All Fall Down

by Megan Hart

  Sunny, sitting in a rocking chair that had been Christopher’s grandmother’s, looked up from nursing Bliss. She smiled, though it looked wary. “Hi.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “It’s your house.” The way she said it came out less like a sullen teenager and more like she was surprised Liesel would even ask such a thing. In her arms, Bliss gurgled and snuffled before latching on again.

  Liesel sat on the edge of the bed, too aware that she must look terrible and smell worse. “The kids seem to be having fun with Christopher.”

  “He’s been playing with them for a while,” Sunny said after a tiny hesitation. “We had dinner. I gave them baths. You were gone a long time.”

  “I went for a run, just a couple of hours. I like to run. Sunny…” It seemed they’d had the same conversation over and over; all at once Liesel didn’t have anything else to say.

  “My mother had cancer.”

  Liesel wasn’t sure she’d heard Sunny right. “What?”

  “I got a letter,” Sunny said in that placid, unaffected manner she was so very good at. “It came in the mail. From the coroner’s office. The results of her autopsy.”

  “Oh. God. Sunny, I’m sorry, your dad didn’t say anything to me—”

  “He didn’t see the letter,” Sunny interrupted. “I got the mail, and I found it, and it was addressed to me. It was mine. Was it wrong to read it? It had my name on it.”

  “No. It wasn’t wrong. I’m just sorry you had to find out that way…it must’ve been difficult.” Liesel struggled for something to say that didn’t sound lame and could only come up with, “I’m so sorry.”

  “The cancer didn’t kill her,” Sunny said. “The rainbow did. The drugs, I mean. She took them the way everyone else did, and that’s how she left. But they discovered a tumor in her brain that probably would have killed her in another few months.”

  Sunny paused to draw a hitching breath. “She had headaches.”

  Liesel thought she should put an arm around her, offer some comfort, but Sunny didn’t seem open to that, and Liesel wouldn’t have known how to, anyway.

  “She knew she had cancer, I think. She knew something was wrong. Looking back, I can see she must’ve known. But she didn’t say anything to me about it. I didn’t know.” Sunny cleared her throat. The baby had gone limp, slack mouth still suckling though she’d fallen away from the nipple. Sunny tucked her shirt closed.

  “I’m so sorry,” Liesel said again, thinking that if she knew she had a brain tumor that would kill her in a month or so, she might well have been persuaded to down a toxic cocktail of chemicals, too. For the first time, she felt a surge of sympathetic warmth toward her husband’s first wife. “At least she isn’t in any pain.”

  “I don’t know what she is,” Sunny said flatly. “Her vessel wasn’t pure. She didn’t die, she left. So, did she go through the gates? John Second said you could only go through the gates if your vessel was pure and you drank the rainbow, but Josiah said Papa was sick and died, just died. Not that he’d been taken in advance by special forces the way John Second told us. It’s why John Second made Josiah leave the family.”

  Again, Liesel wasn’t sure what to say. Her clothes were starting to stick to her, and her hair was stiff with sweat. She itched. “Are you worried your mother didn’t…go through the gates?”

  “How did she get cancer,” Sunny replied evenly like a statement, not a question, “if she lived a pure life, in superior bliss, the way Papa taught?”

  “I don’t know.” Simple answer, complicated question. “I think a lot of people wonder how they or someone they loved could get cancer.”

  Sunny shook her head slowly and looked down into her sleeping daughter’s face. “I don’t expect you to understand. It’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.” Liesel stood, bone-weary, to look at the baby. She touched the soft hair.

  From downstairs came another trill of laughter that dug at her heart. She had the chance right here in front of her to have everything she’d wanted so much for such a long time. Not in the way she’d wanted it, but that wasn’t important.

  “Everything’s going to be okay, Sunshine,” Liesel said, the words familiar, repeated so often they’d become nonsensical.

  Sunny looked up at her with that implacable stare, so much like her father’s, unbroken even by the faintest hint of a smile. “I know.”

  STAYING

  Prologue Two

  Liesel looked out Sunny’s window to the backyard to check on the kids playing in the grass. April showers and higher-than-normal temperatures had made it grow in thick and green. Christopher would need to mow it soon. She smiled at their high-pitched squeals as they ran and jumped through the sprinkler. They’d be filthy and exhausted later, but for now they were having a blast.

  Farther down in the yard, close to the garden, she spotted Sunny walking with Bliss in her arms. She couldn’t hear what Sunny was singing, but if she squinted, Liesel could see Sunny’s lips moving a little bit and could imagine it was one of the tunes Sunny frequently hummed. “Simple Gifts,” maybe, or her new favorite, “The Sound of Silence.” Liesel had never been a huge fan of Simon & Garfunkel, but Christopher loved them. Like father, like daughter. As Liesel watched, Sunny settled on the curved stone bench next to the weeping angel statue that had been an anniversary gift from Christopher two years ago.

  Someday, instead of letting whatever wildflowers came up on their own overtake it every year, Liesel would really get out there and work in the garden she’d laid out when they moved into this house. Maybe put in a pond with some koi. She’d had fantasies of sitting down there on that bench or even in a pretty garden swing with a book, listening to the sound of running water with that angel there to keep her company. As it was, she hadn’t even been down there since last summer.

  Well, once she got this last load of laundry in the washer she could walk down there and sit with Sunny. Tickle Bliss’s fat chinny and make her giggle. They’d talk about what to make for dinner, maybe. Or maybe just sit and watch the kiddies play until Christopher got home and they could convince him to take them all to the Jigger Shop for burgers and ice cream.

  Sunny was careful about putting the dirty clothes in the hamper, but the kids hadn’t been so tidy in their excitement about putting on their bathing suits. Liesel bent to pick up a pair of Peace’s shorts and Happy’s T-shirt. The edge of a cardboard container caught her hand from just under the bed. She snagged it as she stood.

  Ritz Crackers, the box half-full. Two of the wax paper tubes were missing, with one full one left and another half-eaten with the wax paper carefully twisted shut. Frowning, she bent to look under the bed. A bag of chips, held shut with a plastic clip. Also an unopened container of soy milk.

  Huh.

  Straightening, she tossed the packages into the laundry basket and took it downstairs with her to put away. She loaded the washer and filled the soap dispenser, added some color-safe bleach and turned the machine on. The pounding of little feet on the deck outside caught her attention and she went to the French doors.

  “No running,” she warned. “You’ll slip and fall. And what happened to your bathing suit?”

  Peace, completely naked, giggled and danced, shaking her little tushy. Happy still wore his bathing trunks, thank goodness. He’d been a little easier to keep in clothes since it got warm outside, but not much. His sister, on the other hand, had been nearly impossible to keep clothed. Apparently, the Family of Superior Bliss had some weird ideas about modesty—clothes, particularly for women, had to be severely plain, but casual nudity was all right for both genders and all ages. It had taken a few embarrassed moments for Sunny to understand Liesel, and especially Christopher, required a knock on any closed door before entering, but as far as Peace was concerned, the second she c
ould get naked, she did.

  “Took it off,” Peace crowed.

  “I see that.” Liesel shielded her eyes to look across the lawn. “Where’s your mama?”

  “Talking to the angel.” Happy pushed his wet hair out of his eyes. “Can we go back in the sprinkles?”

  “Peace, put your… Oh, never mind.” Liesel sighed. The suit would be off in another few minutes anyway, and what did it really matter? They were in the privacy of their own backyard, and Peace wasn’t even three years old. “Yes, go play in the sprinkler. Maybe in a few minutes you can have a Popsicle.”

  The kids danced at that, which made her smile and hug and kiss them, though she knew their mother would frown about both the bribery and the treat. Sunny wouldn’t say anything. She hardly ever did anymore. Knowing she didn’t approve made Liesel feel just a little guilty at promising them the treat, but…darn it, wasn’t that what grandmas were for? To spoil their grandkids?

  She left the kids dancing in the water droplets and went across the green lawn, down the small slope of the hill toward the garden. Last year in the spring, she’d had Christopher lay out gravel on the path and it crunched now under her flip-flops. A lot of weeds had grown up through the stones, and Liesel sighed. One more thing to feel guilty about.

  “Hey,” she said when Sunny looked up. “The kids are having a great time.”

  “Yes, I can hear them. Bliss, no-no.” Sunny took a handful of gravel from the baby, who’d been doing her best to get it toward her mouth. “She’s going to be ready for solid food soon.”

  “She’s only eight months…” Liesel stopped herself. Bliss was Sunny’s child, her third. Liesel, as she was so constantly reminded, had none.

  Sunny gave her a curious look. “Yes? Almost nine.”

  “It’s just that…well, aren’t you supposed to wean babies at about a year old?”

  Sunny appeared to think on that. “I don’t know. Are you? We always nursed the babies until they could eat solid food. Some took to it sooner than others. But when they are able to eat solid food, why would they need to nurse anymore?”

  That made sense.

  Mostly everything Sunny said made sense because she said it so matter-of-factly. Even the wackiest details sounded so legitimate that Liesel had to wonder if she was the one out of line.

  “I guess not.” Liesel laughed briefly. “But what do I know?”

  “Oh, Liesel. You know so much! About all kinds of things.” Sunny again took a handful of gravel from Bliss’s questing fingers.

  “That’s nice of you to say, but some days I sure don’t feel like it.” The sounds of childish laughter drifted down to them over the hill. Liesel closed her eyes and tipped her face up to the late-afternoon sunshine, red behind her lids. She’d get freckles. Couldn’t, just then, bring herself to care.

  “Well. You do.”

  Liesel cracked open an eye. “How are you, Sunny?”

  Sunny looked up from where she’d been bending to let Bliss stand holding on to the bench. “Fine.”

  Liesel didn’t miss the way the girl’s gaze shifted, but she didn’t press. Dr. Braddock, the psychiatrist Becka had recommended, had told her and Christopher there might be some things Sunny would never be good at sharing, including her emotions. “Good. I’m glad to hear it.”

  Sunny looked down at the baby again. “How are you?”

  The question took Liesel by surprise. “I’m fine, too.”

  “You haven’t found another job yet.”

  “No.” Liesel grinned. “Maybe that’s why I’m fine. This is the first summer in a long, long time I don’t have to get up early and go to work.”

  “You get up early to run.”

  “Totally my own choice. There’s a huge difference.”

  Sunny smiled. “I guess there is.”

  “Sunny…I just wanted to tell you…” Liesel hesitated. It had only been a few months, and so much change had happened. In most ways, she felt as if she was still looking at a stranger. The children, she knew and understood. Loved.

  But Sunny was still different.

  Sunny lifted Bliss high in the air to blow raspberries on the baby’s belly, and with infant laughter between them, Liesel didn’t have to say anything more. Sunny was so good at that. Deflecting conversation.

  “It’s been good having you here,” Liesel said.

  Sunny pressed her face to her baby’s belly, then looked at Liesel while Bliss sunk tiny hands into her mother’s hair and tugged. A silver strand of drool dripped from Bliss’s mouth, and Sunny ducked from it with a laugh. She wiped it with her thumb as she settled the baby on her lap.

  “Thanks, Liesel.”

  “I just wanted you to know. That’s all.”

  When Sunny smiled, she looked so much like Christopher that it sort of hurt Liesel’s heart. Not just because she was jealous about Trish. Mostly because Liesel loved her husband and seeing his face in his daughter’s reminded her of just how much. Lately it seemed she needed more and more of those reminders.

  A scream, not exactly of pain but certainly of anger, drifted to them. Sunny stood, eyes searching. Liesel stood, too.

  “It’s Peace,” Sunny said. “It looks like… Happy! Don’t push her!”

  But of course it was too late, the kids were tussling for some reason and Sunny was striding across the grass with Bliss on her hip, leaving Liesel behind to sit on the stone bench. Liesel got up, too, to help separate them, the promised Popsicles forgone as punishment for the fighting, though later when Christopher came home he brought ice-cream sandwiches to spoil them with.

  Sitting on the back deck eating burgers they’d cooked on the grill that were better than any from a restaurant, watching the children play and Christopher chase them in the grass, Liesel didn’t realize until much, much later that she’d forgotten to ask Sunny about the food she’d found stashed beneath the bed. And by then it was time for bedtime baths and stories, for tucking in sleepy heads and lullabies.

  And by then it hadn’t seemed quite so important or necessary to ask.

  Chapter 25

  Sunny had woken early so she could shower and wash her hair. Now it hung down her back, heavy and wet. Her shirt clung to her skin, uncomfortable and damp in the house’s sterile and too-chilly air. Outside, the summer sun was just rising. The grass would be wet, and the air might still be cool before the heat hit. It would be better than how it felt here inside with the air-conditioning on.

  Bliss woke with a yawn instead of a cry. She kicked her feet in the air and rolled over to pull herself up in the crib, then held up her arms for Sunny to lift her out. The diaper change took only a minute or so, and as Sunny put the wet diaper into the bucket to soak, she made a mental note to be sure to run a load of laundry later so Liesel wouldn’t have to. Later, when Sunny got home from work.

  Oh. Work.

  Her first day. The thought sent a shiver all through her, sort of a good kind and yet scary, too. She’d had a week to get used to the idea, but now that it was here she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. It would be good to get some experience in the world and have some money of her own. That’s what Chris said, and Sunny knew he was right.

  It didn’t make it any less terrifying.

  Chris had found her a job at a coffee shop downtown, just a few days a week. She’d work from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon. He’d drop her off and pick her up, since she didn’t have a driver’s license. He would teach her to drive, Chris had said. Maybe get what he called a “junker” for her to ride around in, like he’d had when he was young.

  Chris often seemed to think she was a lot younger than she was. He didn’t remember that when he was Sunny’s age, he’d already been married to her mother. And, while it was obvious he knew, intellectuall
y, that Sunny’d already borne three children who were his grandchildren, Chris seemed happy to let Liesel take over anything to do with them as though they were simply some small strangers who’d invaded his house. He didn’t ignore them. In fact, he played with them quite a bit if he got home from work before they went to bed, which wasn’t often. He said it was because he had to work longer hours now to take care of the days coming up when he would have to leave early to come get her, but he often smelled of alcohol when he came home on those later nights. Liesel never said anything about it, not where Sunny could hear, but she knew her stepmother smelled it, too.

  Sunny knew the coffee shop from before. The owners, Wendy and Amy, had never allowed the family to post their pamphlets inside or stand outside to sell them, but if they remembered the few times Sunny had wandered past in search of a spot to rest or to use the bathroom, they didn’t say anything about it. Just like the smell of booze on Chris’s breath that his wife knew about and ignored, though, Sunny knew Wendy and Amy knew where she’d come from.

  It seemed like everyone in town did, because of how Sunny’s face had been splashed all over the local paper and TV stations. Chris and Liesel had tried to keep her from knowing about it, but they hadn’t been able to stop the police from questioning her a few more times about what had happened. She hadn’t been held to any sort of blame, and she’d cooperated as best she could, but some of the news stories had still made it sound almost like she’d gone into the chapel with a bucket and a funnel and forced everyone there to drink the rainbow herself.

  Chris and Liesel had asked her if she wanted to get a job, and Sunny’d said yes only because she knew they wanted her to get one. She knew it was important, just the way so many other things were. Studying to get her high school degree, learning to use money, how to use the oven and the stove, how to drive. She did her best to pretend that none of those things terrified her, even though everything did.

  In an hour or so she’d leave her children behind with Liesel to watch them while Sunny went out into the world. They’d be well cared for, and certainly they were used to being left with people other than their mother. In Sanctuary, she’d left them with other mothers all the time without even the “practice runs” Liesel had insisted they have. Sunny wasn’t worried at all about the children. No, she was worried about the other people.