Precious and Fragile Things Read online

  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