feel that way now.

  Even if she managed to bring herself to kill him, she was still trapped in this cabin without a phone, without a map, without proper clothes. No vehicle, that was her own stupid fault. Even if he died, there was nothing for her to do until the snow melted. She snuggled deeper into the cave of warmth her body heat created beneath the blankets. It turned out she had a fourth option.

  Waiting.

  8

  Three days gone. She’d never been away from her babies for that long. Not to visit a friend, not to go on a girls’ weekend away, not even to a scrapbooking seminar.

  In her college days and just after, before meeting Seth, Gilly had been a traveler. She’d stayed in youth hostels or taken summer jobs at tourist destinations in different states. She’d jaunted on spur-of-the-moment trips based on whatever cheap airfare she’d found. Once she’d bought a companion ticket on an ocean liner from an elderly woman whose friend had been unable to make it at the last minute. The woman’s name was Esther and though Gilly had been nervous about sharing a cabin with a stranger, the two of them had hit it off superbly. They’d kept in touch for years, until Esther passed away. Gilly hadn’t traveled like that in a long, long time and probably never would again.

  Seth traveled sometimes for work. He came home with the news of a conference or business trip, how many days he’d be gone, what time his flights left and returned. He made his plans and took the trips without a second thought about who’d pick up Arwen from kindergarten or take Gandy to preschool. Who’d feed and walk the dog, sign for deliveries. Pay the bills or take care of the loads of laundry. Seth decided he was going, and he went.

  A trip for Gilly would take weeks of planning and countless favors called in from friends to juggle her children’s schedules and her time commitments. The effort it took for her to step out the door for a trip to the grocery store by herself would be magnified to such extent even a few days spent in a spa getting hot-stone massages and foot rubs from handsome, oiled men in loincloths wouldn’t be worth the hassle.

  This was not even close to a hot-stone massage. Paused at the bottom of the stairs, Gilly looked across the room at Todd sitting at the table, still sorting through his folder of papers. He had a cigarette in one hand and sucked in long, deep draws of smoke he held for an impossibly long time before letting it seep from his nostrils. His hair fell forward as he bent over the papers, but she could still see the wounds she’d inflicted on his face. The cuts were evidence she’d done what she could to get away, but small consolation compared to her aches and bruises.

  She’d stayed upstairs for what felt like an hour but might’ve been two. Might’ve been fifteen minutes. She didn’t have a watch, the cabin had no clocks, and the daylight outside was set permanently to twilight. More snow drifted down in spurts, dandruff brushed from a giant’s shoulders.

  Todd looked up when her foot creaked on the bottom step. He closed the folder and stood. “Hi.”

  Walking stiffly so as to jar her sore muscles as little as possible, Gilly limped into the living room. She kept a wary distance, but Todd acted as though he’d never raised a hand to her. He came around the couch but stopped when she took a step back.

  “I got your stuff,” he said.

  “What stuff?” Gilly asked. She didn’t think he was capable of being particularly subtle, but she was wary of some sort of trick she couldn’t anticipate.

  Todd hesitated, then gestured at the front door. “Your stuff. From the truck. I got what I could, anyway. It was fuckall tough. That little tree’s not going to hold it much longer. But…I thought you might want stuff out of it before it hits the bottom of the mountain.”

  Gilly’s aching knees buckled. The doorway saved her from falling as she gripped it with her sore hand. He’d brought her things.

  She moved on stumbling feet, three, four, five steps, to crouch by the pile of miscellaneous junk Todd had brought back from the wreck. Most of it was junk. A scattering of plastic toys. A stray sock that had been missing for months and was now too small for either of the kids. A sippy cup, thick with the remnants of some red juice. Gandy’s blankie, many times repaired and badly in need of a wash. He’d be missing it by now. Crying for it, unable to sleep.

  Gilly grabbed it. Held it to her face. Breathed in the scent of her son. She made a wordless noise of grief into the fabric.

  You’re never going to see him again. Or Arwen, or Seth. This is what you did, Gilly. This is what you deserve.

  “Gilly?”

  Todd’s hand came to rest on her shoulder, and she shook it off. Clutching the blankie to her chest, she glared up at him. “Don’t. Just don’t!”

  Todd held up both hands, face grim. “Fine. Jesus. What a bitch.”

  He slouched away, boots heavy and clomping on the bare boards of the floor. Gilly crouched over her meager pile of belongings. The detritus of motherhood. Tiny, mismatched pieces of her heart.

  She found her iPod, safe in the soft eyeglass case she used to transport it, the earbuds still wrapped around it. He’d also brought the black CD case bulging with discs she only listened to while driving. Bat Boy, scratched probably beyond repair.

  Behind her, Gilly heard Todd pacing, but she didn’t look. She held the CD close to her. She’d bought this disc with Seth at one of the last few shows this cast had performed at an off-Broadway theater, four days after the Twin Towers had fallen.

  “We took the ferry,” she said.

  Todd’s boots stopped thumping.

  Gilly
bent her head over the disc. Her fingers left misty marks on the silver back. “We parked in the lot and took the ferry across. It was full of people going to volunteer to help. There was a federal marshal on board. I could see his gun. I looked out across the water and saw the smoke.”

  Gilly closed her eyes, her memories clutched in bruised and aching hands.

  “There were posters everywhere. Pictures of people who were still missing, with numbers to call. When we got to the other side, there were parking lots blocked off by wire fencing, filled with pallets of water. I saw a bundle of axes, maybe twenty of them, leaning against the fence.”

  “The fuck are you talking about?” Todd asked, but softly. Gentle. It was the way someone might speak to someone standing on a ledge or a bridge.

  Gilly opened her eyes. She gathered up what he’d brought to her, careful not to lose anything. “It was the worst thing I’d ever seen.”

  “You messing with me again?”

  She stood and looked at him. “No. I’m not. I’m trying to tell you that I’ve seen bad things.”

  “Yeah?” Todd frowned. “Well, so have I.”

  “I thought at the time that was the worst experience I’d ever have. Seeing what had been left behind. The grief of people who’d lost someone they loved. The bravery of the ones who’d traveled from all over to help dig out the dead. I thought it was the very worst thing, and it was bad…” She looked up at him. “But I think this is worse.”

  Todd took a step back, mouth thinning. “Why don’t you shut up now, Gilly.”

  “Yes,” she said faintly and held her things close to her. “Yes. I think I will.”

  Todd scuffed a boot on the floor. It left a black mark on the boards she’d so painstakingly swept earlier. “I’m making dinner. Come have some.”

  Gilly shook her head. “No.”

  “You should eat something.”

  Her stomach, empty, was nonetheless too shriveled for hunger. The thought of food made her feel sick. “Why?”

  Todd’s mouth opened and closed. He scowled, then tossed up his hands and turned on his heel to stalk to the kitchen. Gilly watched him go, then stood, juggling her belongings, and went upstairs.

  She put everything he’d salvaged in the top drawer of the dresser she was nauseated to realize she thought of as “hers.” Then she climbed into bed and burrowed under the blankets with the iPod.

  Though it didn’t look broken, the iPod wouldn’t turn on. It gave a low, chugging whir when Gilly pressed the button. She slapped it into her palm as if she was tamping a pack of cigarettes, once, then harder. The screen lit, then shut off. She tamped it again. This time, the Apple logo showed up as the unit rebooted or did whatever it was doing.

  She slipped the earbuds in and thumbed the controls. It was an old model, inherited from Seth after he’d upgraded, but that had never mattered. It had enough space on it to store some music and photos. She scrolled to the picture slideshow she’d loaded to show Seth’s parents the last time they’d visited. In moments the bright and bouncy music, some instrumental piece that came with the photo software, came on. So did the photos.

  Arwen in pink tights and a ballerina sweatshirt, curly dark hair pulled into pigtails, showing off a hole where her front tooth had been. Gandy dressed like Scooby Doo, holding an empty pumpkin pail, chocolate smeared on his face. Photo after photo of her children, each one precious and remote, unforgettable and unreachable.

  And finally, Gilly wept.

  9

  Gilly woke again to the morning sun and frozen cheeks. She hunched the covers up around her face to warm it. From the other side of the barrier she heard the low, familiar rumble of male snoring.

  It was early, judging by the slant of sunlight made brighter by its reflection off the snow. Her entire body still hurt, possibly worse than it had the day before. Her bruises had bruises. Joints popped and crackled as she stretched. Her stomach wasn’t too happy, either. She hadn’t eaten much of anything, but the thought of food made her swallow a gag.

  Her head hurt. Gilly had been prone to headaches her entire life, most of them tension related, but this was a bad one. Pain cradled her skull and spiked her eyes from the combination of infected sinuses, lack of food and anxiety. She’d never been diagnosed with migraines, but now she blinked away what sure as hell looked like an aura.

  Groaning seemed worthless, but she did it anyway. No cease from the snoring on the room’s other side. Gilly pressed her thumbs to the magic spots just above the bridge of her nose, willing the pain to go away. It didn’t, but it did ease a little. Long experience told her that eating would help, even if she didn’t feel like it. A hot shower would, too, but she was out of luck on that one.

  She flung the covers off and swung her legs over the bed. Her head spun and her stomach rocked alarmingly. Clenching her jaw didn’t help her headache, but she refused to puke. Absolutely refused. Raw bile burned in her throat, and she swallowed convulsively, over and over.

  Breathe, Gilly. In. Out. Keep it together.

  She must’ve groaned louder because suddenly Todd appeared, leaning on the partition. “You okay?”

  She didn’t dare speak, and so only nodded. She pressed her thumbs more firmly against her forehead. The throbbing subsided. Sheer willpower kept her stomach’s contents inside it rather than all over the floor.

  “You don’t look good.”

  “I don’t feel good.”

  He didn’t say anything. Gilly looked up at him. Sleep had mussed his hair and still clouded his eyes. He wiped a hand across bristled cheeks. “You gonna puke?”

  “No!” Her indignation chased the last of her sour stomach away.

  “Just asking. You look kinda pale.”

  “I’m always this color.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her. “If you say so.”

  “I just need to eat something.” Gilly pushed past him and hobbled down the stairs. In the kitchen, she toasted bread and poured cereal. The single half-gallon container of milk was almost empty. She swished it around thoughtfully before pouring it. There’d be no more for a long time after this was gone. She poured it anyway.

  Todd had bought the kind of sugary cereals she never bought at home because she knew they’d rot her kids’ teeth or give them cancer or send them into hyperactive spirals. Now Gilly dug into the bowl and crunched the sweetness. She gobbled it. She watched the colored cereal turn her milk the color of a tropical sunset.

  Todd appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He wore a loose-fitting pair of sweatpants, slung low across his hips. When he lifted his arm to scrub at his face she saw the tan expanse of his belly, not taut and buff but soft and slightly curved. A long, angry scar dimpled the skin.

  “It’s starting to snow again,” Todd remarked as he looked out one of the back windows. “Goddamn, look at that coming down. Fucking snowpocalypse out there.”

  Gilly filled her bowl again and kept crunching. Famine had replaced her earlier nausea. The sweet cereal made her teeth ache.

  “There’s no more milk,” she said when he entered the kitchen, and waited to see what he would say.

  “There’s five gallons outside in the lean-to,” Todd replied. “As long as it’s cold like this, it’ll stay frozen out there.”

  Gilly felt somehow defeated in her defiance. “You’ve thought of everything.”

  Todd got a bowl from the cupboard and sat across from her to fill it with Lucky Charms. He shrugged. “Didn’t want to get caught needing something I didn’t have.”

  Gilly pushed her bowl away, suddenly no longer so hungry. “You planned this.”

  His spoon stopped halfway to his mouth, then lowered. “I had a plan, yeah. And then it changed. I wasn’t sure what the hell was going to happen, so I tried to make sure I was ready for whatever. Lucky for us, huh?”

  He had that wary look in his eyes again. Gilly toyed with the floating rainbow chunks in the bright pink milk. She watched him lift the spoon to his mouth, watched him chew.

&n
bsp; “It was a pretty piss poor plan.” Todd shrugged, pretending it didn’t matter. “I didn’t plan on you.”

  “You took my truck! How could you not plan on me? Why not just steal a car if you wanted one so bad?”

  “First, you obviously don’t know how fucking hard it is to steal a car in the middle of a busy parking lot, duh. If I even knew how to hot-wire one which I fucking don’t. And…I didn’t know you had kids in the back, okay?” Todd pushed back from the table, and his spoon clattered to the floor. He stalked to the sink and hunched over it, his hands splayed on the green countertop. “I didn’t see the kids. When you went to the money machine, I just saw you.”

  Gilly thought back to what seemed like so long ago. “I left them in the truck to run to the ATM for one second.”

  “I thought I’d just take the truck and tell you to drive someplace quieter, then make you get out,” Todd continued. “The fuck were you thinking? Leaving your kids in the car. Don’t you know you’re not supposed to leave your kids alone in the car?”

  “Don’t you…don’t you question my parenting skills!” Gilly cried. “You don’t know anything about it!”

  “I didn’t know they were in there.”

  His voice shuddered and his face twisted. Gilly sat motionless. It would have been easy for her to pity him, to soften her heart. But she did not.

  “I’d never hurt a kid.” His mouth pulled down in distress. “I might be a fuck-up, but I’d never hurt a kid!”

  She believed him, strangely enough. “That’s a damn good thing, Todd. Because if you’d harmed one hair of my children’s heads, I would’ve…I would have killed you.”

  Saying it aloud, she knew it was true. There’d have been no hesitation. If he’d hurt her kids, she’d have done it.

  He turned to face her, his eyes wide. “Shut up.”

  She leaned forward, hands flat on the table, one on each side of her cereal bowl. Her voice was steadier than she expected. Full of truth. “I would have killed you.”