All Fall Down

  Liesel tried another approach, not sure she could even form the words but managing. “That’s like tossing money away. You might as well just flush my paycheck down the toilet.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Food costs money.” Surely the girl understood that. She couldn’t be that sheltered…or simple. Could she?

  “I know. But it’s bad food, Liesel. Corn syrup causes all kinds of disease. It harms your vessel. If you can’t grow your own food, fresh, it’s best to keep it as simple as possible. Avoid chemicals and toxins.”

  “It wasn’t yours to dump,” Liesel said, sounding too harsh, but the sight of her soda swirling down the drain made her want to weep. Even Christopher, who could be incredibly unobservant, knew better than to drink her soda, and Sunny had dumped it all away.

  Sunny’s expression didn’t change except, if it were possible, to get blanker. She backed up a step. Paced a few more, swiveled on her heel. Then back again. Her fists clenched together, fingers linked. She paused, head hanging, the intricate design of her braid somehow making her ears and chin and neck seem all the more exposed.

  Liesel fought her own expression, which wanted to twist and turn into ugliness. “Look. Sunny. I know all this is crazy and new to you…”

  “It is,” Sunny said in a low voice, without looking at her. “We’ve already talked about this. You’re going to tell me you understand, that you know it will take time. That me and my kids are welcome here, in my father’s house.”

  It was exactly what Liesel had been about to say, the same words she’d already said several times over the past few days. “All of that is true.”

  Sunny faced her. “But you don’t understand, Liesel. You can’t ever understand, I don’t think.”

  “Because I’m blemished?” Liesel asked wearily.

  “Because you’ve lived your whole life in a house like this!” Sunny cried, her blank mask slipping for a moment to reveal the agonized girl beneath.

  From upstairs came a thin wail. Bliss. Sunny let her eyes roll upward, but she didn’t move. She looked back at Liesel.

  “Why don’t you have any children?”

  “I… We…” Liesel frowned. “That’s not really any of your business.”

  From upstairs came a series of thumps. Another short cry. Liesel would’ve been up the stairs by now, but Sunny just cocked her head as though assessing not just the volume of the cry, but its nature. She shook her head a little and pushed away a tendril of hair that had fallen over her face.

  “I know you don’t have to let us stay here.”

  Liesel sighed. “Of course I do, Sunny. Where else would you go? A homeless shelter? Or maybe you’d like to give up your kids—”

  “No!”

  “Well,” Liesel said again with that same harsh tone she was disturbed to realize tasted too familiar, “that’s what would happen if you don’t stay here. You’ll be out on the street. And the state will take your kids from you.”

  It sounded too much like a threat, and she hadn’t meant it to be. It was the simple truth. Hard, unpleasant. But true.

  “I’m not a child.”

  “I know you’re not,” Liesel said, again too harshly, but unable to stay emotionless. “But let’s face it, you’re as much to take care of as one.”

  “I am as a child in my father’s house.” Sunny coughed against the back of her hand, not looking at Liesel. It sounded like a quote Liesel should know the source of, but didn’t. “But that’s not what you mean, is it?”

  “No. And I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it.”

  “You meant it, didn’t you?” Sunny shrugged, still without looking at her.

  Liesel sighed and put both her hands on the countertop, leaning forward for support, her shoulders tense and back aching. “But I shouldn’t have said it. It wasn’t nice.”

  “If it’s true, does it have to be nice? If you have something true to say, but you don’t say it because you just want to be nice, isn’t that sort of like a lie?” Sunny looked at her again, her words a question but her face showing no sign of curiosity.

  “Is that what your…is that what Papa taught you?”

  “Not to speak with a liar’s tongue. Yes. We’re taught not to.”

  “So…you always tell the truth?”

  Sunny hesitated. “We’re supposed to. If we don’t, someone will tell it for us. You can’t go through the gates with the weight of lies and misdeeds holding you back.”

  Liesel looked around her ruined kitchen, the hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars of wasted food. She thought of three small faces and the clasp of tiny fingers in hers. “Nobody expects all this to just magically be all right for any of us.”

  “I know that.”

  “But it will get better,” Liesel said.

  Sunny looked at her. “Are you saying that because you think it’s true? Or because you think it’s nice?”

  “Sunny,” Liesel said with a smile the girl slowly returned, “sometimes it can be the same thing.”

  Chapter 23

  Papa used to be tall and strong, with long white hair and a scratchy beard that tickled on your cheeks when he kissed you. Now he sits in a wheelchair and his hair has gone a dirty yellow color. His fingernails, too.

  He hasn’t kissed Sunny in a long time, not for ages, but she thinks about the feeling of his beard on her face now. It’s time to see if maybe Sunny’s going to become Papa’s one true wife, to replace the one who’d left her vessel too soon. It’s been a long time and he hasn’t found her yet, but there’s always the chance it could be any one of the women in the family. Maybe Sunny. And once he finds her, then everyone else can take their one true wife or husband, and they’ll all be able to go through the gates. But by the time Sunny’s mother brings her to Papa’s room, he’s already started to get tired.

  “Sit with me, Sunshine,” Papa says from his bed, patting the blankets next to him. “Tell me about yourself.”

  There’s not much to tell. Sunny is fourteen years old and has moved into the dorm where she’ll stay until something else happens to her, like becoming the one true wife or having a baby. She shares the dorm with Patience, Willow and Praise, four beds all in a row, and she misses the trundle in her mother’s room. But her mother says she’s glad Sunny’s moved out to the dorm so she can have a little more privacy—which Sunny knows means time with John Second alone, and that’s okay with her because maybe if he has more time with her mother, he won’t bother with Sunny anymore.

  “You’ve done well with your lessons, I hear.”

  She doesn’t ask from whom. Anyone can make a report on anyone else, and it could be a good report or a bad report. Mostly bad. People always seem to pay attention to the bad things you do, not so much the good. She nods, shy in front of Papa, though she shouldn’t be.

  “In another month or so you’ll be sent out among the blemished.” Papa coughs fiercely, the bed shaking. He coughs so loud and long and hard that Sunny becomes alarmed, though he waves away the glass of water she pours him from the pitcher on the table by the bed. “You’ll be an emissary for us here in Sanctuary, Sunshine.”

  “What’s an emissary?”

  Papa laughs. “A bringer of good news, I suppose you could say. It’ll be part of your job to put my words into the hands of the blemished and hope that some of them become seekers.”

  Sunny nods, relaxing a little bit. If all Papa wants to do is talk to her…well, that can’t be bad. “Like Edwina and Patch.”

  “Yes. They came to us as seekers and now they’ve become part of our family. It’s a beautiful thing, Sunshine, being able to bring the word to those who don’t know about it.” Papa coughs again, longer this time, then sags back against the pillows. He reaches for her hand and holds it tigh
t. His fingers are hot and rough, scratching hers. “You’re a good girl, Sunshine. Aren’t you?”

  “I try to be.”

  “You take care of your vessel?”

  “I try, Papa.”

  “Let me see.”

  She shouldn’t feel shy or ashamed, but she does as she stands to unbutton her blouse and skirt and drop them to the floor. Her mother made her take a long bath before she came here, to wash everything on her body. She trimmed her fingernails and toenails and smoothed every inch of herself with lotion. Now she feels chilly as she stands bare in front of Papa, and she wants to put her arms around herself, but doesn’t.

  “Turn around.”

  She does, in a circle, then stops. Her teeth try to chatter, but she keeps them held tight. Her throat works. Her nipples are hard from the cold, gooseflesh pimples her all over. She has the sudden, embarrassing urge to pee.

  “You keep your vessel clean, fit.” Papa coughs, closing his eyes. “Come here.”

  She does. She knows what to expect, but instead of doing all the things John Second has done, Papa only kisses her. His hands rub her all over, that scratchy flesh like briars, plucking. Her shiver is from distaste this time, and shame washes over her. It would be a great thing to be the one true wife, perhaps give Papa another true son or even a true daughter. It would assure her a place beyond the gates and would wipe out everything bad she’s done that might keep her out.

  And…unlike his son, Papa is kind.

  “That’s it, then,” he says as if he’s talking to himself. He’s done nothing but touch her with his hands and that one kiss. “Get dressed, Sunshine.”

  She does. Her mother is waiting for her in the hall, sitting in a metal folding chair. She’s been biting her nails, the tips are red and raw. Sunny takes her mother’s hand from her mouth and holds the fingers closed.

  “Mama, don’t do that.”

  Her mother looks sad. “You weren’t in there very long.”

  “He wasn’t… He didn’t…” Sunny doesn’t want to admit that there’s no way she will become the one true wife. Her mother will be so disappointed.

  Instead, her mother hugs Sunny close. “It’s okay. He’s an old man.”

  Papa is more than old. He’s sick, too. Now at night when they’re woken by the sound of Papa’s command, it’s always the same words and tone over and over, not his real voice but a recording. When they drag themselves on sleep-stumbly feet to the chapel, Papa sits in a wheelchair, his long hair so thin you can see his scalp. John Second speaks for him most of the time, but not every time.

  “Listen with your hearts,” Papa says between thick-sounding coughs. He turns his head and spits into a bucket. “The time’s coming soon. We have to be ready. You all have to be ready, so listen for the still, small voice that will tell you what to do.”

  Sunny listens hard, then harder, with everything, not just her heart. She closes her eyes to concentrate on the sound of her breathing, the beating throb of her heart. But all she can hear is Papa’s rasping coughs. The shifting of people’s butts on the floor. The whimper, quickly shushed, of a baby.

  She can’t hear a voice at all.

  But then…once, long after that day in Papa’s room, after Sunny’s already had Happy and Peace, and Bliss isn’t so far from being conceived…it comes to her, one night after they’ve been woken twice already and it will be dawn soon. When she’s spent the day with nothing to eat or drink but crackers and water because Papa has said they all need to clear their brains. When she’s so cold she can’t feel her fingers or her toes, or the tip of her nose…

  That night, Sunny hears the voice.

  She always thought it would sound like Papa, but it doesn’t. It’s a soft, female voice, and it whispers. It could be her mother’s voice, but it’s not quite. Sunny strains to listen, and everything else falls away from her. The floor under her behind, the insufficient weight of her sweater, the tickle of her hair against her cheeks.

  There is nothing but silence and the sound of that sweetly whispering voice, telling her it’s time…

  “Time to leave.” She’s muttered it out loud without knowing it, and her eyes snap open not at the sound of her own voice but because someone has shoved her.

  When did everyone stand? Why are they not running, but walking fast? Up toward Papa, who’s fallen from his wheelchair. John Second bends over him, shouting. Josiah is bringing a blanket. Nobody’s paying attention to Sunny, which is why she’s being shoved and jostled as people try to get around her and she stands solid in the way. Unmoving, still caught up in the sound of the voice.

  It was wrong, of course. It wasn’t time to leave. Not for her, anyway. Or the others. Only Papa had gone that night, and he hadn’t left, either. He’d just died.

  It was the only time Sunny had ever heard the voice Papa had told them would come to them if they were good enough, took enough care of their vessels, meditated long and hard enough. If they were worthy to go through the gates, the voice would tell them when it was time. Now she thought she’d just wanted to hear it so bad that she’d made it up, because it had never come back.

  With her ear to the door, Sunny listened to the rise and fall of voices from downstairs. They were arguing about her again. She heard her name once, then a silence that meant they’d pushed their voices quieter to keep her from overhearing.

  In her hands, the long white envelope had gone limp from being folded and unfolded so many times. Her name had smeared, the ink staining her sweating palms, from how often she’d squeezed it in her hands. She’d read it at least a dozen times. She could probably have recited it from memory by now. It had arrived that morning while Liesel and Christopher were out, and though Sunny had been careful to put the magazines and bills and postcards addressed to them in the pile by the telephone, this letter had borne her name and had seemed something like a secret.

  She wished, in fact, it was something she’d never known.

  According to the letter from the coroner, her mother’d had cancer. Sickness had spread within her and would’ve killed her if she hadn’t gone through the gates when the others did. Sunny turned this information over and over in her head, trying to make it work out. How long had her mother been filled with it?

  Mama had complained of headaches, blurred vision and nausea for years. She’d called them migraines or her “special” headaches, which were different from the normal sort everyone else got. Sometimes she’d laughed a little when she told Sunny there were so many thoughts inside bursting to get out they made her head hurt.

  But…cancer? Family members who lived by Papa’s word and followed the rules weren’t supposed to get cancer. They weren’t supposed to get sick at all. Mama had always followed Papa’s word, but more than that, she’d believed in it. Even after Papa died and she had doubts about the things John Second had done, she believed in the foundations of what Papa had taught them. If there was anyone in Sanctuary who represented everything Papa had envisioned for his children, it was Sunny’s mother.

  From behind her came the small giggles of her children, and she turned, tucking the letter deep into her pocket.

  “Hush.”

  Happy fell silent at once, small fingers still manipulating the game piece on the board but obeying. Peace was more like her mother and let out another flurry of giggles as she spun the plastic arrow attached to the cardboard square. It landed on red, and she let out a joyful cry.

  “Peace,” Sunny repeated. Her daughter didn’t look up at her, too involved with the game, so Sunny knelt in front of her to squeeze Peace’s chin in her fingers. Peace’s cry wasn’t as joyous this time. “I said hush.”

  Tears welled up in the big blue eyes and overflowed onto fat cheeks. Sunny shook her head and wiped them. “No crying. Hush when Mama says.”

  Sunny could remem
ber all too well those same words directed at her from her own mother’s mouth. How hard it had been for her as a little girl to keep quiet when she wanted to laugh, to keep dry eyes when she wanted to cry. It had been her mother’s responsibility to teach Sunny how to hush so she could listen with her heart, and it was Sunny’s duty now to do the same to her own children.

  She gripped Peace by the upper arms and pulled the little girl to her feet. Peace wore a pair of pink, glittery sneakers that had been the only choice in her size. Liesel had put them in the cart, and Sunny hadn’t protested, but seeing them now, a whisper of disdain hissed in her ears. Worldly shoes. No wonder Peace didn’t listen.

  Sunny shook her daughter once, twice, until Peace stopped crying and looked at her with wide-open eyes. Tears still streaked her cheeks, and Sunny wiped them away. She pushed the blonde curls from Peace’s forehead.

  “You must mind me, Peace. When I say hush, you must hush. Do you understand?”

  “You must mind Mama,” Happy put in. “Or you get the stick.”

  Sunny had used the stick on Happy only once. Her belly, swollen with Peace sleeping inside, had been in the way when she took it down from the hook in the chapel. That was how long ago it had been. Happy had thrown a tantrum during the evening meditations. John Second had been sitting next to Papa, watching as Sunny tried to hush her son without success. Papa had continued talking even over the child’s cries, but his one true son had come down from the pulpit and pulled Sunny to her feet. He’d marched her to the place where the stick, a birch branch about two feet long, hung from a length of braided leather tied through a hole in the thick end of the stick’s base.

  He’d said nothing, but she’d understood. It had been her responsibility then to make sure her child knew how to mind. How to hush when told. And she’d done it, holding back her own tears at the sight of her son’s. Clearly, he remembered the experience as well as she did.

  She gathered Peace close to press her lips to the girl’s soft hair. It smelled like flowers from the fancy shampoo Liesel had given them. And though it was worldly and not plain and would hold them back from getting through the gates when it was time, Sunny liked the way this shampoo smelled. How it made their hair soft and tangle-free so she didn’t have to fight a comb through it. She held her daughter close and kissed her head and closed her eyes against her own tears.