by Megan Hart
“That’s right. A report about whether or not she thinks your children will be protected here with you.”
Sunny’s fingers tightened on the mug. “Of course they will! I love my children!”
“Nobody doubts that,” said Officer Smith. “And I’m sure Mrs. Umberger will put that in her report. And since your dad and his wife have assured us and Mrs. Umberger that you’ll be taken care of, I’m sure it will all be fine. You and your kids are very lucky, Sunny.”
With that, they left her sitting at the table. Not even the hot mug could warm her. She hadn’t known it wasn’t just a drill, Sunny thought. But she should have. John Second using Papa’s voice instead of his own should’ve told her that. Or else she should have known when she listened with her heart. There should’ve been the small, still voice Papa had told them would let them know when it was time to leave, except that Sunny had heard nothing.
Had her mother heard it?
“Sunny? Hon, are you okay?” In the doorway, Liesel held Bliss. “Did they leave?”
Sunny nodded. “Is she hungry? I can take her.”
Liesel looked into the baby’s face with soft eyes and a small smile. “Yeah, I think she is. What a little cutie. I changed her diaper, too.”
“Thanks.” Sunny held up her hands to take the baby as Liesel handed her over. “Happy? Peace?”
“They’re fine. They’re playing Candy Land with Christopher.” At what must’ve been a confused look, Liesel chuckled. “It’s a board game. They’re having fun. They’re okay. They’re just in the den. I know it must be weird for you, all of this. If you want to talk about it, hon…I’m here.”
“I don’t have anything to talk about.” Sunny put Bliss to her breast, noticing how Liesel’s gaze slid away, as if it embarrassed her to watch. The blemished were okay with parading women’s breasts across billboards to sell cars, but feeding children with them seemed to be completely out of line. “Thank you, though.”
“More tea? I can warm it up for you.”
“No, thanks.”
Liesel looked as though she was about to say something else, but then didn’t. “I’ll just go check on Christopher and the kids. Give you some privacy.”
Sunny fed her daughter. This house was cleaner than any place she’d ever lived, even despite the hours she and many of her sisters had spent on their knees scrubbing floors. It was warm, too. Smelled nice, like flowers, even though it was winter. The water was hot, the food was plentiful and varied.
They’d bought her clothes. Given her toys for her children. Disposable diapers, which went against everything Papa had ever taught them about being kind to the earth, and yet were so much more wonderfully easy to use than the cloth diapers she’d used for all her kids.
This could be a good place for them, she thought. Except she couldn’t stop thinking about Sanctuary. After years of preparation, training that had gone on as long as Sunny could remember, John Second had actually done what his father had always promised was coming.
Her mom. John Second. All the men and women Sunny had thought of as her brothers and sisters, no matter if they didn’t share actual parents. Everyone was related in the family.
And the children.
Oh, the children. A strangled sob tore at her throat, and she pressed her lips together to hold it inside. Why had her mother sent her away if she knew John Second was going to have them all leave, make it more than just a drill? Sunny slipped cold fingers over the top of her infant daughter’s head, and thought she understood.
Chapter 14
“She’s not a baby. She has three kids of her own, Christopher.” Liesel rubbed lotion into her elbows and arms, then squirted another palmful and started to work on her thighs and calves and butt. Her skin got so dry in the winter, itching, and it drove her crazy. “I’m sure she’ll be fine here by herself.”
Christopher looked at her from over the top of his glasses. He had a finger shoved into the middle of a thick book, a biography of some rock star whose music he didn’t even listen to. “Yeah, and she escaped with her life from a crazy cult that just all offed themselves only what, two days ago? I’m just saying, I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to be left alone.”
Liesel flipped back the comforter and slid beneath the flannel sheets. “Lower your voice! Do you want her to hear you?”
Her husband would certainly never win any awards for subtlety, but at least he managed to drop his voice to something just above a whisper. “You’re the one who thought it would be such a great idea for her to stay here. And I’m not saying you’re wrong,” he added before she could interrupt. “I think we’re the only place she has to go. But there’s no question that she needs some attention. I mean, for God’s sake, the police will probably want to talk to her again, and didn’t they say something about the possibility of another social worker coming out for another inspection or something? Didn’t you see her face splashed all over the TV? They’re calling her the Angel of Superior Bliss or some such shit. Soul Survivor. Christ. What a bunch of crap.”
Reporters had been calling, too, though so far none of them had shown up at the house. Liesel and Christopher had let the phone ring without answering. Their voice mail had filled up with messages.
Her neck and shoulders still ached. The bruises from her fall had bloomed spectacularly. Yesterday and today had been spent dealing with all the official stuff that went along with the tragedy. Another day at home wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It just wasn’t as easy for her to get time off as it was for Christopher, who got vacation and sick time.
“You should do it,” she said, leaving the reason unspoken because she’d said it so many times already. Sunny was his daughter. His responsibility.
Again he peered at her over his glasses. “I have meetings. I can’t just cancel a national conference call to stay home and play patty-cake.”
It was so much more than that, but she could see by the set of his jaw that he wasn’t going to budge. Liesel sighed. “You know what a hassle it is if I call in. They count on me there.”
Christopher rolled his eyes. “It’s not like we’re going to go hungry if you miss a few days’ pay.”
His comment probably hadn’t meant to sound as derisive as it did, and Liesel tried hard not to take it that way. “Wow, thanks.”
Christopher shrugged. “Maybe if you miss a few days, they’ll see how much they need you there and appreciate you more. Did you ever think of that?”
She found a laugh for that. “Oh, that’s hardly likely.”
Liesel had been working at a local print shop for what felt like forever. Owned by a husband-and-wife team who’d been in the printing business for thirty years, the shop did a little of everything, from mugs to T-shirts to calendars, and Liesel did a little bit of everything for them—some accounting, some sales, almost all the design.
“I told you. I’ve got meetings. I can’t miss them,” Christopher said flatly. “Besides, you’re better with all that…stuff.”
“You’re going to have to find a way to be better with it, Christopher.”
He shrugged, focused on the book she knew he wasn’t really reading.
“You were okay with them when I took her shopping. You had a good time playing Candy Land with them, didn’t you? They’re sweet kids.”
He shrugged again. “They’re fine.”
“They’re your grandchildren,” Liesel said.
He looked at her. “And she’s my daughter. Yeah. We’ve been over this. Get off my back, okay?”
“I didn’t mean to be on your back about it.” Liesel scooted closer to him to put her head on his shoulder. He warmed her better than the blankets did. She let her icy toes slide along his warm calves and laughed a little at his muttered curse.
Christopher sighed a
nd stuck his bookmark in to mark his place. “This is all a real mess, you know that, right? I mean, this isn’t normal. It’s bad enough she shows up here after almost twenty years, but with three kids in tow? How the hell are we supposed to cope with that?”
“We’ll manage. Have you called your mother yet?” She let her hand rest on the tiny slip of belly exposed between his T-shirt and his pj bottoms. She was still itchy, despite the lotion, so she scooted back across the bed to get another couple of squirts. She pulled up her pajama shirt and rubbed, then looked over her shoulder to find her husband grinning at her bare chest. “Focus, Christopher.”
“I’m focusing.”
“On what I asked you, not my boobs.”
When the phone rang, they both looked at it. Liesel glanced at the clock. It was just past 9:00 p.m. Nobody ever called them after nine.
“It’s your mother,” she said, checking the number on the caller ID. “Let me guess, you didn’t call her.”
Christopher’s mother had moved in with his sister a few years ago after their dad died, but stories like this traveled. It had made the national news. And of course, Liesel realized with a small curl of her lip, her mother-in-law would’ve known all about Trish.
Funny how she’d never been jealous of her husband’s first marriage before, and now the thought of it made her want to kick something. Christopher had been married right out of high school, a concept so foreign to Liesel she’d been able to pretend it hadn’t been real, a feat made so much easier by the fact he never talked about Trish. Ever. She might as well never have existed, except for the four people in Liesel’s guest bedroom.
He sighed. “No. I haven’t. Did you call yours?”
“I did, actually. Left her a message to call me. But you know, Sunny’s not her granddaughter. She’d be a lot less…invested.”
Christopher hooked the phone off the cradle. “Mom.”
Liesel pressed her grin flat. She liked her husband’s family just fine, but they exasperated her husband constantly. Probably the same way her own parents worked her very last nerve yet barely bothered Christopher at all. They were lucky, she thought, watching him. She knew a lot of people who hated their spouse’s family.
“Yes.” Christopher swung his legs out of bed. Then, incredibly, he got out of bed altogether, and stalked into the dressing room. He closed the door behind him.
Liesel stood at her side of the bed, her hands still full of lotion she rubbed quickly into her skin so she could pull down her shirt. She could hear her husband’s voice, muffled through the door, but not exactly what he was saying. Just the fact he’d felt the need for privacy told her more than anything else.
Her stomach cramped with a slow, rolling wave of something close to, but not quite, nausea. With all the excitement she’d forgotten to be mournful about her period. Liesel got into bed, under the blankets, and pressed her palms to her belly to ease the pain. If it got worse she’d have to get out the heating pad, maybe even take some medicine. But that would mean passing through the dressing room to get to the bathroom, and she didn’t want Christopher to think she was spying on him, desperate to hear what he was saying, even if that was pretty much the truth.
During the first few years of their marriage, Christopher’s dog had liked to try to get into bed with them at night, so they’d gotten into the habit of sleeping with the door closed. Buster had died three years ago and neither of them had felt the need for another pet, but the habit had remained. Tonight though, Liesel had made sure to leave the door cracked open a little bit so she could hear if Sunny or the kids got up or needed anything in the night.
It hit her hard, this sudden punch of a realization that an open door now meant something so much more than a matter of preference. Beneath her palms, her belly ached and cramped, then a sharp pain pricked at her deeper inside.
Half giddy, half terrified, Liesel had a realization. Something that hit home harder than anything had yet. Leaving a door open in the night to hear if someone needed her. This was what it was like to be a mother.
Chapter 15
Sunny woke, but didn’t get out of bed. Blinking, she tugged the blankets up to her chin and listened to the silence in the room. Soft breathing, the familiar snuffle of her baby dreaming. What did babies dream about, anyway? Eating, sleeping, pooping?
She’d been dreaming of her mother laid out on that gurney like some broken doll nobody had bothered to fix. Her mother’s vessel, she corrected herself, and if she’d ever doubted Papa’s words they’d hit her right in the face when that doctor had pulled back the sheet. There’d been nothing left of her mother in that empty container.
The room was still dark, and she had no clock to check the time, but she figured it was probably around five-thirty or so. At home she’d have been up half an hour ago for the morning meditations. Lying in bed now felt indecent. She’d gone to bed with the children last night about eight, far earlier than she was used to, and had been woken only once by Bliss, who hadn’t really needed to nurse but wanted to anyway.
It was the longest Sunny had slept without interruption since childhood. Maybe her entire life. So why was she still so tired? The bed was so soft, the blankets so heavy, the pajamas Liesel had bought for her so thick and soft and warm and comfortable.
She really needed to get out of bed.
Without waking Happy and Peace who shared the bed with her, Sunny put her feet over the edge. The floor was cold on her toes, but she was so toasty warm everywhere else that it hardly mattered. She yawned and stretched.
There was nobody here to notice or care if she did her morning meditations. There’d be no punishment for missing them. But she would know. The Maker would know. And if there was nobody here to make a report on her, force her into the silent room or heap her with extra chores, that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be any consequences.
Quietly, Sunny dressed in the new clothes Liesel had bought. They felt wrong on her skin. The fabrics scratchy. The skirt too heavy, the blouse too light. Her fingers fumbled on the buttons and smoothed the material over her belly, tucked it into her waistband. She had trouble with the zipper, felt guilty even for wearing a skirt so fancy, but there’d been so little choice of what was acceptable that she’d had to make do with what she could find.
She found a place for herself in the living room. Unlike the family room off the kitchen, everything in this room matched and was perfectly in place. The white carpet, thick and plush, had no footprints on it. Sunny stepped carefully to the middle of the room. She sat cross-legged on the soft carpet and let her hands fall, palms up and fingers open, onto her knees.
“Thank you for the winds that blow, thank you for the seeds that grow, thank you for the earth to plow, thank you for the love you show.”
That was the simple part. Now came the more difficult bit. Listening.
Sunny closed her eyes. Drew in a breath. She listened with her ears first, of course, because she couldn’t help it. In the chapel there was always some sort of noise like the shuffle of feet or snuffle of breath. The children were impossible to keep completely silent, so there was often a baby’s cry or a small child’s whimper. They were supposed to be able to push all that aside, but it took longer for some than others. It had always taken longer for her.
Here, though, the house was quiet. The sound of her own breath whispered very loud in her ears, along with the steady shush-shush of her heart that was very much like the noise she’d heard long, long ago when she held a shell to her ear. They were hundreds of miles from any ocean, but the rush and roar of it had filled Sunny with delight and longing. She’d never seen the sea.
She imagined it, though. How the waves would curl, then break and toss themselves up on the sand. She’d seen pictures of it, and once, a very long time ago, she’d heard the sounds the ocean made on an old record album John Second h
ad played while he had sex with her mother when Sunny was supposed to be sleeping.
Someday, she thought, she’d go to the ocean.
But for now she sat as still as she could and focused on listening with her heart. Without the words of Papa or even John Second to guide her, it was hard, but Sunny did her best. She breathed, she listened. The floor beneath her fell away.
She floated.
Her eyes snapped open, the floor rushed up to meet her, and she tipped forward with both hands out to catch herself though she wasn’t really even falling. She coughed, her breath sharp in her throat. She swam against the carpet.
“Sunny?”
Blinking and swallowing a rush of spit, Sunny looked up to see Liesel in the doorway. She wore a knit cap, mittens, a heavy coat. Her cheeks were pink. She smelled like fresh air.
“Are you okay, hon?”
Sunny blinked again and looked down to where her fingers had curled into the carpet. It was so thick they disappeared up to the first knuckle. A few stray hairs had fallen out of her braid and tickled her cheeks. She sat up, brushed them away, uncrossed her legs to stand on numb feet. She stumbled.
Liesel reached to catch her, but Sunny righted herself before she could. “Sunny?”
“I was meditating. I’m sorry, I guess I got a little dizzy.” Sunny looked at the spot on the carpet marked by the weight of her body. She’d been floating. Papa had said he’d been able to do it in his private meditations. He’d said they all could do it, if they listened hard enough to the secrets of their souls. John Second had claimed he could fly.
“Maybe you need a drink of water. Maybe you’re coming down with something,” Liesel added, and touched Sunny’s arm. “You’ve been through a lot the past few days. Come to the kitchen with me, I’ll get you something.”
“Thanks.” Sunny followed obediently with a glance behind her at the empty spot.