by Megan Hart
Sunny stared at her so blankly, Liesel knew she’d asked a stupid question. What did okay even mean to a girl like Sunny? Instead, Liesel backed out of the room and went downstairs to her husband.
“I’m sorry,” Christopher said before she could even speak.
Liesel’s laugh was low and without much humor, but it surprised her anyway. “I just don’t get it, Christopher. Why didn’t you tell me?”
His mouth worked, and he drew in a breath or two. “I didn’t really know.”
There’d been a number of times in their marriage when he’d pissed her off. Mostly doing the sort of dumb stuff husbands always do that rub their wives the wrong way. He never answered his cell phone and he made plans without asking her first; he couldn’t put a towel in the hamper even if it would’ve saved a basketful of kittens. But she’d never thought he was in the habit of lying to her, at least not about important things. So as soon as the words slipped out of his mouth, she knew he could tell she thought he was so full of shit his eyes had turned brown.
“Not really,” he added quickly, like he could somehow salvage this.
There was no saving it. Liesel gave him a look of such bone-deep disgust her face ached with it. Her lip actually curled.
“I never… I didn’t… I’m sorry,” Christopher said miserably. “There’s not even any proof she is my daughter.”
Again, it was the absolute wrong thing to say. “All you have to do is look at her. Or her little boy. Christopher, my God, he looks just like that picture of you, the one your mom had framed in her living room.”
Christopher shook his head, fingers squeezing Liesel’s arm until a glance from her made him let go. “I mean, Trish told me the baby wasn’t mine. She swore to me that she’d been sleeping with that guy she ran away with, that the baby was his. She never told me otherwise, how was I supposed to know? She never came to me for money or help or anything.”
Trish. Christopher’s first wife, the one he never spoke of, not even in the most casual of ways that Liesel sometimes talked about her college boyfriend. Stories about places they’d gone, things they’d done together, in that time before she met Christopher. It wasn’t that she hadn’t known about Christopher’s brief first marriage. Just that she’d never really had to deal with it. With Trish.
“She never came back to me, Liesel. Once she left me, that was the last I heard from her. All I knew was that Trish had gone off with that guy, and they were living in that…place.”
“That cult,” Liesel whispered. “We all know that’s what it is. I mean, they say it’s a church, but you know it isn’t, not really.”
“A cult is technically a church, I guess.”
“What, for tax purposes?” Another humorless laugh wormed its way out of her. “You’ve driven past there, the big gates and that fence all around it. I’ve heard that the police have been out there half a dozen times on reports of child abuse and stuff. They don’t send their kids to school or to the hospital if they’re sick or anything.”
She thought of the marks on Sunny’s back. The thought turned her stomach. “Oh, God, Christopher, do you think those children have been abused?”
Christopher pulled her close so that her cheek rested against his chest. “I don’t know.”
She shuddered. “She has marks on her back.”
“What kind of marks?”
“Like scars. Like…whip marks.”
Christopher grimaced. “God.”
“She says you’re her dad, that her mother told her to come here. If they were being abused it makes sense that she’d send them here.”
“There has to be a way to find out.”
“If they were abused? You can’t just…blurt it out. I don’t think you can just ask them.” She shuddered again. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“No. I meant a way to find out if she’s really mine.”
Liesel frowned. “Like what, a DNA test or something?”
“Sure. Of course. Something like that.”
Liesel pushed away from him, her frown twisted into a scowl. “How can you say that? Even if she’s not genetically your kid, Christopher, she thinks you’re her dad. Her mother obviously thought so. And you can’t just… What are you going to do? Turn them away? Put them out? Oh, my God, you can’t even think of that!”
Christopher shook himself and reached for her, though she didn’t let him touch her. “I didn’t say that. What the hell kind of man do you think I am?”
“Apparently,” Liesel said coldly, “the sort who had a kid almost twenty years ago and never bothered to have anything to do with her.”
“That’s not fair.” His jaw tightened. He emptied his bottle into the sink and tossed it into the recycling container, where it landed with a clatter. “So not fair.”
She softened, but didn’t touch him. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s not fair. None of this is. You didn’t know. But they’re here now. She came to us. We’re not turning her out, at least not tonight. Not until we find out more about what’s going on.”
Her husband frowned. “I didn’t say I thought we should turn them out.”
He didn’t have to say it. She could see it in his face. Still, she let him lie, just this little bit, so that neither of them had to admit he was being a bastard. She nodded once, sharply. Above them, the shower stopped. Silence.
“I’m sorry,” Christopher said again, no lie in him this time. “I really am.”
“Can you heat up some soup or something for dinner? Make some grilled cheese. I’m sure they’re probably starving. I’ll go check and make sure they’re okay.” She paused, then stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. At the sound of small feet on the ceiling, something lifted inside her that had been heavy for a very long time.
“They can stay until we figure out what’s going on,” he said. “I’ll try to get in touch with Trish… Ah, shit. Shit.”
He looked so miserable she had to take pity on him, even as something went a little gleeful inside her at how stricken he seemed to be at the idea of even calling Trish on the phone. She squeezed him.
“It’s too late now to do anything tonight except let them get some sleep. They’re exhausted and honestly, so am I. We can work this out in the morning.”
“Yeah,” her husband said. “Okay.”
On the way upstairs, a slow wave of cramps rippled through her guts, the monthly aches in her womb sudden and profound. Every part of her still hurt from her fall, but the pain inside her was worse than any of them. Liesel thought again of those tiny faces, the big eyes. What had she been hoping for so desperately? And what had shown up, literally, on her doorstep?
It was either the answer to a prayer Liesel had been very bad at making, or it was a punishment for asking in the first place.
Chapter 4
Everything was going to be okay. That’s what Liesel had told her over and over, but Sunny didn’t believe it, not for a second. Nothing would ever be okay again. How could it be?
Happy and Peace were sleeping, both of them curled up tight like kittens on the huge bed that was way too soft. Sitting on it was like sinking into…what, Sunny didn’t know, just that compared to hers in Sanctuary this bed squished too much. Bliss was snuggled against Sunny, still sucking every once in a while though she’d fallen asleep a while ago. Sunny didn’t have the heart to take her off the breast. She sat in a rocker in the corner with a thick knitted blanket over both of them, but her feet stuck out. Her toes were cold. She didn’t want to squirm around to tuck them beneath her in case she woke the baby, but the soft pajama pants Liesel had given her weren’t long enough to tuck around her feet the way her nightgown had been. The material clung to her legs, between them, pressing against her bare flesh. It made her too aware of herself, just the way Papa
had always said it would, which was why women in the family never wore pants.
The kids slept restlessly but hard. Exhausted. Sunny was tired, too, but couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t shake the feeling that all of this had been a dream. She’d close her eyes and wake to flashing lights and the constant mumble of John Second’s voice over the speakers. Or Papa’s. Why hadn’t John Second been the one talking? Why had he used Papa’s recorded voice to bring them all to the chapel?
Before Papa had died but after he’d gotten sick, he’d often used the recording instead of his own voice. It had been easy to tell the difference because the voice over the speakers calling them to the chapel for the drills was strong and vibrant, full of confidence and authority. The voice of the man who greeted them from his wheelchair when they got there was whisper-thin, raspy and shattered by coughs.
Tears burned behind her lids; she closed her eyes tight to keep them from slipping out. No crying, even without anyone to see and make a report. Crying was weakness and would blemish her vessel from the inside. Bliss protested with a small squeak when Sunny’s arms tightened around her, and Sunny relaxed her grip so as not to wake her daughter.
What now? What could the four of them do here in this house with a man she’d never known as her father, and his wife, who stared at Sunny’s children with eyes so hungry it was like she wanted to gobble them up. What could Sunny do anywhere? She had just a little money, no clothes except what they’d been wearing and the few items her mom had packed for them. Worse than that, it had been years since she’d been beyond the fences of Sanctuary.
At fourteen she’d been assigned to go outside and sell literature. She’d been awful at picking out potential seekers from the crowds. Even worse at asking people for money in exchange for the pamphlets that encouraged them to adopt Papa’s teachings. She’d been punished many times for not meeting her quota. The punishments had been worth being released from having to sell. She didn’t really like being on the outside, where women dressed so immodestly and everyone stared at her. There was temptation at every turn. She’d always much preferred staying in Sanctuary, taking care of the children or cleaning. Anything was better than standing on street corners or lingering in shopping malls, trying to entice people not only to take the pamphlets, but also to actually pay a dollar for them. Sunny had come home too many times with nothing but crumpled pamphlets that had been shoved back into her fists by people who laughed or sneered at her when she asked them to pay for what they’d taken out of pity, never real interest.
Once, she’d tossed all the pamphlets in the garbage and lied, saying she’d given them all away but that nobody had paid. She’d been put in the silent room for that. John Second himself had come to stand over her, watching as she ate from a dog bowl. He’d been the one to explain to her how important it was that the world have the chance to learn about Papa’s message—but also how important it was that they pay for the privilege.
“People cherish what they pay for, Sunshine,” John Second had told her. “It’s only a dollar to them and to us, but believe me, when they pay for something, they take better care of it. No matter how little it is. And where do you think we get the money to pay for the food you and your mother eat? You don’t want your mother to starve, do you? Tell me now that you understand how important it is for people to pay for the pamphlets, and that you’ll work harder next time, so we never have to have this conversation again.”
Since John Second had never been required to canvas the streets or solicit, and since he’d never watched people with pity in their eyes give her a dollar or sometimes even more, then immediately toss the pamphlet in the trash without even glancing at it, Sunny thought he didn’t know what he was talking about.
But still, she’d been the one hoping for a bucket so she didn’t wet herself, and he’d been the one handing it to her.
John Second played at being kind, but even though his mouth smiled his eyes hardly ever did. When Papa had meted out punishments, it was always with a sad smile because he said disciplining his children hurt him as much as it did them, and that he did it out of love. So that they’d be prepared when the time came to leave their vessels and go through the gates. He didn’t want anyone left behind.
Except that Papa himself would be left behind. Somehow, his children had failed him. They hadn’t meditated enough, hadn’t been good enough to the earth, had let temptation lead them astray. Had not listened hard enough with their hearts. Something, anyway, because instead of leaving his vessel voluntarily when the time came for all of them to leave, Papa had simply died, leaving his two true sons to hold the family together.
Except they hadn’t. They’d fought. They’d broken it apart.
There’d been loud voices, shouting, she remembered that. Some of the family had left to go with Josiah when John Second threw him out. She remembered that, too. How John Second had shouted, told them all they’d suffer when the time came to leave and they had to stay behind with all the blemished. There’d been days and days of lockdown, being forced to sit in the dark while she tried to keep her children from crying too loudly so they wouldn’t attract John Second’s attention.
Of course her mother had stayed behind. John Second had been the man to take her from being blemished to a daughter of the family. Sunny’s mom had liked to say that before she met John Second, she’d wasted her life trying to get things, and when she found him she’d been given everything.
When Josiah had come around to everyone asking and even then begging them all to reconsider, to come along with him to the outside world, he’d lingered extra long with Sunny’s mother. But she hadn’t gone along, and so neither had Sunny and her children. Josiah had taken fewer than half the family with him, and John Second had declared that anyone who spoke of Josiah would be punished more severely than a switching or going without food or being sent to the silent room.
Nobody had dared find out what punishment could be worse than the ones they already had, and so nobody spoke of Josiah at all. It was as if he’d never existed, not even in the texts that told the story of how Papa and his one true wife had come to form the family. John Second had taken them all away and burned them, replaced them with new versions of the texts the way he’d replaced Papa.
But Sunny’s mother had kept one of the original books. She’d never said why. If John Second had discovered it, certainly he’d have punished her even worse than anyone else. Sunny had found it once while putting away laundry and shown it to her mother, thinking it had been a mistake.
“It’s not good to forget things just because we don’t like the way they were,” her mother had said. “You can make a report on me if you feel you must, I won’t blame you. But I kept that book because it’s important, for me anyway, to remember that things change and not always for the better.”
Her mother had been talking about the man she loved, Sunny thought as she sat and rocked with Bliss. In the bed across from her, her two other children still slept. They wouldn’t be woken tonight by flashing lights, alarms, John Second’s or even Papa’s voice.
At least for tonight, there was that.
Chapter 5
Liesel woke with a start to find a small face peering into hers. Instinctively, she batted at the blankets weighting her and cried out. The little girl who’d been looking at her so intently stumbled back and began to cry.
“Oh…honey…Peace,” Liesel said. That was the little girl’s name. Everything came flooding back to her, and she managed to sit up in the bed while her head still whirled. “Shh, honey. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She’d slept too deeply, hadn’t noticed Christopher getting up. Usually Liesel was up before Christopher, even on the weekends because she liked to get up and run, and he preferred to stay in bed. Caught between the sobbing child and her husband’s strangely empty side of the bed, Liesel twisted until she’d made
a mess of the sheets.
“Peace,” she repeated, unsure what to say or do. “Hush.”
Amazingly, the little girl did. Her eyes were still bright with tears welling up and sliding over those perfect, plump cheeks, but her small mouth closed up tight. She blinked rapidly.
Liesel swung her legs over the side of the bed and held out a gentle, careful hand. She glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even seven o’clock in the morning. Where was Christopher?
“Where’s your mommy?”
“Sleeping.” The word came out with an adorable lack of anything resembling an L, closer to something you’d do with a broom than in a bed.
Liesel smiled. “She probably really needed it. And your brother? Is he sleeping, too?”
Peace nodded, then whispered, “I hungry.”
Liesel’s fingers inched closer to the toddler’s. She thought Peace must be about two, no older than two and a half. Liesel was pretty impressed such a little girl would leave the safety of her mother’s side to trek around through an unfamiliar house to find a stranger. She must really be starving.
Small, warm fingers linked with Liesel’s, and she was even more impressed. And touched. To be trusted by a child had always seemed such an honor to her. She grinned.
“C’mon. Let’s see if we can find you something to eat, okay?” And find Christopher while they were at it.
Peace nodded. To Liesel’s surprise, she held up her arms to be lifted. Liesel did, hefting the child’s weight onto her hip. She was so tiny, almost frail. Not much like Becka’s daughter, Annabelle, who’d come into the world like a can of solid-pack pumpkin and hadn’t changed much since. Sturdy legs, sturdy bum and belly. Lifting Peace, by contrast, was like lifting air.
The faint odor of urine drifted up, but the tiny bottom beneath the long nightgown wasn’t squishy with an overflowing diaper. As she headed down the hall toward the stairs, Liesel flipped up the nightgown’s edge to check. Bare skin beneath.