Precious And Fragile Things. Megan Hart

      Good mothers cooked and cleaned and read stories to their children before bed. They sang songs. They played the Itsy Bitsy Spider until their fingers fell off, if that was the game that made their babies giggle. They changed diapers, filled sippy cups, sewed the frayed and torn edges of favorite blankies to keep them together just another few months. They gave up everything of themselves to give everything to their children.

      Good mothers did not run away.

      Gilly pressed her fingertips to the cold glass. She’d wanted to run away. How often had she thought about simply packing a bag, or better yet, nothing at all? Just leaving the house with nothing but herself.

      Gilly understood having children meant sacrifice. It was the only thing about motherhood she’d been certain of before actually becoming a mother. Impromptu dinners out, going to the movies, privacy in the bathroom, had all become luxuries she didn’t mind foregoing, most of the time. She didn’t even mind the grubby clothes, which were far more comfortable than the pinching high heels and gut-busting panty hose she’d worn when she worked. Gilly cherished her children. Lord knew, they drove her to the edge of madness, but wasn’t that what children did? Staying home to raise them had become the most challenging and rewarding task she’d ever undertaken. She’d conceived her children in love and borne them in blood, and her life without them wouldn’t be worth living. It was just the constant never-endingness of it that some days made her want to scream until her throat burst.

      She loved Seth, the solid man she’d married more than ten years before. Seth did his share, when he was home, of bathing and diapering and taking out the garbage. Yes, he needed reminding for even the simplest tasks and no, he never quite managed to complete any of them without asking her how to do it, but he tried.

      She had a good life. Her children were healthy and bright, her husband attentive and generous. They lived in a lovely house, drove nice cars, went on vacation every year. She had as many blessings as a woman could want. If there were still days Gilly thought she might simply be unable to drag herself out of bed, it wasn’t their fault.

      They were her life. They consumed every part of her. She was a mother and a wife before she was a woman. Feminism might frown on it, and Gilly might strain against the shackles of responsibility, but when it came right down to it, she’d lost sight of how else to be.

      The hours of cleaning had cleared her mind. Everyone would believe a knife to her head had made her toss her children out the car window, and nobody would question that fear for her life had kept her moving. Only Gilly would ever know the real and secret truth. She’d wanted to escape, but not from Todd. From her precious and fragile life. From what she’d made.

      Gilly opened the pantry door and surveyed what she found. She ran her hands along the rows of canned spaghetti, the jars of peanut butter and jelly, the bags and cartons of cookies and snacks. He’d bought flour, sugar, coffee, pasta, rice. Cartons of cigarettes, which she moved away from the food in distaste. He’d stocked the cabin with enough food for an army…or for a siege.

      Gilly took a box of spaghetti and a jar of sauce from the shelf and closed the pantry door behind her. He’d already told her he didn’t plan to let her go and warned her of the risks of trying to leave on her own. Two choices, two paths, and she couldn’t fully envision either of them. Yesterday she’d been ready to toss her kids out a window to get away from them, and Todd had appeared. Now she felt tossed like dandelion fluff on the wind.

      Gilly slapped the box of pasta on the counter. She found a large pot and filled it with water, then a smaller one. She lit the burners on the stove with an ancient box of matches from the drawer and set the water boiling and the pasta sauce simmering. She stood over them both, not caring about the old adage about watched pots. The heat from the stove warmed her hands as she stared without really seeing.

      There was a third choice, one she’d already imagined even though now her mind shuddered away from the thought. If she could not manage to convince Todd to voluntarily let her go, and if she couldn’t somehow be smart and strong enough to escape him, there was one other option. And, of the three choices, it was the one Gilly was sure would work.

      Some pasta sauce had splashed on the back of her hand, rich and red. She licked it, tasting garlic. The water in the pot bubbled, and she opened the box of spaghetti, judged a handful, then tossed in the whole box. Dinner would be ready in a few minutes, and Todd was likely to return soon.

      If she couldn’t change his mind or break for an escape, Gilly thought she might just have to kill him.

      6

      Todd walked in the door just as Gilly finished setting the table with a red-and-white-checkered cloth and a set of lovely, Depression-era dishes and silverware she’d found in the drawer. Though the silver was tarnished and several of the plates cracked or chipped, she could only imagine what pieces like this would sell for in an antiques shop. Hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars. He paused in the doorway to sniff the air. Again, he reminded her of a hungry, loveless dog hanging around the kitchen door.

      “Smells good.” He jingled the pocket of his sweatshirt, then took out her keys. He tossed them on the counter.

      Gilly purposefully kept her eyes from them. “I hope you’re hungry,” she said flatly. “I made a lot.”

      Todd pulled out his chair with a scrape that sent chills up her spine, like fingernails on a chalkboard. “Fucking starving.”

      Gilly poured the spaghetti into the strainer she’d put in the sink. Clouds of steam billowed into her face and she closed her eyes against it. She scooped some onto a plate and went to the table, taking the seat across from him.

      Todd didn’t serve himself, just stared at her expectantly. With a silent sigh she got up from her seat and took his plate to the sink, plopped a serving of spaghetti on top and splashed it with the sauce. She tossed a piece of garlic bread beside the spaghetti and handed it to him.

      “Thanks.” At least he did have some manners.

      They ate in silence interrupted only by the sounds of chewing and slurping. Surreptitiously Gilly watched the movement of his mouth as he gobbled pasta. A few days’ worth of beard stubbled his tawny cheeks, the dark hairs glinting reddish in the light from above.

      “This is good.” He wiped his mouth with the napkin she’d folded next to his plate. “Really good.”

      “Thank you.” Cleaning had made her hungry. She’d polished off a large plateful herself and now sat back, her stomach almost too full.

      Todd burped loud and long, the kind of noise that at home would have earned a laugh followed by a reprimand. Gilly did neither. She sipped some water, watching him.

      “Where did you go?”

      “Out.”

      She hadn’t really expected him to tell her. She sipped more water and wiped her mouth. Todd eyed her, his mouth full. He chewed and swallowed.

      “Why’d you do this?” Todd twirled another forkful of spaghetti but didn’t eat it.

      “To be nice,” Gilly said. There was more to it than that.

      Todd’s eyes narrowed. He knew that. “Why?”

      Only honesty would suffice. Gilly took a deep breath. “Because I’m hoping that if I’m nice to you, you’ll let me go home.”

      Todd sat back in his chair, tipping it. “I can’t. You know my name. You know where we are. You’d tell someone. They’d come.”

      Desperation slipped out in her voice. “I don’t know where we are, remember? You could blindfold me. Take me someplace far away, dump me off.”

      Todd shook his head.

      Her voice rose with tension. “I won’t tell anyone your name. Or anything. I’ll say I don’t know anything, I swear to you. If you let me go, I’ll…”

      “Don’t you get it? I can’t ever let you go now. Not ever.”