Precious and Fragile Things Read online

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t have to. Stay here with me. Let me take care of you.”

  “What?” Gilly forced herself up from the chair. She couldn’t make sense of what he’d just said. “What exactly do you want?”

  “Have your baby with me,” Todd said, a note of growing desperation in his voice. “Just…just say you’ll stay here with me. We can raise it together.”

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” Gilly shrieked. She backed away from him, toward the stairs. The horror of his suggestion raced through her. “Are you crazy?”

  “Don’t you call me that!” Todd was across to her in two strides. His fingers closed around her upper arms, holding her. “Just don’t!”

  Gilly didn’t fight him. She didn’t strike back. The child swimming in her belly made that impossible. She had more than herself to care for now. Protective instinct surged forth, overwhelming her. She’d thought she’d do anything to get back to her children, but now, to protect the life growing inside her, she knew she would. Whatever it took.

  Lie. Cheat. Steal.

  Kill.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered and let him pull her closer again.

  “I just wanted to tell you something.” He didn’t wait for her to reply before continuing. “I want you to know…I didn’t mean it. About the ranger, or you. I would never…I’d never hurt you, Gilly. Not ever.”

  “I know you wouldn’t.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course, Todd.” Cheek pressed to the soft flannel of his shirt, she nodded. “I know you.”

  “And you’ll stay with me, right?”

  “All right,” Gilly said in a voice as cold as the icicles hanging from the roof outside. “Okay, Todd. I’ll stay with you.”

  She did know him, she thought as he let her go with one last squeeze. Todd was a rose. He’d be beautiful if tended properly, but would always have thorns.

  49

  “I’m pregnant, not disabled,” Gilly told Todd, who’d just insisted on bringing her lunch to the couch. “Really, it’s better for me to be active.”

  “You sure?” His worried expression was so sincere, it scraped at Gilly’s heart.

  She touched his cheek. “I’m sure.”

  He set the tray he’d prepared on the table. “Don’t you got to have good food, though? Milk and eggs and shit? Vitamins?”

  “Well, yes. I should.” Gilly eyed the plate of boxed macaroni and cheese made with water instead of butter and milk. He’d sprinkled some peanuts on top. “But we don’t have those things.”

  “Won’t it hurt the baby?”

  She’d had no doctor’s appointments, no checkups. She’d been battered and stressed. She’d suffered trauma. But she couldn’t allow herself to dwell on those things. Not when she had no way of changing them.

  “I’ll be fine. Women have been having babies for thousands of years.”

  “And lots of them died,” Todd said.

  Gilly’s hands fisted at the bluntness of his words. “Todd!”

  He shrugged, then sat down beside her. “I don’t know anything about pregnant ladies. I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said tightly, though images of blood-soaked sheets filled her mind. Her womb twinged in memory, and a sharp pain stabbed between her legs. Cold sweat trickled down her spine.

  Todd put his arm around her. “Do you think it will be a boy or a girl?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook herself mentally, though the image had been so vivid she could practically smell the copper tang of blood.

  “If it’s a boy,” Todd said slowly. “Do you think we could name him Bill?”

  The very thought of naming her child after Todd’s dead uncle turned her stomach. Gilly smiled. “Of course.”

  His answering smile was like the sun parting rain clouds. “Cool!”

  He got up and took the tray to the kitchen. Gilly poked a fork at the urine-colored pasta, but didn’t eat it. She touched the small bulge of her tummy, knowing it was too early to feel anything but imagining the flutter of movement anyway. She had to care for this child. She ate the macaroni, every last bite of it.

  Later, when the afternoon had passed into evening, Todd brought out a pair of white candles and set them on the counter. “I thought you might want these.”

  Gilly looked at him in surprise. She’d allowed the past few Sabbath evenings to pass without lighting candles to commemorate them. She’d been unable to perform the rituals that usually so calmed her. Lighting the candles had made her ache for her family too much.

  “Thank you.” Gilly took the pack of matches and lit one, touching it to the first wick and then the other. She closed her eyes and waved her hands toward her face, then said the blessing aloud.

  “Why do you do that thing with your hands?” Todd asked when she’d finished.

  For a moment she didn’t know what he meant. The habit of candle-lighting was so ingrained she didn’t have to really think about any one part of it. Then she understood.

  “You mean this?” She repeated the gesture.

  “Yeah.”

  “When I do that,” Gilly said with a sigh that came from her toes, “I’m gathering up all the bits of wonder I’ve found since last Shabbat and offering them up to Adonai. To God. All the blessings and things to be thankful for.”

  “What did you send up this week?” Todd asked her as innocently as any child.

  Gilly touched her stomach. “This.” She thought, then touched his shoulder. “And you, I guess.”

  She hadn’t thought she would say such a thing until it popped out of her mouth. The awful and hilarious thing was, she meant it. Hate and love were two pages back to back in the same story. What she felt for him now was no different than what she’d felt in the beginning, and yet it was vastly, immensely dissimilar. As was everything inside her. Nothing could ever be the same.

  Todd looked pleased. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Gilly said. “Sure, Todd.”

  Even she couldn’t be certain if she was lying.

  50

  Drip. Drip. Drip. The icicles on the porch grew longer every day. First the sun melted them enough to allow the water to drip from the ends, and when night came they froze. Now they looked like great, jagged teeth in the mouth of an enormous beast.

  Was it better to be on the inside looking out, already consumed by the giant? Or to be outside, looking at the teeth ready to snap down on tender flesh? Gilly leaned her forehead against the window, pondering.

  “Want to play a game?” Todd asked.

  “No.” Gilly’s hands caressed her belly absently. Her thoughts were on the baby. Boy or girl, this time?

  “There’s another puzzle in the cabinet. I’ll help you put it together. It’s got trains on it.”

  “No, thanks.”

  Todd let out a frustrated sigh. “C’mon, Gilly. Let’s do something!”

  She blinked, focusing on him. “I don’t feel like doing anything.”

  He groaned. “Damn it!”

  In the light of her hormonal glow, his childishness was endearing rather than annoying. Gilly smiled and rolled her eyes. “What game would you like to play?”

  Todd crossed to the large armoire and opened the doors. “Monopoly. Life. Checkers. Battleship…ah, shit, half the pieces are missing out of that one. Shit. We’ve played all these a million times.”

  It certainly felt as though they had. “What’s up on that shelf, up there?”

  Gilly pointed. Despite his height, Todd stood too close to the shelves to see to the back of the ones above his head. From her vantage point across the room, though, Gilly saw some boxes tucked back in the shadows. Perhaps more games, or another puzzle. Something fresh to them, anyway, and something to relieve the tedium.

  Todd reached up and stuck his hand back along the shelf. He still wasn’t quite tall enough to grab it. “Grab me a chair, will you?”

  Her attention now was piqued. Gilly