by Megan Hart
“She looks like Trish. Just like her. She has the same laugh as Trish. She…she has the same gestures. When I look at her, I see Trish. Christ, she even smells like Trish.”
Liesel swallowed hard, fighting to find words. Her husband shrugged and turned from her, shoulders hunched, head hung. If he thought she would comfort him, he was wrong, she thought. Liesel couldn’t even move.
“She’s not Trish, Christopher. She’s your kid, for God’s sake. Not your first wife.”
Christopher said nothing. After a minute of silence, he rolled onto his side and faced away from her. Liesel listened to the sound of his slow breathing, but wondered if he was faking sleep the way she was, or if he also lay awake, staring into the dark.
In the first few months of their marriage, they’d shared a double bed before finally getting the king-size they’d slept in ever since. It hadn’t mattered at first, sleeping snuggled up tight and close with barely any room to turn over without pressing up against each other. They’d been newlyweds, making love more nights than not. The bigger bed had seemed vast and expansive, an excess of space between them, but after years of having so much room in which to spread out, sharing a smaller bed had become almost intolerable. They’d ended vacations early when the only accommodations were a double or even a queen-size bed instead of a king.
Their giant bed was the perfect size for two, Liesel thought as sleep refused to take her, no matter how many sheep she counted. But it was way too small for three, and that’s exactly how many people were in that bed. It didn’t even matter that one of them was a ghost.
Chapter 29
She might always be better at mopping the floors and cleaning the toilets than brewing the coffee or kneading the dough, but at least she could do those things when she had to. And she liked to, Sunny thought as she looked over the list of things Amy had left for her to do. It was a big responsibility, opening the store, but Sunny liked that, too.
Amy and Wendy obviously trusted Sunny enough to give her a key to the store. Sunny’d never had a key before. Heck, she didn’t even have a key to Chris and Liesel’s house, now that she thought about it. Oh, they’d give her one if she asked, that wasn’t a worry, she just hadn’t ever needed one. And there was one tucked into that clay pot by the front door.
But it wasn’t at all the same as a key to the store.
It meant they trusted her. It meant they thought Sunny not only could do the tasks set out for her, but that she would do them. And of all the things Sunny had come to accept and even sometimes embrace and enjoy about her new life outside, trust was what she treasured the most.
This morning, Amy had left a list detailing the expected deliveries. She’d also written the names of the new sandwiches and left Sunny an unopened package of those fun markers that drew so prettily on the blackboard. The other stuff on the list was nothing special—stock the bathroom and napkin holders with paper products, fill the sweetener and creamer containers on the self-serve coffee station. That sort of thing. Tally the drawer and mark down any change needed, that could be a tough one. Fortunately, Amy wasn’t any better with doing math in her head than Sunny was, and never made fun if Sunny used a calculator.
During the day, Amy and Wendy controlled the music, usually playing their favorite internet radio station. They both favored current pop hits like Liesel did, music that left Sunny cold. Before Amy and Wendy came in, though, Sunny liked to switch the station to something called Oldies Hits or Indie Rock. Simon & Garfunkel was her favorite.
The first song played today was “The Sound of Silence,” and Sunny hummed along with it as she swept the tile floor before taking the chairs down from the tables. Whoever had closed the night before was supposed to sweep, but she liked to do it again just to start the day off right. With only a couple hours between her arrival and the official shop opening, she didn’t really have time to create extra chores for herself, but she liked knowing that when she turned the sign on the front door from Closed to Open, she’d made the Green Bean the cleanest and most welcoming shop anyone could ever ask for.
She made the first pots of coffee, measuring the beans and grinding them. The water. Filling the big jugs. She loved the smell of coffee but not the taste. Probably never would, and not just because of the caffeine she knew was no devil’s tool but still wasn’t good for her vessel.
Her body, she reminded herself as she washed her hands to start some prep work on the few salad items that would go into the deli case. Not her vessel, but her body. And no, caffeine wasn’t good for it, but drinking coffee wouldn’t keep her from…well, from whatever there was for people after they died.
It was hard, this constant reminder that the things she’d always thought of as her entire world weren’t real or true. That it wasn’t even a matter of faith, as Papa had always told them, because Sunny had learned there were all sorts of faiths in the world, and none of them seemed any more right than the other.
Orange juice, though. That she could never get enough of. Orange soda wasn’t the same, though she liked that, too, and drank a lot of it during the day because Amy and Wendy had said it was included in her employee benefits even though juice wasn’t. She had to be careful, though, to brush her teeth to get rid of the sugar. It made her feel less guilty that way.
She allowed herself a glass of orange juice in the morning though, when she came in to open the shop before anyone else arrived. Just one, a tall glass of it, swimming with pulp. She liked to squeak the little bits between her teeth. The cool air from the fridge bathed her face when she opened the big metal door, and Sunny closed her eyes to lean into it. Just for a second or two. The hum from the fridge was loud enough to sound like the sea. And the cold air felt good after she’d been sweating with all the sweeping and lifting of boxes and stuff.
When she closed the door, she wasn’t alone. A man stood in the back door, which hung open, spilling in the light from alley. The jug of orange juice slipped from her suddenly numb fingers. It bounced on the floor, the cap flying off, and landed on its side with a glug-glug-glug of juice spilling out, but the jug itself didn’t crack open. Sunny snatched a dish towel from the prep counter and tossed it on the puddle, then pulled the jug off the floor. The cap had rolled too far for her to reach. She stood, her back against the prep counter.
She was startled, but not surprised.
It was Josiah.
“Hello, Sunshine.” Josiah had a smooth, low voice. Sort of creamy. He had the same soft, wheat-colored hair, the same blue eyes that looked right into hers and saw everything she’d been doing since she left Sanctuary.
“What are you doing here?”
Josiah looked around the kitchen and held out his hands, palms up, as if he meant to hold something in them but had found only air. “I heard you worked here.”
“From who?” It was a silly question. He could’ve heard it from anyone. Lebanon wasn’t very big, and she already knew she’d been the subject of a lot of gossip. Sunny bent again to pick up the sodden towel, dripping orange juice. She took it to the sink and rinsed it, wrung it out. She picked up the bottle of spray cleanser, but moving back to the spill would put her right in front of him, and she didn’t want to get that close.
“You act like it’s a secret. Is it?” He tilted his head to look at her, up and down. “A secret even from me?”
“It’s not a secret. It’s just…you shouldn’t be here.”
“Why not?”
Because she didn’t want him there, she thought. Sunny shook her head. “You just shouldn’t. What do you want?”
“To see you. Make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.”
“Outside,” Josiah said quietly. “Living with the blemished. How can you be fine?”
She felt her jaw go tight, her teeth like a cage to keep inside the words, like beasts. “Wh
y are you here?”
“I told you—”
“No. I mean why are you here? Why aren’t you…”
Josiah waited for her to finish, but it seemed she couldn’t quite make herself say it. “Dead? Is that what you mean, Sunshine? Why didn’t I leave my vessel the way my father told us to?”
“Yes,” Sunny said.
Josiah laughed. He spread his hands again, holding on to nothing. “My brother…he wanted to live the way our father had told us. He’s the one who thought it was time for everyone to leave their vessels…but he was wrong.”
“Of course he was wrong!” Sunny shouted. “He was crazy! Just like you all were!”
Josiah looked sad. “Oh, Sunshine. C’mon. That’s not you talking. Those aren’t the words of a daughter of the family. Those are the words of the blemished. But it’s all right, I understand. You just have to remember something.”
She eyed him, suspicious. The thunder of her heartbeat had stilled as every second passed without him moving toward her. “What’s that?”
“We still love you. We haven’t forgotten you.”
“Who?”
“I haven’t, for one.” He gave her a smile that reminded her of Papa’s, only nicer. “Everyone who came with me when my brother forced me from my father’s house.”
“The police will want to talk to you.” Sunny had no idea if that was true, but it sounded like it made sense. They’d wanted to talk to her plenty.
Josiah laughed gently. He’d always been the nicer of Papa’s true sons. He’d played games with the kids and was never afraid to speak out to Papa and John Second against punishments. He’d always been the only one. Josiah had once given her an extra portion of oatmeal and toast when she was pregnant and had felt faint between lunch and dinner. Funny how she thought of that now, when she hadn’t thought about anything nice that had happened during her time with the family in a long while. Lots of the bad things, but not the not-so-bad.
“I’ve spoken to the police. But I didn’t do anything wrong. I was long gone before my brother decided to preemptively encourage everyone to leave their vessels.” Josiah looked sad again. “I explained to the police that the reason I left Sanctuary was because I didn’t think it was time for us to go, that a lot more had to happen in the world before we’d have to leave it. And that it had to be a choice for every single person, not something anyone should force on anyone.”
“They said you knew.”
Josiah hesitated. “My brother called me. Yes. But he called me a lot of times before, Sunshine, to tell me he was going to make sure everyone left, and he never went through with it. I didn’t know that this time he meant it.”
The orange juice would be sticky by now, and Amy was due in about half an hour. She wouldn’t be happy Sunny hadn’t bothered to clean the mess. Sunny took the damp dish towel and the spray cleanser and knelt to wipe up the rest of the spill. She was very aware of how close Josiah was, and how it felt to be on her knees in front of him the way she’d been so often in front of his brother. She kept her eyes on the spill, swiping and wiping, spritzing it with cleanser and folding the towel so she could use the clean parts to get every last drop of juice. It had splattered quite a bit.
“The police can’t do anything to me, Sunshine, because I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“What John Second did was wrong. What Papa did…that was wrong, too.”
“My father and brother did a lot of things that were wrong. I agree. Absolutely.”
It was too hard to be terrified of a man who spoke so kindly. Josiah hadn’t taken so much as one step toward her. He tilted his head again to look down at her as she looked up, then he squatted onto his heels.
Papa would never have lowered himself that way. Not John Second, either. Sunny, cloth in one hand and spray bottle in the other, stood. Now it was Josiah below her, looking up. Again, he spread his fingers, the backs of them pressed against his knees with the palms up, like an invitation for her to take one of them.
“What do you want from me, really?” Sunny went back to the sink to rinse the towel. And again. Over and over, the water running so hot it turned her hands red and there was nothing left to wring from the towel but clear water, and still she kept going because with the rush of the spigot she could always pretend she didn’t hear what he had to say if she didn’t like it.
“Like I said, I just wanted to make sure you were all right. And to let you know you were missed, and that you don’t have to be alone.”
“I’m not alone.”
He sounded like he was smiling again, but because she refused to look, Sunny couldn’t be sure. “Of course not. But…you’re lonely. Aren’t you, Sunny?”
Sometimes, yes she was.
She didn’t answer him. Not even with a shrug. In Sanctuary she’d have been punished for the disrespect of giving him her back; ignoring a direct question was a sure way to get some time in the silent room. But she wasn’t there, she was here.
And when she turned around to tell him that, to make sure Josiah understood that no matter how many times she still woke from dreams in which she’d returned to Sanctuary, Sunny knew the difference between there and here, the family and the blemished…
Josiah was gone.
“Hey, Sunny. What’s up?” The boy at the counter gave her a smile so bright she could only look at it from the side instead of straight on.
His name was Tyler, and he went to summer classes at the college across the street. He hung out in the Green Bean with a bunch of other kids who also went to that school. Tyler liked to buy a bottomless cup of coffee and sometimes a bagel with salmon cream cheese. He sat in the front window with his books and computer when he was alone, toward the middle at the biggest table when he was with his friends.
Today he was alone.
“Hi, Tyler.” His name tickled her tongue so much Sunny was always afraid she’d get tangled with it. Stutter. Almost two months’ working here, and still she found herself stumbling over simple, stupid things. “I’m fine. What’s…up with you?”
“Just working on a couple papers. Can I get—”
She was already pushing his mug toward him. He took it with another of those smiles that made her feel dazed, like she’d just stared a little too long at the sun. He had beautiful white teeth. Straight. And dimples.
“Thanks.” He handed her a couple of dollar bills and put the change she gave him into the tip jar. “That’s for you, make sure they let you keep it.”
Sunny glanced over her shoulder toward the kitchen. Amy and Wendy always shared out the tips, even when Sunny didn’t work at the register. When she looked back at him, he was still smiling. She hated the blush that crept up her throat and into her face, but Tyler didn’t seem to notice. He took his mug and headed for the front window, where he sat facing the street, silhouetted in the light from outside.
Sunny liked knowing he was there, even if she didn’t talk to him. The days Tyler came into the shop with his friends were a little stressful. They were all so loud, laughing, the girls always dressed with so little modesty. Sometimes sitting on the laps of the boys, doing silly things like playing with the buttons on the front of the boys’ shirts, or their hair, or leaning close to whisper in their ears.
It was hard to believe she was their age. Even a little older than one or two of them. Sunny had nothing in common with any of those kids, though they seemed to think of her as…well, not one of their own, exactly. Not with her long skirts and sleeves, the way she wore her hair and didn’t use makeup. They were nice to her, but they thought she was Mennonite or something.
She didn’t fit in with them either, those young Mennonite women in their matching dresses and hair coverings. A lot of them had children, just like Sunny, but that meant they also had husbands. Homes of their own. A church and fa
ith to support them.
She didn’t have much in common with anyone.
No, she much preferred the days Tyler came in by himself. Some days the shop was empty for hours with just him sitting in the window, tapping away at his computer. He’d told her he was an English major. He wanted to be a teacher. Tyler knew what he was doing and what he wanted, and Sunny admired that.
“You okay out here?” Amy poked her head through the swinging door to the kitchen.
“Yes. It’s slow today.”
Amy looked out at the empty room, caught a glimpse of Tyler and grinned at Sunny. “I see your favorite customer’s here.”
More heat flooded Sunny’s face, and she quickly wiped at an invisible spot on the counter. Amy liked to tease. “I like all the customers.”
Sunny watched her return to the kitchen. When she turned back to the counter, there was Tyler with his empty mug. Sunny was still smiling, couldn’t stop, and he seemed a little surprised. Just at first. Then he smiled, too.
They looked at each other across the counter for a few seconds that felt much longer, until finally Tyler handed her his mug. Sunny took it, imagining the heat of his fingers on the porcelain. She thought he’d walk away then.
Instead, Tyler shuffled a foot on the wooden floor. His sneakers squeaked. He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck, head tilted with one eye shut as he looked at her. “Sunny.”
“Yes?”
“Do you wanna see about doing something sometime?”
It took her several more long seconds to understand what he meant. She put the mug down so hard she was afraid she’d cracked it. “With you?”
He laughed. “Sure. With me.”
“Something…like what?”
“We could see a movie,” he said. “Maybe go to dinner?”
“A date,” Sunny said flatly.
“Sure.” Tyler hit her with another smile, but hers had faded. He looked a little confused. “No?”