Precious and Fragile Things

  He wet his lips, thinking. Then he scoffed. “No, you wouldn’t have.”

  His easy dismissal irritated her. “Yes. I would.”

  He stared at her, frowning. “You have no idea how hard it would be to kill somebody. You’re not hard like that, Gilly. I can tell.”

  Under any other circumstances, his comment would have been a compliment. Now she was as insulted as if he’d called her a vile name. Her eyes bored into his. “If you hurt my children, nothing in this world could have kept you safe from me.”

  Todd’s gaze flickered. He put his hands on the table, too, and leaned to look into her eyes. “You’re full of shit.”

  He was wrong about her—she did know how hard it was to kill. Her mother, at the end, had begged for Gilly to put a pillow over her face, to give her pills, to turn up the drip on the morphine until it sent her off to sleep for good. Her mother, sallow and scrawny by then, with nothing left of the beauty Gilly had always envied, had wept and pleaded. She’d called Gilly names and raged with breathless whispers, the loudest she could make. She’d demanded.

  Gilly hadn’t killed her mother, but she’d wanted to.

  Gilly leaned forward, too. She could’ve kissed him, if she’d chosen. Or bitten him. “I’m a mother and I would do anything for my children. I would kill you. Believe it.”

  She had never meant anything more.

  “Mothers don’t love their children that much.” Todd stood and shrugged. “It’s something they made up for TV. You don’t have a clue about killing.”

  “Do you?” she shot back, and was instantly afraid of the answer.

  “Are you asking me if I ever killed someone?”

  Did she want to know?

  “Yes,” Gilly said.

  Todd gave her no answer other than a shake of his head.

  Gilly swallowed hard, choking for a second on the breath she’d been holding. “Would you kill me?”

  “Aw, hell! I already told you that’s not why I brought you here, Jesus.”

  “I didn’t ask if you wanted to kill me. I asked if you would.” She didn’t like this side of herself, the relentlessness, but she didn’t stop herself. “If I run away again, and you catch me, will you kill me? Will you kill me anyway? Because someone will come, Todd. Someone will find out where I am, and come for me. You know they will.”

  He ran both hands through his hair, gripping his head for a moment before replying through gritted teeth. “Shut the fuck up, okay?”

  She moved closer, tiny compared to his height, but pushing him back with every step she took. “I want to hear you say it. I want to know. I deserve to know!”

  “Why?” He backed away, shaking his shaggy head, the dark hair swinging like the mane of some wild stallion. “Why the fuck do you deserve a fucking thing from me?”

  “Because you took me!” The words tore her throat.

  “At the gas station I thought you’d leave and it would be all over. You’d call the cops, they’d come, whatever. I figured that was it. I went in the store and bought my shit, the whole time thinking I was gonna come back out and find you gone. I thought for sure I was screwed, but you stayed in the truck. Why didn’t you get out? Why the hell didn’t you get out?”

  “Why didn’t you make me get out?”

  “Fuck if I know. I figured…what the hell, if you didn’t get out, you wouldn’t tell the cops…I dunno. Christ, you scared the shit out of me, Gilly. That’s all. I didn’t know what the hell to do with you. You had the chance to get out and you didn’t….” Todd’s grin reminded her of the Big Bad Wolf. All teeth. “You’re as crazy as I am.”

  Crazy meant medication, hospitals, long narrow corridors smelling of piss and human despair. Crazy was her mother, locked away in a room with only her mood swings for company. It was the grit of shattered glass underfoot and the smell of spilled perfume.

  “No, I’m not.” Her words weren’t as convincing this time.

  Todd snorted and turned back to the window with the same easy knack he had of pushing away the tension, making it appear that it hadn’t happened at all. “Man, it’s really coming down. We might get another foot, at least.”

  Gilly stood and took her bowl to the sink. She had to push past him to get there, but he stepped aside and didn’t crowd her. Side by side they stared out the window.

  “So,” she said. “What happens now?”

  Todd shrugged again. “I don’t know.”

  Gilly wanted to slap him. Instead, she rinsed her bowl and spoon and set them to dry in the drainer. He didn’t move, only watched her.

  “I won’t stop trying, you know,” she whispered. “To get away, I mean.”

  “I’ll always stop you.”

  “No,” Gilly said. “One day, you won’t.”

  10

  Short days passed into long nights. Gilly’s body ached, but she forced herself to appreciate every ache and pain and hobble around the cabin to keep her stiff muscles limber. She didn’t think there’d be another chance for escape, but if one came she didn’t want to be too disabled to take it.

  Todd didn’t say much to her, and if he noticed Gilly keeping her distance from him, he didn’t show it. Again, she was struck at how easy he was about all of this, how commonplace he made it. While every gust of wind scraping a tree branch on the house startled her into jumping, Todd barely glanced up. When she padded past him to the kitchen to forage for something to eat, he called out casually for her to grab him a beer.

  She did, not sure why. The bottle, a longneck, chilled her palm as she brought it to him. She watched while he took a pocketknife, much smaller than the one he’d threatened her with, and used the bottle-opener part to open it. He tipped it to his lips, drinking it back with a long sigh.

  “Want one?” he said. “There’s a couple in the fridge, couple of six-packs on the back porch in cans. I should’ve bought more.”

  “No.”

  Todd lipped the bottle’s rim and drank again. His throat worked. She was looking at him but her gaze fell on the knife on his belt. He watched her looking and tipped the bottle at her.

  “Might be good for you,” Todd said.

  Gilly felt her mouth go tight and hard. “To get drunk?”

  “Might loosen you up.”

  “I don’t need to be loose,” Gilly muttered, and turned her back on him.

  In the kitchen she opened drawer after drawer. He’d taken away all the sharp knives. She went through the cupboards, too, aware he’d come to watch her. Todd leaned in the doorway, one ankle crossed over the other, beer in his hand.

  “What are you looking for?”

  She slammed a drawer, making the silverware inside jump. She shrugged. She didn’t really know. Todd laughed, and Gilly glared at him over her shoulder.

  “Have a beer,” he said. “It’ll make you feel better, really.”

  “I don’t drink.” She pulled down a glass and filled it with cold, clear water that must’ve come straight up from a hundred feet underground. It went down the back of her throat like a shot, delicious, and sent a spike of pain to the center of her forehead.

  Todd took a long pull from the bottle and set it on the counter next to him. “How come?”

  Gilly blinked slowly and rinsed her glass from the faint imprint of her lips. She dried it with a hand towel and put it back in the cupboard. She didn’t answer.

  “Whatever,” Todd said, and went back into the living room, where he lit a cigarette and fiddled with the small radio he’d pulled from someplace when she wasn’t watching.

  At first it blatted static interspersed with gospel music. Finally, after several minutes fidgeting with the knob, Todd tuned in a station playing some contemporary music. The song ended and the disc jockey came on.

  “…worst blizzard in twenty years…” The static broke the words into burps and fizzles, but the message was clear. More snow had fallen on the region than in twenty years, and more was predicted.

  “Fuck me,” Todd murmured. “More damne
d snow.”

  She’d already paced the length and width of this place while he was gone. There wasn’t enough room to keep between them. She could find privacy in the bathroom, though not for long since he had to share it, or upstairs, where she’d lain for hours listening to random songs on her increasingly finicky iPod. Here in the living room, though, he was too close even when he was across the room.

  Gilly went to the window. Crossing her arms over her chest, she rubbed her elbows even though she wasn’t cold. He’d filled the woodstove with logs and it had heated the downstairs, at least. Heat was supposed to rise but maybe the vents were blocked or something, because upstairs stayed cold enough to show her breath.

  She couldn’t see much through the glass. The propane lanterns that illuminated the room didn’t quite reach outside. She couldn’t see the snow falling, but she could hear it. It sounded like a mother shushing a ceaselessly cranky child.

  Shh. Shh. Shhh.

  Todd clicked off the radio with an annoyed grunt. “Good thing I got the supplies when I did. Uncle Bill always said to shit when you had the paper.”

  Gilly didn’t turn. “How eloquent.”

  She’d spoken thick with sarcasm, but Todd only laughed. “He had a way with words, all right. He liked ’em. Big ones, especially.”

  She flicked a glance toward him. “I wouldn’t say shit’s a particularly big word.”

  “Nah. I mean he liked other big words. Like stygian and bumptious and callipygian.” He laughed, shaking his head. “That means you have a nice ass.”

  “It doesn’t!”

  “Sure it does. You can look it up if you want. Uncle Bill kept a list of words he ran across that he didn’t know. He’d look them up in the dictionary and write them down. He said a man who could use big words had something over the man who didn’t.” Todd paused. “Obviously I don’t much take after my uncle. Of course, Uncle Bill always said it was good to know your own faults, too.”

  She wasn’t sure if he were being self-deprecating or simply brutally honest. “He’s right.”

  “He was right,” Todd said. “Now he’s just dead.”

  Gilly had nothing to say to that but “I’m sorry.”

  Todd snorted. “Why? You didn’t even know him. No point in being sorry about something you didn’t do.”

  “Is that something else your uncle Bill said?”

  “As a matter of fact, he did.”

  Moments of silence passed with nothing but the sound of the snow outside and her own heart beating its slow tempo in her ears. Gilly stared out into the darkness, seeing nothing. Thinking of everything.

  “I’m hungry,” Todd said.

  She wasn’t, and didn’t answer. Gilly shut her eyes and leaned her forehead against the glass. The cold soothed her bruises.

  Shh. Shh. Shhh.

  “How about some dinner?”

  “No, thanks.” Her stomach turned over again at the thought of food, her throat so tight she wouldn’t be able to swallow anyway. And even if she did, it felt like all of it would come right back up.

  “I meant,” he said, “how about making me some dinner.”

  Oh, no, he did not just ask me that.

  “No.” Gilly twisted to face him for a moment, her face set in the look her husband called Wrath of the Gorgon. It was usually enough to send her family scattering, but not Todd. He just tilted his head to stare.

  “No?” Todd said as though he hadn’t heard her.

  “No,” Gilly repeated, and turned back to the window.

  Shh.

  Tears licked at the back of her eyelids, burning them. She swallowed another lump in her throat. Her fingers clutched tight into fists, her broken nails digging without mercy into her palms.

  “What do you mean, no?”

  She heard him get up from the table and braced herself for his touch. She already knew he had no trouble using his hands to get what he wanted. Well, he could force her into the kitchen if he wanted. Make a puppet of her, forcing her hands to cook, if that was important enough to him. Gilly thought about the promise she’d made to herself that she’d get out of this alive, but three months was a long time to serve as someone’s slave. She’d be damned if she would. Gilly straightened her spine and kept her face against the glass.

  “I’m not hungry. If you are, you can make yourself something to eat. I won’t do it for you.”

  He let out a low, confused snuffle. She pictured him shrugging, frowning, though she hadn’t turned around to see it. “Why not?”

  One. Two. Three.

  She wouldn’t make it to ten. “Because I’m not your wife and I’m not your mother. I’m not here to take care of you.”

  “But…” She heard the struggle in his voice as he tried to understand. “But you made dinner for me before, the other day when I came back.”

  “I made dinner for me,” Gilly said. “And I made enough for you while I was at it. It’s an entirely different thing. I was trying to be nice.”

  “Why don’t you try to be nice now?”

  His question was simple, and she had a simple answer.

  She turned to look at him. “Because there’s no point in it, now, is there?”

  She waited for him to speak. Instead, he left the room and went to the kitchen. She smelled garlic and ground beef, good smells that should’ve made her hungry but only sent bitterness surging onto her tongue. She heard the clatter of dishes and silverware, the sound of the kitchen chair scraping on the linoleum. Later, a belch.

  Gilly stayed looking out at the night, eyes not seeing the dark outside or the reflection of her face in the glass facing her. She looked beyond those things to the faces of her children and drew strength from them, and she listened to the soft sound of the snow covering the world outside.

  Shh. Shh. Shhh.

  11

  She’d woken earlier than him again. Gilly listened to the soft sound of Todd’s snoring from beyond the partition. Though an initial slow stretch proved her aches and pains had eased a little, her stomach rocked and her head pounded. Somehow this was worse than feeling as though she’d been beaten with a mallet.

  Why bother getting up? You have no place to go. Nothing to do. Nobody needs you. Go back to sleep. When’s the last time you stayed in bed so long?

  Gilly couldn’t convince herself to get up. She’d given up the luxury of sleeping in for babies, and it was one she missed the most. Admitting to herself she was enjoying not having to get out of bed felt wrong, but she forced herself to own it. She’d never been the sort to poke herself on purpose with pins, but something about this pain felt right.

  She still didn’t get up.

  Lethargy weighted her limbs. Beneath the layers of quilts, warmth cocooned her. She shifted her legs and the soft flannel of the nightgown rubbed against the heavy fleece sweatpants she wore beneath it. Turning onto her side, face snuggled into the pillow, Gilly sighed and drifted.

  When her leg cramped and her hip ached, she turned onto her back. When that position started to hurt, she rolled to her other side. She didn’t sleep, not really, no matter how much she wanted to. She did dream, though. Random patterns of memory and thought, currents of imagination painting pictures in her brain.

  Long, lazy nights spent making love. Burrowing deep under blankets against the light of morning, against the chill of winter air. Snuggling up tight against naked flesh, the sound of Seth’s voice and low laughter warming her as much as the layers of quilts. Pressing against him. Loving him.

  How long had it been since they’d spent a day like that together, staying in bed for hours? Enjoying each other’s company beyond just sex? Would she ever have the chance again?

  Her stomach gurgled, more in hunger than nausea this time. Gilly ran her tongue over her teeth and wrinkled her nose at the film there. She hadn’t showered or bathed, really bathed in four days.

  Until Todd built up the fire for the day, the cabin would stay cold. There was nothing else to do but brave it. She flung off the cov
ers and jumped out of bed. Her head pounded harder at the motion, but she forced herself to continue.

  With a quick glance over the partition at still-sleeping Todd, Gilly slipped the heavy flannel gown over her head and tucked it under her pillow, then tugged the covers over it. She grabbed the turtleneck shirt and sweater from the rocking chair next to the bed and pulled them both on. Later, she’d be reduced to short sleeves and sweating even, but for now she wanted both the protection of “real” clothes, not pajamas, and as many layers as she could.

  Todd muttered in his sleep, rolling onto his belly and pulling the pillow over his head as she walked past him. The floor creaked and she paused, but he didn’t wake. Downstairs, Gilly used the poker on the red coals until they flared and then put on a log. She warmed her hands for a few minutes at the stove and watched the huff of her breath shine silver and ephemeral before disappearing.

  She hated being cold. Really hated, not just disliked. Growing up, the house had always been chilly and dark. Gilly had vowed she’d never live that way, shivering and piling on sweaters to stay warm. And yet here she was, covered in goose bumps with the tip of her nose an ice cube.

  “Bleah,” Gilly muttered.

  The room warmed, slowly. Her stomach rumbled. She was no more eager to move from her spot near the stove than she’d been to get out of bed, but eventually she forced herself to get up and wander into the kitchen on toes still too miserably cold for her good humor.

  She finished her breakfast, more sugary cereal, with no sign or sound of Todd from above. Strangely, the sweetness again settled her stomach. She craved coffee, which was also odd since even at home she usually preferred tea.

  She washed her bowl and spoon and set them in the drainer to drip dry. So domestic, so normal. Gilly paused, hands still in the sink, fingers ringed with bubbles. She tried hard to find some outrage or anger or fear, but none came.

  As a kid, the only constant in their house had been inconstancy. From one day to the next Gilly was never sure whether her dad would be home or traveling, if her mother would be a bright and smiling TV-perfect mom, baking cookies, or something rather less pleasant. Gilly could adapt to anything. Even, it appeared, this.