Precious and Fragile Things Read online

  Her throat was dry. She needed a drink. Gilly looked around the walls of the prison she’d inflicted upon herself. A wave of dizziness washed over her and she sat on the bed, then put her head on the pillow, hoping it would pass. She’d caught every flu bug Arwen brought home from kindergarten, from the nastiest stomach virus to the most persistent of colds. No amount of hand washing had seemed to help, and she was wary of overusing hand sanitizer, fearing the creation of a superbug more than risking the chance of catching yet another case of the sniffles. She’d been on antibiotics, on and off, for the past few weeks, to get rid of a bad sinus infection. Now she felt even worse, aching from head to toe and shivering with chills. She got up just long enough to slide back beneath the covers again and closed her eyes against the pain stabbing her behind the lids.

  If there was any relief for her, it had the same source as her anxiety. She felt sick; she could lie down without fear of little hands plucking at her, little voices calling her name. The last time she’d taken herself to bed, unable to stand up without the world spinning, Gandy had decided to remove all the DVDs from their cases and, for some reason known only to his toddler brain, stick them in and out of the jumbo-size tub of margarine she used for making grilled cheese. That had been the day she called Seth, desperate for him to come home early from work, and he had.

  There’d be no Seth to rescue her this time.

  Desperation gnawed at her, a frenzied yearning to burst into action. She forced herself still, resting. Nothing to be gained by wild action; she’d learned that lesson the hard way. She thought of the snow outside, and she thought of Todd.

  She supposed the real question was what did she think he would do to keep her, if he couldn’t or wouldn’t let her go? Did she think he would kill her if he had to? She remembered the desperation in his cry “I won’t go back to jail!” And she thought that yes, he might. He might be slow of thought, and he might be kind at heart, but something had happened to him that made him what he was today. Gilly didn’t think Todd had brought her here to kill her, but she did believe he would if he felt he had to.

  But hadn’t she determined that she’d do the same? If the chance arose, if she was left with nothing else. The thought of it now sent a shudder cascading up and down her spine, like cold fingers stroking the nape of her neck. She’d tried to change his mind, and she’d tried to escape. Both had failed. But what would happen if she killed him? The third option that had seemed so matter-of-fact and to-the-point didn’t feel that way now.

  Even if she managed to bring herself to kill him, she was still trapped in this cabin without a phone, without a map, without proper clothes. No vehicle, that was her own stupid fault. Even if he died, there was nothing for her to do until the snow melted. She snuggled deeper into the cave of warmth her body heat created beneath the blankets. It turned out she had a fourth option.

  Waiting.

  8

  Three days gone. She’d never been away from her babies for that long. Not to visit a friend, not to go on a girls’ weekend away, not even to a scrapbooking seminar.

  In her college days and just after, before meeting Seth, Gilly had been a traveler. She’d stayed in youth hostels or taken summer jobs at tourist destinations in different states. She’d jaunted on spur-of-the-moment trips based on whatever cheap airfare she’d found. Once she’d bought a companion ticket on an ocean liner from an elderly woman whose friend had been unable to make it at the last minute. The woman’s name was Esther and though Gilly had been nervous about sharing a cabin with a stranger, the two of them had hit it off superbly. They’d kept in touch for years, until Esther passed away. Gilly hadn’t traveled like that in a long, long time and probably never would again.

  Seth traveled sometimes for work. He came home with the news of a conference or business trip, how many days he’d be gone, what time his flights left and returned. He made his plans and took the trips without a second thought about who’d pick up Arwen from kindergarten or take Gandy to preschool. Who’d feed and walk the dog, sign for deliveries. Pay the bills or take care of the loads of laundry. Seth decided he was going, and he went.

  A trip for Gilly would take weeks of planning and countless favors called in from friends to juggle her children’s schedules and her time commitments. The effort it took for her to step out the door for a trip to the grocery store by herself would be magnified to such extent even a few days spent in a spa getting hot-stone massages and foot rubs from handsome, oiled men in loincloths wouldn’t be worth the hassle.

  This was not even close to a hot-stone massage. Paused at the bottom of the stairs, Gilly looked across the room at Todd sitting at the table, still sorting through his folder of papers. He had a cigarette in one hand and sucked in long, deep draws of smoke he held for an impossibly long time before letting it seep from his nostrils. His hair fell forward as he bent over the papers, but she could still see the wounds she’d inflicted on his face. The cuts were evidence she’d done what she could to get away, but small consolation compared to her aches and bruises.

  She’d stayed upstairs for what felt like an hour but might’ve been two. Might’ve been fifteen minutes. She didn’t have a watch, the cabin had no clocks, and the daylight outside was set permanently to twilight. More snow drifted down in spurts, dandruff brushed from a giant’s shoulders.

  Todd looked up when her foot creaked on the bottom step. He closed the folder and stood. “Hi.”

  Walking stiffly so as to jar her sore muscles as little as possible, Gilly limped into the living room. She kept a wary distance, but Todd acted as though he’d never raised a hand to her. He came around the couch but stopped when she took a step back.

  “I got your stuff,” he said.

  “What stuff?” Gilly asked. She didn’t think he was capable of being particularly subtle, but she was wary of some sort of trick she couldn’t anticipate.

  Todd hesitated, then gestured at the front door. “Your stuff. From the truck. I got what I could, anyway. It was fuckall tough. That little tree’s not going to hold it much longer. But…I thought you might want stuff out of it before it hits the bottom of the mountain.”

  Gilly’s aching knees buckled. The doorway saved her from falling as she gripped it with her sore hand. He’d brought her things.

  She moved on stumbling feet, three, four, five steps, to crouch by the pile of miscellaneous junk Todd had brought back from the wreck. Most of it was junk. A scattering of plastic toys. A stray sock that had been missing for months and was now too small for either of the kids. A sippy cup, thick with the remnants of some red juice. Gandy’s blankie, many times repaired and badly in need of a wash. He’d be missing it by now. Crying for it, unable to sleep.

  Gilly grabbed it. Held it to her face. Breathed in the scent of her son. She made a wordless noise of grief into the fabric.

  You’re never going to see him again. Or Arwen, or Seth. This is what you did, Gilly. This is what you deserve.

  “Gilly?”

  Todd’s hand came to rest on her shoulder, and she shook it off. Clutching the blankie to her chest, she glared up at him. “Don’t. Just don’t!”

  Todd held up both hands, face grim. “Fine. Jesus. What a bitch.”

  He slouched away, boots heavy and clomping on the bare boards of the floor. Gilly crouched over her meager pile of belongings. The detritus of motherhood. Tiny, mismatched pieces of her heart.

  She found her iPod, safe in the soft eyeglass case she used to transport it, the earbuds still wrapped around it. He’d also brought the black CD case bulging with discs she only listened to while driving. Bat Boy, scratched probably beyond repair.

  Behind her, Gilly heard Todd pacing, but she didn’t look. She held the CD close to her. She’d bought this disc with Seth at one of the last few shows this cast had performed at an off-Broadway theater, four days after the Twin Towers had fallen.

  “We took the ferry,” she said.

  Todd’s boots stopped thumping.

  Gilly