Precious and Fragile Things Read online

  She sighed again. “Take a nap. Sew that hole in your shirt. Better yet, wash the shirt, it’s disgusting.”

  Todd looked down at the front of it and ran his fingertips over the mother-of-pearl snap buttons. “I like this shirt.”

  “Obviously, since you’ve worn it for the past three days.”

  “Aw, Gilly,” Todd said with a grin. “You noticed.”

  She sighed. “Just…do something that doesn’t involve you annoying me!”

  “Is there anything that wouldn’t annoy you?” Todd got up from the couch. He shifted on his feet, looking for all the world like a cat ready to pounce on a mouse. Everything about him reminded her of some feral creature. He went to the window again. “I’m so fudging bored!”

  Gilly fixed him with an impatient stare. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “You like Monopoly?”

  Actually, she loved the game, but hadn’t played for years. A house with small children was no place for a game with a myriad of tiny pieces. Todd went to the large armoire in the corner and pulled out the familiar box.

  “We could play,” he said.

  “I’m busy.”

  The idea was tempting. She was more than a bit bored herself, but Gilly forced her attention back to the magazine. She couldn’t allow herself to relax with him or she’d be lost, and yet each passing moment in his company made it harder and harder to hold him at a distance. Not when he asked her to do innocent things like play Monopoly.

  “Your head hurting again?”

  She shook her head. Her fingers fluttered on the magazine’s slick pages. Todd sat down across from her and pulled the magazine from her hands.

  “Hey!”

  “Play with me, Gilly.”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “Shit.”

  Gilly snatched back the crumpled pages and turned her face from him. “Leave me alone, Todd.”

  “Just one game. C’mon. I’ll let you pick whatever piece you want. Top hat, race car, thimble, whatever. Hell, you can even roll first.”

  “I said no!” The words spit from her mouth like bullets from a gun.

  He recoiled, his mouth twisting. A spark that didn’t look like anger glimmered in his eyes, but Gilly didn’t flinch. She lifted her chin, daring him to protest.

  “Christ, you’re a bitch,” he said.

  Gilly put the magazine on the coffee table between them and stood up, hands on her hips. “Why do men always say that when they don’t get what they want?”

  Her head spun a little at the speed of her retreat, but she managed to walk away with some semblance of dignity. That he was right didn’t bother her. He’d called her a growling dog, too. If being a bitch meant she could survive this ordeal, then she’d be one.

  Todd’s voice stopped her at the foot of the stairs. “Is that what your husband calls you?”

  She stiffened. “Seth has never called me a bitch.”

  “Not to your face,” Todd muttered.

  Gilly bit back a retort. There’d been days when she knew her frustration spilled out in sharp words, her tongue a keener weapon than any knife. She knew she’d send her husband from her with his pride smarting, his love for her the only reason he’d kept his own replies civil. She knew it when it happened and had felt helpless to stop it, and she knew it now.

  She did with Todd what she’d so often felt incapable of doing with Seth—she held her tongue. Gilly went up the stairs and changed into her nightclothes: thick socks, heavy sweatpants, the flannel nightgown she hated but wore because it kept her warm. She got into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Daylight still filtered through the window, but through the densely falling snow the light was diffuse enough to ignore. She closed her eyes and waited for him to come and demand she get out of bed, but he didn’t.

  Much later, when night had fallen, she woke to the sound of Todd’s boots on the stairs. For once, she’d slept without dreaming. Within minutes the light he’d brought with him went out and they lay in the dark again. Together but separated by more than just the low half-wall. After a time, she heard his soft, slow breathing, and knew he slept.

  She desperately had to pee. Gilly blinked against the dark. Since she’d gone to bed so early, she hadn’t brought a light. She pressed her thighs together, but the dull, cramping ache in her bladder meant there was no way she’d be able to make it until morning.

  She swung her legs out of bed and shivered instantly. Without constant stoking, the woodstove quickly stopped heating the cabin. The shivering didn’t help her need to pee, and she took a few deep breaths to convince her body she was going to make it to the bathroom without embarrassing herself.

  Darkness would make the trip hazardous, and Gilly had a vision of herself tripping over something. Falling and wetting herself at the same time. Once upon a time she’d been able to go without bathroom breaks for hours, but not since having babies. She’d almost embarrassed herself enough times to know better than to tempt fate. Only the dimmest glimmer of light shone in through the windows on either end of the room, not enough to see by. She’d have to make it by memory.

  Think about it. Picture the room in your mind. You can find your way to the stairs, no problem. Just take one step at a time.

  Gilly walked with her hands held out like a sleepwalker. Instead of lifting her feet high, she slid them along the floor, shuffling to prevent herself from tripping. Her thighs bumped the edge of the dresser and her hands felt empty space in front of her. She shuffled forward.

  Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, not enough to see anything clearly but enough to let her know approximately where she was going. From the opening in the partition, there was a clear space between the rows of beds all the way to the steep stairwell. If she could make it all the way there without falling down them, she’d do all right.

  Once at the stairs, Gilly gripped the railing hard. Step by step. Downstairs a soft red glow from the stove’s vents gave her some meager light, but she used the wall to guide her to the bathroom where she sat with an audible sigh.

  On the way back through the living room, she paused. Her house was never this quiet. There was always the ambient hum of appliances, the sound of occasional traffic and the dog, who could never be content to simply sleep but had to yip and pant and scrabble in constant doggie dreams. This cabin was silent, not even any wind outside blowing snow against the walls.

  Yet this felt familiar, being awake while everyone else slept. She had spent many nights wandering the house in the dark, unable to sleep. Sometimes because she was simply waiting to be woken, sometimes because of an overwhelming need to check on everything one last time. Sometimes because no matter how exhausted she was, she couldn’t go to bed until toys that would simply be dumped again in the morning had been put away, or that last load of laundry tossed in the washer. The dishes soaking in the sink scrubbed and dried and put away so she didn’t have to face them in the morning.

  Gilly always felt like the only member of her household who cared if any of those tasks were completed. It didn’t stop her, though. Those were things she could control, make happen. Now she tipped her face to the ceiling. This nighttime wandering felt familiar, but she couldn’t let herself forget that it wasn’t.

  She climbed the steps, the journey up in darkness somehow easier than it had been going down. Todd’s breathing grew louder as she got closer. She picked out his form in the darkness, a huddled lump in the middle bed on the right-hand side. The moon had risen and by chance or luck a pale shaft of moonlight managing to trickle through the window highlighted the curved metal headboard. Gilly glimpsed a tuft of dark hair on the white pillow.

  He shifted as she drew near and flung one long arm above his head. Now the soft light seemed to almost caress the curve of his jaw, the line of his lips. He muttered something, softly, and Gilly froze.

  She drew closer to the bed, watching the way his mouth pursed with his breath. In sleep, with the covers shielding most of his body from her, he l