Precious and Fragile Things (24 page)

T
he first contraction ripples over her belly like fingertips, tickling. Not painful, not yet. That will come later. Later, Gilly will sweat and scream and moan and lie glassy-eyed with agony in a big bed with smooth sheets. But just now she puts her hands to the watermelon her stomach has become and she smiles.

It's going to happen, finally. Nine months of waiting, six months of trying before that. The baby's coming.

A little boy? A little girl? She and Seth have both agreed it won't matter, though in her deep and secret heart Gilly has prayed for a daughter. It's important to her, to have a daughter. To be a mother to a daughter. A son would be fine; she will love a son. But she really wants a daughter.

She quit her job last month in preparation for the baby coming, already planning to stay home and raise her child because, after all, she wasn't bearing this baby for someone else to raise. She's spent the past month getting the nursery ready, even if Jewish tradition says you're
not supposed to do anything until the baby's born. Bad luck or some such thing, but Gilly doesn't believe in luck.

Little socks, little shoes, tiny little caps and blankets in yellows and soft greens. Things suitable for either boy or girl. Seth doesn't know that Gilly found a perfect little dress outfit complete with matching cap and ruffled diaper cover on a trip to the baby outlet, or that she bought it and tucked it away here beneath the stacks of burp cloths and onesies.

It was only a few dollars, less than ten. On sale. But perfect, just the thing she'd buy to dress her daughter in. If she has one. And as another contraction tightens across her stomach and echoes deep inside her, Gilly puts her hands on the dresser she'll use as a changing table, and she prays once more to whoever will listen that the baby on its way is a girl.

Seth is at work. She won't call him just yet. The pain isn't bad and she's had Braxton Hicks several times already. Gilly folds tiny clothes instead. She tests out the rocker and imagines how it will be when she sits there at three in the morning with her baby in her arms.

She plans to nurse and now she cups her breasts, thinking how heavy they are. What will it be like to feed a child from them? It's sort of a disgusting idea, actually, but it seems the right one. Just as she's not having this baby for someone else to raise, knowing that her body naturally will make something to sustain her child seems the right choice to make.

Oh, she knows it won't be easy. She'll have to be the one getting up at all hours since Seth won't be able to feed the baby. But it'll be all right. It's going to be marvelous.

By evening she's sick to her stomach and has been on the toilet all day long. Everything in her guts wants to come out. The midwife assures her this is normal, her body's way of getting ready to give birth, but to Gilly it feels like a bad case of food poisoning.

When Seth gets home unexpectedly late, she's already packed and
ready to go. She snaps at him when he takes too long changing his clothes and making a sandwich. When he fumbles with the suitcase they're taking to the birth center. When he pulls out of the driveway without putting on his seat belt.

This is a time when they're supposed to feel closer to each other than ever, but everything he does is a splinter of glass in all her tender places. The way he laughs with the midwives, joking about the drive. How he lingers in the hall instead of bringing her suitcase to her so she can get into the soft nightgown she's going to wear. Gilly presses her lips together and makes fists of her hands, wanting to tell him to move his fucking ass, but instead she breathes in deep. Out slowly. In and out, concentrating on the pain, willing herself to get through it.

Nothing she has read or watched or listened to prepared her for this. Natural birth? What a fucking joke. What is natural about being torn apart from the inside out? What is natural about stinking fluid gushing out of her as she squats once more on the toilet, groaning and pale faced, her hands gripping the metal railings.

Birth is slippery and smelly, coated in blood. Labor takes forever. The contractions consume her—this pain doesn't sting like a wound, not an ache like a break or strain. This pain is white-hot, lava, it rips through her with dreadful regularity every minute and gives her no time even to breathe in between.

“Do you want something for the pain?” the nurse asks.

Stubborn, Gilly shakes her head. “No.”

“You can go ahead and push,” says the midwife sometime later, Gilly's not sure how long, from between Gilly's legs. The midwife's just used her fingers to decide if it's time. The intrusion was worse than the pain.

Push? Gilly pushes. Nothing happens.

“From your bottom,” the midwife says unhelpfully. “Push from your bottom.”

Gilly has no fucking idea what that even means. Exhausted, she strains. Nothing. The baby isn't coming. Not moving. The contractions keep coming and she bites down on the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming…but no baby.

There is the hush of whispered conversation that's not quiet enough for her not to overhear. Hey, morons, Gilly wants to say. I can hear you. They talk of a C-section, of calling in the on-call obstetrician for a consult.

She is going to have this baby no matter what. Not by cutting it out of her. She is going to push this child out of her body and make this pain stop. Gilly's never been more determined to do anything in her life.

But no matter how hard she tries to push from her bottom, whatever the fuck that means, what does that even mean? No matter how hard she pushes, or strains, how hard she grips the bed railings, no matter how many times Seth squeezes her hand and offers terrifically unhelpful encouragement, this baby will not come.

“I can't do it,” Gilly says.

She's failed.

“You can do it,” Seth tells her, patting her face.

She almost bites his hand. She wants to. Bite his fucking fingers off and spit them in his face for touching her now.

“I can't do it,” she says again. She thinks she's shouting but really, it's only a whisper.

“Breathe,” Seth offers.

She wants to kick him in the face for that.

The nurse beside her says to him, “The next time she pushes, you hold her knee back.”

Seth looks confused. It's not fucking brain surgery, Gilly wants to tell him. She gets it. Hold her knees back so she can open up her birth canal and push this baby the fuck out of her vagina. But Seth doesn't get it, even when the nurse shows him.

The next contraction comes. The nurse puts both hands flat on Gilly's belly and pushes down. The midwife makes a tutting noise but doesn't stop her.

“Push now,” the nurse says. “The baby will come.”

And…it does. Gilly can feel the baby moving down and out of her. Something rips inside her. She wants to scream and bites it back, still stubborn. Her hand clutches Seth's so hard it goes numb and he winces. She doesn't care.

She pushes. The nurse presses down. The baby is coming, finally, and the midwife eases the child into the world as she's done with hundreds already.

But this baby is not like those. This is Gilly's baby. The midwife coos and there's a scuffle of activity as they clean the baby. Seth goes around to the foot of the bed and makes strange, excited noises. He might be saying something, but all Gilly can hear is the sound of an ocean roar.

“She's passing out,” someone says.

There comes the insensitive and insulting sting of a needle. A rush of clarity. The pain eases, and she thinks she was crazy for not taking this sooner. Why would it have been a failure to take even this small comfort?

Then they put the baby, wrapped in a blanket, on her chest. Nobody's told her if it's the daughter she wanted or a son she'll love just as much. She stares with tear-blurred eyes at a tiny, ugly face, blotchy red and still coated in places with white, waxy goo.

“Who is it?” she asks. Not what. But who.

Her husband puts his hand on the baby's head, the other on Gilly's shoulder. “It's a girl. It's Arwen.”

And Gilly trembles in the aftermath of birth, barely twitching as the midwife between her legs stitches her intimate places. Gilly stares in wonder at this small creature she created and carried and has now ejected from her body. She touches tiny eyebrows with the tip of her
finger and waits to feel…something. Anything. She waits for the rush of emotion that has so often hit her over the past few months and feels only the weight of responsibility and reality. Fear.

Love doesn't come until later.

T
odd greeted her over breakfast with a sunny smile that might have fooled someone…but not her. Gilly watched his guarded eyes.

Breakfast didn't sit well with her. She got up from the table to pace off the nausea, but when the cold sweat broke out on her forehead and spine, she knew it was no use. She vomited quietly in the bathroom, heaving until she had nothing left to bring up and then heaving some more. The world spun, and she clung to the worn linoleum floor as if that would keep her from flying off.

Gray faced and shaking, she splashed cold water on her face. After a few moments, she began to feel better. She rinsed her mouth and brushed her teeth with the purple sparkly toothbrush.

“You okay?” he asked when she came out.

Her voice was an old woman's, hoarse and raw and quavery. “Yeah.”

She went to the table and sat down, staring at the half-finished puzzle with no desire to try to fit any of the pieces. The swirling, vibrant colors made her head ache. Gilly closed her eyes against the sight, feeling suddenly weary.

She felt the thump of something heavy hit the table. She opened her eyes to see her boots. She looked up.

“I'm sorry, Gilly.”

She nodded, reached out and touched the leather. She'd bought these boots because she wanted something nice, something fashionable. Any single thing to make her feel less frumpy and matronly. More like…a woman. Now the effort seemed ridiculous, that a pair of shoes could make her feel anything. That she'd put so much value into something she wore rather than anything she did.

“Me, too,” she said.

“I always had a temper. Guess I should've learned my lesson by now, huh?” Todd laughed without humor.

“I know about temper. It's okay.” She meant the words the same as she'd meant the apology, but Todd looked at her as though she'd lied. “I lose mine, too.”

His smile looked a little more natural. “No shit.”

“I just can't hold it in sometimes.” Gilly got up from the table. Sitting was making her feel worse, not better. She needed to walk. She didn't think she had to puke again…not quite.

Todd watched her as she went to the row of windows at the front of the house. She looked out each one. She turned to face the room. He hadn't spoken.

She didn't want to tell him about the days she went into her closet and stuffed her face into the racks of hanging clothes, screaming until her throat ripped and left her hoarse and sore. She didn't want to even think about those days. Gilly didn't want to tell Todd about the taste of blood she'd grown so used
to, or the constant sore spot on the inside of her cheek from biting it.

“I don't want to be angry so much. I just am,” Gilly said quietly. “Too much. It's too much, Todd.”

“I make you angry?”

She threw out her hands and turned in a slow circle. “This place makes me angry. This situation. Everything about it makes me mad, Todd. You're part of it…I'm a part of it.”

She looked at him. “I know I did this to myself, and I'm angriest about that. I wouldn't be here if I hadn't been so stupid. If I'd just gotten out of the truck at the gas station…”

She bit down on the words; chewed them into blood-tasting paste. Swallowed and waited for them to choke her. They went down smoother than she'd thought through a throat closed tight with emotion.

“Everything would've been different if you had,” Todd said. “I know you're upset. But I'm not. Not really.”

Of course he wouldn't be. Gilly took a deep breath, and another. One more. She counted slowly to ten while Todd watched her, and at the end of it, she held out her hand. He looked at it without taking it.

“I'll try not to lose my temper,” Gilly said firmly, reaching to grab his hand and shake it. “If you do the same.”

Todd's hand engulfed hers, as warm as the rest of him. He gave her a quizzical look. “Ooohkay.”

“It will be better for us both. Easier to get along, if we both try. Deal?”

Todd squeezed her fingers and let them drop. He looked wary, then broke into a grin. “You are one weird woman.”

“Deal?” she repeated.

“Sure,” Todd said. “It's a deal.”

G
illy watched the gray sky, thinking that if she saw one more snowflake come down she would lose her mind. So far the clouds had kept their contents inside. She pressed her fingers to the window, feeling the cold.

“I'd like to go for a walk,” she blurted.

Todd's calm response showed no indication of surprise. “You're crazy.”

“I know.” Gilly looked back outside, twisting her neck to catch a glimpse of blue sky that simply wasn't there. “But I need to get outside, Todd. I have to. I'm going to explode if I don't, and trust me, you don't want to see that.”

He didn't argue with her, just flapped a hand in her direction. He was whittling a piece of firewood. She didn't think he actually meant to make something from it, at least nothing she could tell.

“Fine. Go ahead.”

Gilly went upstairs and layered herself with as many clothes
as she could. She slipped her feet into thick socks, then put on the boots he'd given as a peace offering, and tied them. They pinched, tight on her feet. After so many weeks without shoes at all, her feet hurt from the constriction of the leather. The thick socks only made it worse.

She wouldn't be out long, she told herself. Not in this weather. Not with these clothes. But she had to get out of the cabin. Feel the fresh air on her face, breathe it deep into her lungs. She was stagnating.

Todd hadn't moved from his chair when she came downstairs. He sat in his usual position, head thrown back, face slack. He wasn't sleeping.

“I'm going,” Gilly said.

“Be careful.”

She paused to consider him, carefully. “Thanks. I will.”

Stepping outside was a kick in the ass and a kiss on the cheek all at the same time. Bitter wind slapped at her face. She had no scarf, so struggled to pull her sweatshirt's neckline up over her mouth and nose. Her eyes instantly stung with tears that froze and burned. She'd never smelled anything so sweet.

Gilly hopped off the porch and into the knee-high snow. She would walk in this? She
was
insane. She struggled forward. The heavy snow weighed her down, but she pushed forward.

She didn't want to go back inside. Not with the fresh air whisking away the stink of all that had happened these past few weeks. Outside, she could almost forget where she was and what was happening. Close her eyes, picture herself on a ski slope somewhere…

That was no use. Skiing created warmth. Standing in the drifted snow there was only coldness. Gilly forced her foot forward, then the other. She'd taken two steps.

She glanced over her shoulder but could see nothing inside the cabin windows. She put her attention back to her feet, lifting one and then the other. Two more steps.

“Just once around the house,” she told herself through gritted teeth. “Once around. Then back inside.”

The cabin was so small, it didn't seem like such a daunting task. Gilly, who could carry two bags of groceries and a tired toddler, should be able to forge a path around the house. Just once.

“Yeah, right,” she muttered and clapped her hands together sharply, though the sound was muffled. “Right. Let's go.”

As with most things, the first step was the hardest. She forced her feet forward again anyway. The snow clung in great white clots to her sweatpants and the bootlaces. She'd added a good pound to each of her legs just from the clumping snow, which was heavy and wet.

Heart attack snow. Make sure you take a break when you're shoveling. You don't want to end up in the E.R.

Gilly blinked for a moment, distracted by her father's voice. He hardly ever popped into her mind like this, not like her mother, who Gilly seemed doomed to never escape. It had been a while since she'd talked to him. She'd spoken to him in September, for Rosh Hashanah. Maybe for the last time.

She pushed the thought from her mind and shifted her weight forward, yanking her foot free of the heavy snow and putting it down. One step. Then another.

She could do this. She
had
to do it. She was well aware her mind had twisted again, that her compulsion was anything but healthy. But, shit, she thought, tilting her head to the sky and drinking in the frigid, fresh air like wine, didn't it feel good?

She let out a whoop of joy, then tossed a double handful of
snow into the air. It fell down around her with solid thumps, creating pockets in the drifts. No tiny, dainty flakes here. This snow was serious. She looked up to the gray sky again, daring it to open up. Gilly stuck out her tongue and did as much of a dance as she could while up to her knees in snow that felt like wet sand.

Ten arduous steps took her to the edge of the house. Already her thighs burned, her calves ached. Her feet, which before had felt pinched and aching in the boots, had gone numb. Her hands, wrapped in layers of thick socks in lieu of the gloves Todd had not provided, were okay as long as she clenched and unclenched the fingers to keep them warm. Her face above the sweatshirt was numb, too.

Outside she was frozen, but inside Gilly felt warm. She'd spent too many days idle, too many hours lying on the couch. Her body ached with the efforts she forced upon it, but she felt exhilarated, too. She was moving! Doing something, not just being done to. Powerful, not powerless. Active, not passive. This was more than exercise. It was freedom.

She trudged ahead until she could touch the corner of the house. Now she faced the side with the lean-to and pantry. Green and black shingles, many rotted or missing, covered the walls of the small addition to the cabin. Three rickety steps led up to it.

She'd tossed buckets of black water off those steps. They'd made dirty ice underneath the white snow. She would have to walk carefully. She didn't want to break an ankle. She lifted her feet one at a time, shook them free of their load of snow and dropped them. On this side of the house, the snow wasn't as deep. Perhaps the wind had blown more of it to other parts of the yard. There was a bit of path, too, from Todd's trips to
the woodpile. She was crossing it, not moving along it, but her legs were grateful for the respite.

The door to the lean-to opened as she stood there. Todd, wearing no coat, no hat, just the same familiar hooded sweatshirt, was already lighting up a cigarette. He snapped his lighter closed and tucked it in his front jeans pocket, then jerked his chin toward her.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” She sounded breathy, winded.

“How's it going?”

Gilly stretched, not wanting to lose her momentum or get chilled. “Good. Fine. Great, as a matter of fact.”

“You coming back in?”

“Not yet.” She stepped off the path of beaten-down snow into the depths of a small drift and sank up to her shins. “Still walking.”

“It's cold as fuck out here, Gilly.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. She was already nearing the house's second corner. She had a rhythm starting, and she grinned. It seemed to take him aback, because he flinched.

“Crazy bitch,” Todd muttered. He went inside and closed the door firmly. The scent of smoke lingered for only half a second before the wind whisked it away.

Gilly looked at the sky and, laughing, did her best Todd imitation. “Fucking insane.”

She pushed on. Five more steps. She experimented, taking small half steps interspersed with lunging strides. She stopped to rest after just a few steps. Her breath whistled in her throat, her mouth parched, and she scooped a handful of snow to melt on her tongue.

Gilly had never understood those people who risked their
lives to climb mountains or explore wastelands. One of Seth's favorite shows was that one about the man who put himself out into the wilderness and survived by eating insects and drinking urine. Gilly didn't even like to read about that sort of thing, much less watch it on television. So what on earth was possessing her to live it now?

Without looking at her watch she could only guess at the amount of time she'd been out here already, but it hadn't been too long. Perhaps half an hour. Thirty minutes to move a few hundred feet!

Sweat streamed down her back and froze on her forehead. She sucked in gusts of air, burning her lungs and enjoying it. Determination fueled her. It would be so easy to give up. Gilly forced herself to move forward two more steps, the weight of the snow even heavier on her legs now that she'd taken a few minutes to rest.

If she gave up now, it would be a failure she could never forgive herself for. Somehow, for some stupid reason, making her way around this cabin had fixed itself in her mind as something important. Sacrifice for redemption…for penance? An idea completely at odds with what she believed, totally against her faith.

However, knowing what she was doing was crazy didn't make Gilly change her mind. She set her jaw, biting at the thick fabric of her sweatshirt to keep it from slipping down off her face. She lifted her legs, the muscles burning, and set them down. Two more steps.

By the time she made it around the cabin's second corner, her mood had changed from exhilaration to doubt. She reached out to touch the side of the cabin. Like a talisman, touching the rough shingles gave her strength.

Evening, by her reckoning, was a few hours away, but the
sky had grown dark enough to make it seem as though night were beginning to fall. She had to finish this journey before that happened. She might be crazy, but she wasn't insane enough to stay out here after dark.

Gilly had only seen the back of the cabin through the windows. Once out here, the humped and hilly landscape of snow seemed as foreign to her as an alien planet. She made it to a dilapidated picnic table, heaped high with snow, with a minimum of huffing and puffing and steadied herself on its snow-covered top.

Gilly glanced to the windows, half-expecting to see Todd's broad silhouette checking on her again, but all she saw was the glow of the lights he must've recently lit. She paused long enough to sit on the table's bench seat and wiggle her toes inside the boots. She could still feel her feet pushing against the leather, though all other sensation had numbed. The foolishness of this undertaking struck her as she thought of blackened and amputated toes.

Don't think of it. You'll be okay. Just keep moving.

She whacked the snow off her bottom and looked at the cabin. Through the windows she saw Todd moving. It looked warm in there, and though she wasn't cold yet—not really, aside from her toes—she was tired and hungry and worn-out.

“Move your ass,” she said aloud. “C'mon, Gilly. You came out here and wanted to do this. Don't be a baby.”

Time ceased ticking as she stumbled through the mounds of whiteness. One foot in front of the other, lifting and plunging. The sound of her breath came loud in her ears, like a freight train. Like the roar of a lion. It gave her strength, that sound, and when she opened her mouth and let out a scream of triumph as she touched the cabin's third corner, she didn't care
how crazy or bestial she sounded. Her shriek echoed off the trees, startling a rabbit from its hiding place beneath the thick undergrowth. The sound of it, though it had come from her own throat and of her own volition, frightened Gilly, too.

She was almost there. The world tilted in front of her eyes, but Gilly managed to bring it back into focus. No fainting out here, not even if it meant she could lie down in the deep, soft snow. Sleep had never been so appealing, but to sleep here meant certain death. She must keep moving.

Had she ever done anything this physically hard? Gilly thought again of childbirth, the never-endingness of it, the fact that once begun she could not have stopped it if she tried. There are moments in life that once started cannot be stopped; she would have to see this through to completion as surely as she'd given birth to her children. There was no going back. Only forward.

She gathered her strength again, feeling it ebb with every moment she remained still. Her body screamed a protest when she forced her foot forward. Gilly stumbled, the first time since she'd stepped off the porch earlier this afternoon, and hit the snow.

It engulfed her, enveloped her, wrapped her in clouds of stinging softness. Whiteness filled her eyes, her nose, her throat while she coughed and gagged. She was drowning in it.

Gilly got her feet beneath her and pushed with her hands, lifting herself out of the drift with an effort she could only classify as superhuman. She shivered, then quaked with reaction and cold.

“C'mon,” she muttered, slapping her hands together. “Stupid, Gilly! Stupid to do this!”

But even as her body stung and ached, and the bitter wind
tore at her flesh, Gilly didn't feel stupid. She was almost done. She would do this, and in doing it become stronger.

She forged ahead, battling her weakness with grunts and curses. She touched the fourth corner of the cabin, viewed the front porch, and found no strength for screams this time. Instead she gathered her breath and forced herself to drag herself through the snow.

“To the steps,” she breathed. “Then I'm done.”

And she made it to the steps, though without recall of how she did it. Every painful step of the trip around the house was clear like ice in her brain, but not the final steps. She simply found herself inside the front door, shedding her clothes, and realized she'd done it.

Her hands wouldn't loosen her clothes. Gilly staggered to the dining room table, knocking puzzle pieces to the floor. She didn't have the strength to do more.

The room felt blessedly, unbearably hot. She raised her face to the warmth, letting it seep into her as she tried to shed her sodden, frozen clothes.

“Get out of that stuff,” Todd told her.

Gilly looked up, feeling the goofy grin paint itself on her face. “I did it. All the way around the house!”

“You're a real jerkoff, Gilly, do you know that?”

She should've felt worse for her adventure. Should've been cringing and whimpering as the heat leached into her frozen bones. Instead, Gilly felt joyous. Exuberant. She almost, but not quite, laughed.