Precious and Fragile Things Read online

  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.”

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