Precious and Fragile Things (4 page)

Condolences rose automatically to her lips and she pressed them closed. It would be ridiculous to express sorrow over a stranger's death, especially to this man. Her fingers curled against the table. Surreal, all of this.

You're not dreaming this, Gilly. You know that, right? This is real. It's happening.

She knew it better than anything and yet still couldn't manage to process it. She stared across the table. “He left you this cabin?”

“Yeah. It's all mine now.” He nodded and gave her a grin shocking in its rough beauty, its normality. They might've been chatting over coffee. This was more terrifying than his anger had been.

She looked around the room, like maybe it might look better with another glance. It didn't. “It's cold in here.”

He shrugged, pulling the sleeves of his sweatshirt down over
his fingertips and hugging his arms around himself. “Yeah. I could light a fire. That'll help.”

“It's late,” Gilly pointed out. She'd been about to say she needed to go to bed, but she didn't want him to get the wrong idea. Fear flared again as she watched him run his tongue along the curve of his smile. He was bigger than she was and certainly stronger. She wouldn't be able to stop him from forcing her.

“Yeah” was all he said, though, and made no move to leap across the table to ravish her. He blinked, cocking his head in a puppyish fashion that might have been endearing under other circumstances. “Let's go to bed.”

Stricken, Gilly didn't move even when he pushed away from the table and gestured to her. Her throat dried.
Lie back and enjoy it,
she thought irrationally, remembering what a friend of hers had said a blind date gone horribly wrong had told her to do. Gilly's friend had kicked the would-be rapist in the nuts and run away, but Gilly had given up the chance for running back at the gas station. Even if she ran, now, where would she go?

He went to the propane lamps and lowered the flames to a dim glow, then jerked his head toward the steep, narrow stairs. “Beds are upstairs. C'mon.”

On wobbly legs she followed him. She'd been right about the stairs. Dark, steep, narrow and splintery. Festooned with cobwebs and lit only by the lantern he carried.

The stairs entered directly into one large room that made up the entire upstairs. More propane sconces, wreathed in spiderwebs furry with dust, lined the walls beneath the peaked roof. The windows on each end were grimy with dirt and more cobwebs. A waist-high partition with a space to walk
through divided the room in half widthwise. A low, slatted wall protected unwary people from falling down the stairs.

“Beds.” He pointed. “You can have the one back there.”

He meant beyond the partition. Gilly realized he didn't intend to follow her when he handed her the lantern. She passed the double row of twin beds, three on each side of the room, then went through the open space in the middle of the partition. On the other side were a sagging full-size bed, a dresser, an armoire and an ancient rocking chair. A faded rag rug covered the wooden plank floor.

“Cozy,” she muttered and set the lantern on the dresser.

The man had already crawled into one of the beds on the other side. Gilly, mouth pursed with hesitant distaste, pulled back the heavy, musty comforter. The sheets beneath were no longer white, but still fairly clean. Nothing rustled in them, at least nothing she could see.

She unlaced her useless boots and slipped them off with a sigh, wriggling her toes. She hadn't realized how much they hurt until she took off her boots. Without removing her coat, Gilly crawled into bed and pulled the knobby cover up to her chin. The thought of putting her head on the pillow made her cringe, and she pulled her hood up to cover her hair.

His voice came at her out of the dark. “What's your name, anyway?”

“Gillian. Gilly.”

“I'm Todd.”

She heard the squeak of springs as he settled further into the mattress. Then exhaustion claimed her, and she fell asleep.

W
hat finally woke Gilly was not a warm body burrowing next to hers and the stench of an overripe diaper. Nor was it the sudden blaring of a television tuned permanently to the cartoon channel. What woke her this morning was the numbness of her face.

She hadn't slept without nightly interruption for more than five years but now her eyes drifted open slowly. Gradually. Bright morning sunshine dimmed by the dirt on the window glass filled the room. She'd rolled herself into the covers, cocooned against the bitter winter air. Her hood, pulled up around her hair, had kept her head warm enough. Her face, though, had lain exposed all night. She couldn't feel her cheeks or her nose or her lips.

The night rushed back at her. Her heart thumped, and her mouth behind the frozen lips went dry. Gilly sat up in the sagging double bed, fighting to untangle the covers that had protected her through the night.

She managed to push them off. On stiff legs she got out of bed and hugged her coat around her. Her boots were gone.

Everything in the dusty attic room shone with an unreal clarity that defied the fuzziness of her thoughts. How long had she slept? The sudden, panicked thought she might have slept for more than just one night, that she'd been gone for days, forced her into action.

In the light of day she could no longer take solace in the dark to hide her actions, to excuse her decisions. She'd made a terrible mistake last night. She could only hope she had the chance to fix it.

Gilly pounded down the stairs, breath frosting out in front of her. She hurtled into the living room and stumbled over her own feet. She caught herself on the back of the hideous plaid sofa.

From the kitchen, Todd swung his shaggy brown head around to look at her from his place at the stove. “You all right?”

She didn't miss the irony of his concern. “Yeah. Thanks.”

By the time she walked across the living room and entered the kitchen, her stomach had begun to grumble like thunder. The last thing she'd eaten was half a granola bar Arwen had begged for and then refused because it had raisins in it. Gilly swallowed against the rush of saliva.

“Hungry?” A cigarette hung from Todd's mouth and wreaths of smoke circled his head. He lifted a spatula. “I'm making breakfast. Take your coat off. Stay awhile.”

Gilly wrinkled her nose at the stench of smoke and didn't laugh at what he'd obviously meant to be funny. With her stomach making so much noise she couldn't pretend she wasn't hungry, though she didn't want to admit it. “I'm cold. What time is it?”

Todd shrugged and held up a wrist bare of anything but a smattering of dark hair. “Dunno. I don't have a watch.”

Her stomach told her she'd slept well past eleven. Maybe even past noon. It grumbled again, and she pressed her hands into her belly to stop the noise.

Gilly looked around the kitchen. The propane-powered appliances were old, like the chairs on the porch, straight out of the 1950s. Green flowered canisters labeled Flour, Coffee, Sugar and Tea, and a vintage table and chairs set stuck off in one corner prompted her to mutter, “You could make a fortune on eBay selling this stuff.”

Todd swiveled his head to look at her again. “What?”

“Nothing.”

From the stove in front of him came the sound of sizzling and the smell of something good. A wire camping toaster resting on the table held two slices of bread, a little browner than she preferred. Her stomach didn't seem to care.

“Toast,” Todd said unnecessarily. He pointed with the spatula. “There's butter and jelly in the fridge.”

All this as casual as coffee, she thought. All of this as though there was nothing wrong. She might've woken at a friend's house or a bed and breakfast. She shuddered, stomach twisting again. She fisted her hands at her sides, but there was nothing she could grab on to that would stop the world from turning.

“Christ, move your ass! Put it on the table,” Todd said, voice prompting as if she was an idiot.

She jumped. The command got her feet moving, anyway. Not from fear—he didn't sound angry, just annoyed. More a point of pride, that she wasn't so scared of him she couldn't move, or so stupid she couldn't figure out how to eat breakfast.

Remembering his comments the night before, Gilly hesitated to open the refrigerator. She expected to recoil from the smell of dead rodents and had one hand already up to her nose in preparation. The interior of the appliance was not sparkling; age would prevent that from ever being true again. But it was clean. The caustic but somehow pleasant scent of cleanser drifted to her nostrils. Food filled every shelf, crammed into every corner. Jugs of milk and juice, loaves of bread, packages of bologna and turkey and deli bags of cheese. The freezer was the same, bulging with packages of ground beef and chicken breasts. No vegetables that she could see, but plenty of junk food in brightly colored boxes, full of chemicals and fat. The sort of food she bought but felt guilty for serving.

“You went shopping.”

“Even bastards gotta eat,” Todd said.

Gilly pulled out the jumbo-size containers of jelly and margarine, not real butter, and set them on the table. She shifted on her feet, uncertain what to do next. She wasn't used to not being the one at the stove. The bare table beckoned, and she opened cupboards in search of plates and cups, pulled out a drawer to look for silverware. The tiny kitchen meant they needed complicated choreography to get around each other, but she managed to set the table while Todd shifted back and forth at the stove to give her room to maneuver.

When at last she'd finished and stood uncertainly at the table, Todd turned with a steaming skillet in one hand. “Sit down.”

Gilly sat. Todd set the skillet on the table without putting a hot pad underneath it, but Gilly supposed it wouldn't matter. One more scorch mark on the silver-dappled white veneer would hardly make much of a difference.

Todd scooped a steaming pile of eggs, yellow interspersed
with suspicious pink bits, onto her plate. Gilly just stared at it. She smelled bacon, which of course she wouldn't eat, and which of course he couldn't know.

Instead she spread her browned toast with a layer of margarine and jelly and bit into it. The flavor of it burst on her tongue, igniting her hunger. She gobbled the rest of the bread and left only crumbs.

A teakettle she hadn't noticed began to whistle. Todd left the table to switch off the burner and pull two chipped mugs from one of the cupboards. Into each he dropped a tea bag and filled the mugs with the boiling water, then pushed one across the table at her.

He took his chair again and settled into the act of eating as naturally as if he'd known her all their lives. He ate with gusto, great gulps and lip smacking. His fork went from the plate to his mouth and back again, with little pause. Watching him, Gilly was reminded of the way their dog crouched over his bowl to keep the cat from stealing the food. Her stomach shriveled in envy. One piece of toast wasn't going to be enough.

He paused in his consumption long enough to look up at her. “You not eating? There's plenty. I made extra.”

The sudden loud gurgle of her stomach would make her a liar if she said no. “Maybe some more toast.”

The smooth skin of his brow furrowed. “You don't like eggs?”

Gilly pointed to the skillet. “Ah…they've got bacon mixed in with them.”

Todd licked his lips. The gesture was feral and wary, as though she was trying to trick him and he knew it, but wasn't sure how to stop her. “Yeah?”

“I don't eat bacon,” Gilly explained. Her stomach gurgled
louder. She'd no more eat the breakfast he'd cooked than she would kick a puppy, but the smell
was
making her mouth water.

“Why not?”

“I'm Jewish,” she said simply. “I don't eat pork.”

Todd swiped his sweatshirt sleeve across his lips. “What?”

Gilly was used to having to explain herself. “I don't eat bacon. I'm Jewish.”

Todd looked down at his plate and shoved the last few bites of pig-tainted eggs around with his fork. When he looked up at her, she noticed his eyes were the same shade as milk chocolate. “You don't look Jewish.”

The comment, so ripe with anti-Semitism, was one she'd heard often and which never ceased to rankle. “Well, you don't look crazy.”

He cocked his head at her, again lining the rim of his lips with his tongue. From any other young man the gesture might have been sensual or even aggressively, overtly sexual. On Todd, it merely made him look warily contemplative. Like a dog that's been kicked too many times but keeps coming to the back door, anyway. Mistrustful, waiting for the blow, but unable to stop returning.

“Uncle Bill always made the eggs that way up here,” he said finally. “He called them camp eggs. But I can make you some without bacon, if you want.”

She wanted to deny him that kindness, to keep him as the villain. Her stomach gurgled some more, and she couldn't. “I'll make them.”

She pushed away from the table, heat stinging in her cheeks. Why should she feel guilty? He was the bad guy. He'd held a
knife on her, kidnapped her, stolen her vehicle. Put her kids in danger.

“Can you use this skillet, or…” His voice trailed off uncertainly from behind her. “Or do you need one that didn't have pig in it?”

Again she thought of a kicked dog, slinking around the back door hoping for a moment of kindness, and the heat burned harder in her face. That she doubted there was any utensil in this cabin that hadn't at some point touched something non-kosher didn't really matter. He was trying to be considerate. This, like his concern when she'd tripped, was scarier than if he'd shouted and threatened. This made him…normal.

And if he was normal, what did that make her?

“No, I can just wash it out. That one will be fine.”

He scraped the remains of the skillet onto his plate and handed it to her. She washed it, then opened the fridge and pulled out the cardboard carton of eggs. She opened two cupboards before she found a bowl and rinsed it free of any dust that might have gathered. She cracked the first egg into it, checking automatically for blood spots that would make it inedible.

The skin on the back of her neck prickled. He was watching her, and of course. What else would he look at but this woman in his kitchen, a stranger he'd stolen? Gilly broke another egg with crushing fingers, bits of shell falling into yellow yolk.

“How long have you been Jewish?”

It wasn't the question she'd expected. “My whole life.”

Todd laughed. “I guess that's about how long I've been crazy.”

Crazy.

She'd thrown out the term offhandedly, the way most people did, not meaning it. The way Todd had, himself. His
tone had told her he didn't think he was crazy. Not really. Gilly didn't think he was crazy, either. Gilly knew crazy.

Crazy was having a chance to escape and ignoring it, not just once, but many times. Crazy was wanting to escape in the first place.

Her stomach lurched into her throat, bile bitter on the back of her tongue. She swallowed convulsively. She wasn't hungry anymore. She beat the eggs anyway and poured them into the skillet along with some margarine. The smooth yellow mess curdled and cooked. Gilly knew she wouldn't be able to eat it now no matter how hollow her stomach. She removed the eggs from the stove and turned off the flame.

She sipped in a breath, forming her words with care, keeping her tone light and easy. Casual as coffee. “Where are we, by the way?”

“My uncle's cabin. I told you last night.”

Keeping her back to him, Gilly gripped the edge of the counter. “No. I mean…
where
are we? We drove a long time. I fell asleep. I don't know where we are.”

A beat of silence. Then, “I'm not telling you. Jesus, you think I'm stupid enough to do that?”

Last night he'd held a knife to her and she'd been angry; this morning, faced with the kindness of breakfast and his sullen but nonaggressive tone, Gilly had to dig deeper than her fear to find even a thread of fury. She drew in a breath and then another. She gripped the counter so hard her knuckles turned white and one nail bent and cracked.

She turned to face him. “Todd. That's your name, right? Todd, you have to take me back. Or take me someplace. Let me go.”

He wasn't looking at her. He shook his shaggy head and got up from the table to stalk to the living room with a handful
of paper napkins he used to build up the fire in the sooty woodstove. He went to the table and picked up a bulging folder, then took it to the woodstove where he crouched in front of its warmth, sifting through the papers. Every so often he threw one of them into the blaze.

“Please,” Gilly said from the kitchen.

Todd ignored her, bent to his task with a single-minded self-absorption. He muttered as he worked, but she couldn't make out the words. Gilly moved to the living room, wanting to draw closer to the fire's warmth but feeling as though it was up to her to keep a proper distance between them. There had to be something for her to say or do to make him listen.

If she ran away now, would he chase her? Gilly's head felt fuzzy, her thoughts mangled, but everything in the cabin seemed too sharp, too clear. Looking at things straight on hurt her eyes. She couldn't blame exhaustion since she'd had the longest night's sleep she'd had since before being pregnant with Arwen.

She'd felt this way before, when the pain of childbirth had made time stretch on into an unfathomable and interminable length. When the drugs she'd been taking for a sinus infection had made her feel as though she were constantly floating. Now it was the same, every minute lasting an hour, her head a balloon tethered to her shoulders by a gossamer thread that could snap at any minute.

You did this to yourself, Gillian. You know you did. Now you pay the price.