Precious and Fragile Things Read online

  She didn’t read as much as she used to. Not enough time. She missed it, though. “Yeah? Like what?”

  Todd shrugged. “I like horror. And science fiction.”

  “Me, too.” Gilly perched on the edge of the chair. “Like what?”

  Todd gave her another look. “You want me to tell you about what books I read?”

  “Yes. Maybe I’ve read them, too. We could talk about them.”

  “The fuck you think this is, The Oprah Show?” Todd laughed again and shook his head. “Right.”

  “Never mind. Don’t tell me.” Gilly sighed and started pacing again.

  To the window. To the door. To the kitchen, where she filled a glass with water and drank only half before dumping it down the drain.

  Todd gave her another look but settled back onto the couch. Again, she envied him the ability to sit for long periods of time doing nothing. Now, however, she did not cruelly assume the skill came from his lack of intelligence. Now she imagined the trait had grown within him out of necessity.

  “I liked this book called Swan Song,” Todd offered. “You ever read that one?”

  “No.” Gilly turned from the sink and looked at him from under the hanging cabinets dividing the living room from the kitchen, then came around to lean in the doorway. “What’s it about?”

  “Nuclear war. Bunch of bombs go off and then the people have to survive nuclear winter. It scared the shit out of me as a kid,” Todd said with a grin. “I read it about four times. Took me for-fucking-ever, though. It’s really long.”

  “I wish I had a book now,” Gilly said.

  Todd looked around, frowning. “Yeah. Sorry. Uncle Bill wasn’t much of a reader, and I didn’t think about it when…well. You know.”

  She did know and didn’t really want to go over all that ground again. She left the doorway to look out the front windows. Snow and more snow. She sighed.

  Her stomach growled, but the thought of actually eating made her want to gag. A twinge of headache ran behind her eyes, telling her to sit down and close them or suffer the consequences. Gilly made a place for herself on one of the couches, plumped the sagging cushions, rescued a crocheted afghan from one of the drawers in the armoire. She laid her head back, letting her body sink into the barely comfortable couch.

  “What’s your favorite book?” Todd asked.

  “I have so many, I’m not sure I could pick one.”

  “If you had to,” Todd said.

  She turned her head to look at him on the couch’s other end. “Oh. Maybe the collected works of Ray Bradbury. Something like that. I could read all those stories over and over again.”

  “Ray Bradbury!” Todd’s eyes lit. “Electric Grandmother.”

  “You know it?”

  “Yeah, sure. I used to wish for one.” Todd was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again his tone wasn’t sad or wistful, just resigned. “Of course I never had one, I mean, even if they were real I’d never have been able to get one. But I always thought it would be great to have.”

  “Yeah,” Gilly said.

  They fell into companionable silence.

  Did she sleep, or only dream? In the silence, and with only the flickering red-gold light from the woodstove to illuminate the room, Gilly didn’t know for sure. This was different from earlier, when she’d sought the realm of sleep to escape reality. Now she embraced the reality of being here, the snow outside, the man slouched at the other end of the couch. Cigarette smoke tickled her nose, and the glowing ember of the tip of Todd’s Marlboro winked at her.

  Only a few weeks ago she’d never have sat this way with him. Things were different now. After what he’d told her, how could they not? Gilly rescued stray kittens, donated her time and money to the local soup kitchen, was always the first to weep at the tragedies she saw on the evening news. She couldn’t have hardened her heart against Todd any more than she could’ve refused to go to her children when they wept for her in the night.

  She knew the date only because she could see it on the dial of her watch. February, the coldest and dankest month. The one with Valentine’s Day right in the middle, a made-up holiday people needed just to get through—and someone had made it shorter, too, knowing that February just couldn’t be borne for thirty days. It was only February.

  But March would come soon, and with it, warmer days. Days when the snow would melt and she could…she could…

  Gilly opened her eyes to the yellow glow of the propane lantern and the sight of Todd banking the fire for the night. She would not think of March now, not when she could do nothing to hasten its arrival.

  “Ready for bed?” Todd asked her.

  She rose lazily from her self-made nest and nodded, surprised to find herself tired after the hours of inactivity. “Yes.”

  He climbed the stairs in front of her, leading the way with the light so she would not trip. He gave her the lantern to put on her dresser, then turned away without being asked to give her privacy while she dressed for bed.

  “Good night,” she called across the partition as she turned out the light. It was the first time she’d ever said the words to him.

  Later, his moans woke her from dreamless sleep. Gilly blinked in the darkness, confused for a moment before remembering where she was. She heard the shuffling of sheets, the whisper of bare feet on the wooden floor.

  She didn’t need the light to know he was there. Todd hesitated in the opening of the partition. Gilly had been woken countless times by just such an apparition, albeit one usually much smaller, but with the same intent.

  She flipped back the covers and slid over, whispering: “It’s all right. You can come in.”

  Anxiety filled her for one moment, for despite all he’d shared with her, Todd was not a child. He slid in beside her, his own heat radiating like an oven even though he’d been standing in the frigid air.

  “I have bad dreams, sometimes,” he whispered.

  “It’s okay.” Gilly pushed him onto his side so she could curl against his back. She pressed her cheek to the softness of his T-shirt, took the warmth he provided and prepared to offer comfort of her own. “So do I.”

  35

  Todd laid the yellow three on top of the blue three, and crowed, “Uno!”

  Gilly sighed dramatically. “I don’t have any threes…or any yellows…”

  He hooted and rapped the table with his hands, managing to do a victory dance while still seated. Gilly pretended to reach for the draw pile, but then drew back.

  “Oh, wait,” she said. “I do have this wild card…the one that says Draw Four.”

  She put the multicolored card on the pile and smirked. “Uno. The color is red.”

  Todd narrowed his eyes at her. “You suck.”

  Gilly rolled her eyes. “And you’re a poor loser.”

  “No, I ain’t.” Todd grinned, and Gilly had to look away so as not to let herself be taken breathless with how the smile swept his face into beauty. “I can still win.”

  He proved it by picking up four cards and slapping down a red skip card, followed by a yellow skip card. Gilly, who could no longer use her remaining red card, had to draw from the pile.

  “Me and Uncle Bill had some pretty good Uno tournaments,” Todd said as he gathered up the scattered cards to reshuffle. “Don’t feel bad.”

  “I don’t.”

  He shot her a glance. “What would you be doing if you was home, now?”

  The question startled her. “What?”

  Todd dealt another hand of cards. “What would you be doing?”

  Gilly crossed her hands on the table and stared down at them. “I wouldn’t be playing Uno.”

  He waited for her to speak. She heard the soft rise and fall of his breathing and became intensely aware of his gaze upon her. Hot, like a flame held too close to her skin.

  “It’s ten-thirty on a Sunday morning,” Gilly said. “I would probably be at the synagogue, watching the door during Hebrew School.”

  His puzzled lo