I Love You, Jilly Sanders

by Cindy Lou Daniels

  Gwen groaned. “Not you, too!”

  Jilly grinned at her and helped Cat carry in several more bucketfuls.

  When the two of them came inside for the last time, Otto and Tage were carrying a cedar chest down the stairs.

  “Careful now,” Otto said, directing Tage who was backing awkwardly down the stairwell.

  “What are you two up to?” Cat asked.

  They finally reached the landing and they carried the chest into the living room. “There are some things in here I thought Gwen might be able to use for Ariana. I’d forgotten they were up in the attic.”

  Jilly’s stomach flipped. It was the cedar chest with the baby things—the things she thought had been meant for her! She crept closer to the chest, hoping her excitement wasn’t too obvious. Maybe now Otto would say something about Jane Sandra!

  Otto bent down, flipped the hasps up, and opened the chest. He stared down into it for a minute before he cleared his throat. “These things—Mirabelle and I bought these things for our daughter.” He looked around the room.

  Jilly and everyone stared at him in silence.

  Otto glanced toward Jilly. “Not Jane Sandra,” he said. “She used her baby things.” He looked back at the chest of baby things. “These were meant for our other daughter. Kaitlyn Ella Beckinhide. She was stillborn.”

  Still, no one spoke, but Cat went to stand beside Otto. Jilly saw her hand come out to grasp his arm, and she saw Otto look at Cat with gratitude.

  It must have been hard for him to speak of this daughter, let alone to speak of Jane Sandra. He’d lost Kaitlyn before he ever had a chance to know her, but with Jane Sandra, there had been a falling out, an argument that tore their relationship into a blue million pieces.

  “I don’t know if you want these for Ariana,” Otto said, his tone apologetic. “If you don’t, I’ll understand. But if you do, well . . . I think it’s time these things were put to use.”

  Gwen pulled the baby clothes out of the chest, exclaiming in delight. “These are beautiful, Otto. I’d love for Ariana to wear them.” She held up a white dress with pink tulips embroidered on the collar. “This is precious!”

  She made similar remarks while she unpacked all the clothes in the trunk, and lifted out the teddy bear, the doll, and the tea set. Jilly sat on the couch and watched. She felt as though she’d left her voice outside in the ice-rain, and now she was reduced to a clear cold silence. The fact that the baby things were being given to Ariana pleased her, even while her head ached from the realization that once again there was no proof of her existence.

  She remembered, too, her promise to herself: she was only going to wait until the baby was born before she found out once and for all about her mother.

  Time was up.

  Chapter XVIII.

  She dreamed that night of the sun shining in her eyes blinding her, and when she woke up she saw the light was on in her bedroom.

  She sat up in bed. “We’ve got electricity!” she shouted. She leaped out of bed and went to wake everyone up.

  “Let’s make waffles or French toast or something to celebrate!” she said to Cat and Otto, who were now sharing the same bedroom.

  Otto lifted his head from his pillow and looked at her blankly. She could see he had no idea who she was, or what she was doing charging into his bedroom before the sun was fully up demanding a celebration. With Cat around, she’d almost forgotten about Otto’s memory.

  Cat reached over Otto’s chest and snagged his journal from the bedside table. She kissed him on the way back and handed the book to him. “Read this, Otto,” she said, “while I get dressed.” She climbed out of bed. “Go wake up Gwen and Tage, Jilly, but don’t wake up Ariana if you can help it.”

  A short while later, everyone except the baby was in the kitchen, the smell of perked coffee from the coffee maker and waffles made on the waffle-iron permeating the room. Jilly looked around the kitchen in amazement.

  Seeing Otto so disoriented this morning had reminded her of what the house had looked like when she first arrived. Now, though, since Gwen and she had painted and cleaned, and Cat had added some of her things like the coffee maker and some other kitchen appliances, it was a real family room.

  A real family here in the kitchen.

  “Cripes!” Gwen exclaimed over the general noise. “Is that somebody knocking on the door?” She shushed them. “Come in!” she called out.

  Jilly looked at the door, but the others kept talking, listening to Tage describe some sort of football play he’d once seen.

  Gwen sighed, but got up to go to the door. She pulled it wide open. “I said come in!” she said. She looked up into the face of the person standing there.

  She crumpled to the floor in a faint.

  “You always was a little drama queen,” the person said.

  The kitchen went quiet as death, and they all leaped up. Jilly’s chair scraped backwards and she stared at the man standing there. He was handsome; his black hair was pulled straight back into a ponytail, and his gray-green eyes were fringed with long lashes. “Who are you?” she asked.

  Cat had reached Gwen and was gently tapping her cheeks. Gwen gave a groan and sat up.

  “My name is Kane Randolla,” he said. “And I’m here to get my kid.” He strolled into the kitchen, his pointed-toe cowboy boot heels clumping on the linoleum. “I can see she’s already dropped the thing. Where is it?”

  Tage leaped forward to block his entrance to the stairwell, and Jilly went to stand beside him.

  “Oh, up there, is it?” Kane asked, jerking his head toward the stairs.

  “Get the hell out of here, Kane,” Gwen said, but her voice held no emotion whatsoever; she might have been talking about the weather. She stood up, Otto on one side of her, Cat on the other, and Jilly wondered if she was in shock.

  “I ain’t goin’ ‘til I get my kid.”

  “How did you find me?” Gwen asked. She looked worse than she did in the hardest part of her labor, Jilly noted. Like she might faint again or throw up all over Kane’s shiny boots.

  “You weren’t that hard to find, Gwenivere. It’s not like you’re exactly inconspicuous with that sea-foam hair and pregnant to boot! I just followed the road in both directions until somebody said they saw a girl that looked like you—then I kept going in that direction.”

  “I’m surprised you know a word as big as inconspicuous,” Jilly said. She wondered why she had ever thought he was handsome. He was evil through and through. “Why don’t you get lost? Gwen lives with us now!”

  Kane took a step toward her, but Tage stepped in front of her.

  Kane laughed, low and ugly. “That one’s got a big mouth, but it don’t matter none to me. I’m just here to get my kid. It belongs to me just like the other one and I’ll have it out of here.” He sauntered across the kitchen and stopped right in front of Gwen. “I know you wouldn’t want the other one payin’ for its sister and her mama’s sins, now would you?”

  The other one? Jilly clapped her hands over her mouth. What other one? Don’t think about it! her brain commanded.

  “You been sneaking around here making trouble?” Otto asked. “Are you the man that kills innocent baby animals?”

  Kane snorted. “I don’t have a notion in hell what you’re talkin’ about, old man. I just got into this piss-ant town today, so why don’t you just mind your own business?”

  “Gwen lives with me now. She is my business,” Otto said.

  Kane ignored him. “What’s it gonna be, Gwenivere? Shye’s real little to be paying the piper for your mistake.” He looked up toward the ceiling as though contemplating the situation. “What is she?” he asked, looking back at Gwen suddenly. “Three or four now?”

  Jilly stared at Gwen, willing her to ask this maniac what he was talking about—to deny what he was saying—but Gwen did nothing. She stood there, white as vomit, her whole body trembling.

  Tage stepped forward. “I think you better get the hell out of here.”


  “Who’s gonna make me, boy?” Kane poked Tage in the chest.

  Tage stood his ground. “I am.” He pointed over his shoulder at Otto. “Go get the Long Tom, Otto. I can hold this asshole until you get it loaded.”

  Otto made to move toward the stairs and Kane backed away from Tage. “You can threaten me all you want, boy,” he said, his face twisting with a smirk. “But we both know there ain’t nobody in this room gonna shoot anybody else.” He moved toward the door. “Now I got a right to take my kid—but if Gwenivere here don’t want me to, well now, that’s fine. I already got one kid—and I’ll just make that one serve double duty.”

  He walked out the open door, but turned around to say, “I got some business to take care of, but I’ll be back on Monday. If you care about Shye, you’ll be packed and ready to come home with me, Gwenivere. And have that other baby rat you birthed ready to go, too. The commune ain’t that far away.” He swaggered off the porch, the ice not impeding his progress at all.

  It seemed as though nobody could move; they stood there and watched his back getting smaller and smaller.

  The sound of Ariana’s cries drifted down the stairs, and Gwen moved. She seemed disoriented, two twin spots of color highlighting her cheekbones.

  “I’ll get the baby,” Cat said. She looked at Otto. “Help Gwen into the living room.”

  Jilly wanted to scream, a loud piercing scream like a rabbit caught by a cat, and she had to choke the sensation away.

  “I’ve got to go,” Gwen said. She blinked rapidly, but her eyes were dry. “I—I –I—”

  Otto led her to the living room and forced her to sit on the sofa. Tage and Jilly followed. “Take it easy,” Otto murmured. He rubbed Gwen’s back and Jilly clenched her hands together so she wouldn’t slap his hand away.

  “What was he talking about?” she said. “What did Kane mean about you having another daughter? That’s not true, is it?” Jilly looked desperately from one face to another, then settled back on Gwen. “It’s not true, is it?”

  “Yes. It’s true,” Gwen said, her voice dry as powder. “She’s three and her name is Shye. I couldn’t get her out with me; I tried.” She attempted to swallow, and her throat bobbed. “What was I supposed to do? Lose both of them? I knew I was pregnant again—”

  “You loved that jerk?” Jilly asked. For the first time since she’d met her, she was furious at Gwen. How could she have left a baby behind? How could she have done it?

  “Jilly! There’s no call to make things worse!” Otto said, but Gwen waved her hand, silencing him.

  Gwen stared at Jilly, her lips softening a bit. “I thought I loved him at first, but now I think I was so hungry for love that I wished the emotion onto Kane. I thought if he loved me, than I had to be lovable.” She looked away briefly, but turned back to Jilly. “I know I didn’t love him at the end,” she said flatly. “But sometimes love doesn’t have anything to do with having a baby.” She licked her lips. “At the commune, the women are—available—for the men; that’s the way things are done. I didn’t like it, especially after I had Shye and I saw them acting like she wasn’t mine. I was only seventeen and I didn’t know what to do—didn’t know how to stop them.” Her face had turned a hard gray shade that erased her fairytale beauty and made Jilly feel sick with horror.

  Gwen stared down into her lap. “When I realized I was pregnant again, I knew I couldn’t stay. I tried to sneak away with Shye, but they found us and brought us back.” She twisted her hands together, but still didn’t look up. “I—I had to choose. I could stay and lose my next baby to them, or I could go without Shye and save this one.” She did look up then. “What would you have done?” she asked.

  Jilly’s throat burned. She shook her head, the words she might have uttered two minutes ago felt like a pile of ashes on her tongue. What would she have done?

  Otto put his arm around Gwen and tried to pull her close for comfort, but she pulled away. “I have to go back,” she said. “If I don’t, now that he knows where I am, he’ll do something to Shye to make her life miserable, and in the end he’ll find a way to get Ariana, too. I’d rather be with her and Shye and put up with Kane than never see my girls again.”

  Cat walked into the living room and placed Ariana into Gwen’s arms. “There you go, bee-bop,” she said to Ariana. “Safe with your mommy.”

  Jilly saw Gwen’s bottom lip quiver, but Gwen still didn’t give in to the tears that must have threatened to drown her. Otto briefly filled Cat in on what she had missed.

  “There has to be something we can do,” Tage said.

  “Has anybody ever left with children at that place?” Otto asked.

  Jilly crept over and sat on the floor at Gwen’s feet. She wrapped her arm around Gwen’s leg and she saw Gwen push her lips together until only a hard thin line remained. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, hoping Gwen would understand.

  Gwen reached down and touched Jilly’s hair. “Don’t,” she said. “I’m not worth being sorry for, not when I’m the one who left my baby. I knew what my actions meant. I knew I shouldn’t have done such a thing, but—” her voice cracked and she couldn’t go on. She blinked rapidly before she said, “I have no excuse.”

  Jilly squeezed Gwen’s leg. She wished she could take back the accusations she’d made. She didn’t need to blame Gwen for anything: Gwen did that for herself. Maybe her own mother did the same thing: blamed herself and hated herself.

  “Think, Gwen,” Cat said. “Somebody must have gotten a child out of there at some time or another.”

  Gwen shook her head. She eased her shirt open and discreetly offered Ariana her breast. The color was coming back into her face, but her eyes looked hollow and wounded. “I can’t remember. I only remember the grown-ups leaving. The Lovara’s even offered to buy me from the commune when they left, but the council said they didn’t have enough money to replace me.”

  “How much did they have?” Otto asked.

  Gwen’s smile was grim. “I think they had a hundred dollars. That was a lot of money for the commune. They don’t see much cash.”

  Jilly’s heart flickered and she looked at Tage.

  “Let me think about this,” Otto said. He left the room and went upstairs.

  Cat settled in next to Gwen; she put her arm around Gwen’s shoulders and smiled down at the baby. “Otto will think of something,” she said.

  Tage stood up. “Come out on the porch with me,” he said to Jilly.

  She knew, just by the look on his face, what he was going to suggest.

  The morning air was chilly, and the sun reflected off from the ice making the world sparkle like diamonds. They went to sit on the swing.

  Jilly waited for Tage to speak first.

  “I think we ought to go look for that money,” he said. “If we found it, we could use that to buy Shye from the commune. They’d take that much money. I think there must be over fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Do you think you could get to it?”

  “I’m not sure. Nobody ever goes up to the deadmen caves in the winter. It’s dangerous. And now there’s all this ice, too.” Tage’s face looked green in the shade of the porch. “But I’m willing to try.”

  “You might get killed,” Jilly said. “That’s not going to help anything. Besides, you said yourself the money couldn’t be spent. You said it was marked.”

  Tage swallowed. “I know what I said, but I’m not sure that’s really true.”

  Jilly’s stomach slipped to the left. “But—” There were a thousand ‘buts’—all of them dreadful, and she didn’t quite know where to begin listing her objections.

  Worse, there was Gwen’s other little girl to think about. Wasn’t she worth any risk?

  Jilly licked her lips. “I’ll come with you,” she said. What if somebody had had the chance to return her to her mother all those years ago, but hadn’t because of fear? How could she ever live with herself if she didn’t at least try to save Gwen’s daughter?

  Chapter XIX
.

  The front door swung open and Cat stuck her head out. “Could you two come back in here? Otto wants to talk to all of us.”

  When they were all settled, Otto looked around the room, meeting each pair of eyes in turn. Finally he said, “I think I have a plan—or the beginning of one, but it would take some work to pull it off.”

  He opened his hand and revealed two rings nestled in the palm of his hand.

  Jilly’s heart smacked against the inside of her chest. They were the rings from the oatmeal can—Mirabelle’s wedding rings.

  “These are worth a lot more than a hundred dollars,” Otto said. “If we could sell them, we’d have enough money to buy Shye. There’d probably be enough money to buy Gwen and Ariana, too.” He turned to look at Gwen. “And you’d be free from that place once and for all.”

  Jilly knew she was the only one who had an inkling of what it cost Otto to bring those rings out of hiding. Only she knew they were all wrapped up with the loss of his own family.

  “I can’t let you sell those,” Gwen said. “You’ve given me so much already.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Otto said. “These are not living, breathing things. They’re only things. And if I can use them for something good, I’ll be much happier than I was saving them.”

  “Jilly and I could go to the commune,” Tage said. “We could sell the rings on the way and buy Shye before Kane ever gets back.”

  Jilly sat forward. Selling the rings seemed like a much better idea than trying to find a bag of loot that may or may not still be around. “Kane said he had business to take care of,” she reminded them. “And that he’d be back here on Monday. That gives us three days to get there and back.”

  “Wait a minute,” Otto said. “I’m not sure I like the idea of you two going out there. It’s bound to be dangerous.”

  Jilly smiled at him, trying to appear braver than she felt inside. “Tage and I will take care of each other. And, really, we’re the only ones who could go. Gwen can’t. And—and your memory, Otto—that wouldn’t be good.” The thought of postponing the questions about her own mother lifted her heart, even as the relief that spread through her being confused her.