All Fall Down

  “Oh, that’s obvious,” Becka said.

  Liesel sighed, watching as her friend made herself comfortable with pots and pans and the oven. She should step in and at least offer to help, but she’d known Becka so long she also knew it would be a wasted effort. Becka was in full-on caretaker mode, and frankly, Liesel was in the mood to be taken care of.

  “And she’s motivated. I guess it had never occurred to her that she might actually deserve an education. We haven’t talked about college yet. That’s too much at this point. But she could go, Becka. She should go.”

  Becka slipped the garlic bread onto a baking stone and put it in the oven. “Of course she should.”

  “Anyway. Her job’s been good for her, too. Gives her some experience. Some spending money.”

  “Some time out of the house. That’s good for her, too, I’m sure.” Becka turned to face Liesel. “But what about you, hon?”

  Liesel pretended she didn’t know what Becka meant. “What about me?”

  Becka gently moved Liesel to the side so she could fill a pot with water. She didn’t look at Liesel, though they were practically shoulder to shoulder. “Is it good for you?”

  Liesel waited until Becka had put the pot on the stove and turned on the burner before she found the words to answer. “She needs this, Becka. The girl’s been through… I can’t even begin to imagine everything, and that’s with knowing some of what she’s had to deal with.”

  “Sure, she’s had it rough. That’s for sure.” It wasn’t like Becka to be so deliberately neutral. She leaned against the table to look at Liesel. “How’s the counseling going?”

  “It was great. Dr. Braddock was fabulous. Sunny really liked her.”

  “Yeah, Jean is great.” Becka’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “But she’s not going now?”

  Liesel hesitated, but it wasn’t as if she’d never bitched to Becka about Christopher before or listened to her friend complain about Kent. “I think she should go back. She’s just not quite…right.”

  “Are you afraid she never will be?”

  That was it, right there. Liesel let out a long, hissing sigh like air from a balloon. “Christopher says, why should we force her into some Judeo-Christian box that neither of us believes in ourselves?”

  Becka’s brows rose. “Wow. Heavy.”

  “Who knew, right?” Liesel was tired of trying to force laughter, so didn’t bother. “I didn’t know he had such an opinion about religion. I mean, at first he was all over me for making accommodations for her with the food stuff, the meditation, whatever. Now he says we shouldn’t expect her to just drop everything she ever believed just because it’s different.”

  “But you think she should?”

  “Not entirely. Some of the stuff she says makes sense, I can see where she’s coming from. But other things…”

  “Like offing yourself in order to get to heaven.”

  Liesel looked at her. “That. Of course that. And this thing she does with the listening. It’s more than meditation, which I always found interesting, how people can lose themselves in their heads like that. But she does something else. I mean, she really…listens. And I think she hears things.”

  Becka’s mouth pursed. “Like what kinds of things?”

  “I don’t know. She told me the problem with so many people is they don’t take the time to listen to silence, or something like that, and I get what she’s saying. God, there are days when I’d kill for some quiet. I get it, I totally do. But it’s more than that. Maybe…” Liesel laughed, embarrassed. “Maybe I am jealous. That she can just find someplace inside and go away, even for a little while.”

  “Hell, sign me up for that, too.” Becka smiled.

  “I should check on the kids,” Liesel said suddenly. It had been quiet for too long.

  “Sure, you do that. I’m not going anywhere.” Becka cracked open the sauce jar and found a pot for it.

  Liesel shouldn’t have worried. Peace had passed out, thumb in her mouth, legs sprawled. She still had the bloody twist of tissue stuck up her nose. Happy was quietly coloring in the jumbo drawing pad Liesel had picked up at the dollar store. He bent over the picture, tongue caught between his teeth in concentration, pudgy fingers gripping the cheap crayon so tightly it was no wonder that it snapped as Liesel watched.

  “Oh!”

  “It’s okay,” she said hastily, hoping Peace wouldn’t wake up. She’d figured on another half an hour or so for Bliss’s interrupted nap, and that wasn’t even guaranteed. The longer both girls slept, the more likely it was that Sunny’d be home by the time they woke.

  “But I broke it.” Happy frowned, brow furrowing, serious like heartbreak.

  “You have so many, Happy. Crayons break. It’ll be fine. I can buy you more.”

  He studied the broken crayon, then peeled off the paper from the broken end. He held it up to her with a small, shy smile. “I can use this side!”

  The tears she’d been fighting rose again to the surface. As a child, she’d tossed broken crayons without a second thought and had never been made to feel guilty for it. Broken crayons were part of…well, just a part of life. Breaking was what they did.

  This small boy, at four, knew all about how things broke, too. Throwing them away, now that was something he hadn’t yet learned. Liesel passed her hand over his shorn curls.

  “Yeah,” she said. “You can use that side. You hungry, buddy?”

  Happy shook his head. “Not dinnertime.”

  She didn’t argue with him. Bliss still ate mostly on demand, and Peace was glad to eat at any time, especially if she was offered sweet treats. Happy, on the other hand, clung stubbornly to the schedule he’d grown up with, and though he could be persuaded to break out of it, it was never his first choice.

  “Okay, well. Soon. My friend Becka’s making spaghetti.”

  Happy had already bent back over his drawing. Liesel left him there and found Becka in the kitchen, the long table in the breakfast porch already set and the good smell of sauce and garlic bread wafting all around.

  “Such service. I owe you,” Liesel said.

  “Hey. When I had Annabelle, you came to my house and did my freaking laundry. Do I even need to tell you how much more helpful that was than a basket full of baby booties?” Becka shook her head. “I owed you, big-time. So shut up.”

  “This is hardly the same as having a baby.”

  Becka gave Liesel a soft look. “No, hon, it’s kind of like you had quadruplets without even knowing you were pregnant.”

  That was it. Liesel lost it. She burst into racking, helpless sobs that burned worse than the tequila had.

  Becka enfolded her without hesitation. She patted Liesel’s back, and what was better, handed her a box of tissues. “Here.”

  “Thanks.” Liesel wiped her eyes, still leaking, and blew her nose. “God, I’m a mess.”

  “Well…duh.” A faint wail came from upstairs, but Becka held out her hand before Liesel could get up. “Sit. I’ll get her. You just sit.”

  Liesel sat.

  Becka was back in fifteen minutes with a smiling, cooing Bliss on her hip. “Look at this big girl, she woke up soaking wet. I stripped the crib and hung the sheets over the tub. I didn’t know where you kept fresh ones, but I wiped everything down.”

  “Of course.” Liesel sighed. The fifteen minutes of silence had settled her a little bit. “It’s the cloth diapers. It’s like she’s wearing a sieve.”

  Becka laughed and chucked the baby under her double chins. “Still can’t get Sunny to go for the disposables, huh?”

  “She has a point about them being bad for the environment. And about the cost. She does the laundry…when she’s here,” Liesel added and took the baby so Becka could stir the s
auce and add the pasta to the now-boiling water. There was no way she was going to tell Becka about the fluff. Christopher’s reaction had been bad enough. “It’s her kid, Becka. Who am I to tell her she has to put the baby in disposables?”

  “It’s your house,” Becka pointed out. “You take care of those kids as much, if not more, than she does. Right? If disposable diapers would make it easier for you, I think you should just tell her you’re going to use them. What will she do, throw a tantrum?”

  “Who, Sunny?” Liesel scoffed at the very idea. “No. The worst she’d do is make me feel guilty for single-handedly destroying the earth with my ridiculous selfishness and disregard for the world’s natural resources.”

  Becka’s brows lifted again. “Wow. Again with the bitter. Honey, I’m worried about you!”

  Liesel pressed her face to the top of Bliss’s head. The sweet baby fragrance made her want to weep again. “I just thought this would be so much…easier.”

  “It’s never easy. And you’re doing a good thing. But you have to make sure you take care of yourself, that’s all.” Becka hesitated. “I want you to promise me you won’t let this overwhelm you. You call me, if you have to. Or hell, make Chris pick up some of the slack. Hire a babysitter to take some of the pressure off.”

  Liesel blinked at this. “Do you think I can’t do this?”

  Becka sighed. “No. But I know how hard it can be, staying home with kids. And you…well, hon, it’s not like you chose to quit and stay home to raise your own kids, you know? You sort of got suckered into it.”

  That this was very close to the truth set Liesel’s teeth on edge. Becka must’ve seen it, because she held up her hands right away. She shook her head.

  “Sorry. Overstepped. I get it. Tell me to shut up.”

  “I don’t want to tell you to shut up.”

  “You’re my best friend,” Becka said quietly. “And it’s not that I think you can’t handle kids. God knows you’ve been awesome with Annabelle and the boys. But, Liesel…hon…it’s hard enough to do this when they’re your own kids.”

  “And they’re not my kids.” Liesel’s gut twisted like a ball of foil crumpled in a fist.

  “I’m just saying, give yourself permission to—”

  “Fail?” Liesel broke in.

  Becka shook her head, but before she could say anything else, the door from the laundry room opened and the squeaking tread of sneakers sounded on the tile floor of the hallway. Sunny appeared, her blond braid swinging over one shoulder.

  She was beaming. “He asked me to go to the movies on Friday. Not with a group, just us!”

  She crossed to Liesel and held out her hands for the baby, who went instantly to her mother with a gurgle of delight. Sunny held Bliss high to blow a raspberry on her fat belly. She looked at Liesel with bright eyes. It was the most animated Liesel had ever seen her.

  “Congratulations,” Liesel said.

  She tried to sound like she meant it.

  Chapter 35

  Patch has been sitting next to her at mealtimes as often as he can. He brought her fresh peaches after she’d mentioned that she didn’t like the sort that came in cans. Sunny’s known Patch forever, but they didn’t become friendly until her short days selling literature, which Patch still does. He’s really good at it. He has a way of connecting with people, getting them not only to pay for the pamphlets, but also to actually read them, too. She’s seen people come back just to talk to Patch about the family. It’s probably because he came into the family after reading one of those pamphlets himself.

  Sunny knows exactly what Patch wants when he asks her to walk with him out behind the barn.

  She goes with him. Happy is fine in the nursery with the other babies, and Edwina doesn’t like Sunny very much, so she often sends her away. As Patch reaches for Sunny’s hand while they walk, she thinks Edwina would like her less if she knew that by telling her to get out of the nursery she was giving Sunny the chance to go walking with Patch, holding his hand.

  Behind the barn, Patch seems nervous. Pacing. He laughs a lot at nothing until Sunny takes him by both shoulders and stops him.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  Patch laughs again, a little softer, and puts his hands on her hips. “You’re so pretty, Sunshine. You know that?”

  It’s nice to hear, but pretty doesn’t really matter.

  When he touches her, she closes her eyes and turns her face to keep his lips from touching hers. Patch kisses her cheek instead. He pulls her closer.

  He’s prepared. He brought out a blanket, some fruit, a pitcher of lemonade. Patch and John Second are good friends, that’s how he can get these special things.

  He isn’t anything like John Second, though. That’s why Sunny went with him in the first place. So when he pushes her back on the blanket and puts his hand under her dress, up over her thighs, she closes her eyes and lets him do what he wants.

  It doesn’t take long. It never does. It doesn’t hurt, and when it’s over, Patch tries to kiss her again. This time when she turns her face, he says her name like he’s sad.

  “I like you, Sunshine.”

  He’s waiting for her to say she likes him, which wouldn’t be a lie but it’s not the truth he’s looking for. Sunny’d like to make Patch happy. He’s always been nice to her. But she can’t say the words. She pulls her dress down over her thighs and brushes the grass from it.

  She does take his hand when he offers it to help her up. Patch is frowning. He pushes her braid over her shoulder.

  “You don’t like me?” Patch asks. “I’d like to be special to you.”

  As it turns out, he is special to her, but not in the way he wants. Patch is the father of Sunny’s second baby, though once her belly grows big enough to show, he stops asking her behind the barn. And once they were no longer having sex, Patch no longer seemed as interested.

  Sunny hadn’t forgotten that.

  The dress Liesel had let her borrow had been ruined, or so Liesel said, but she had taken Sunny to the store to buy another one. She hadn’t let Sunny pay for it either, though Sunny had enough money. It had just been the two of them, no kids and no Chris, but Liesel had seemed distant and distracted. Or maybe it was Sunny who’d been distracted with all the choices in clothes and trying to find something that didn’t make her feel strange but still looked…

  Pretty.

  Pretty didn’t matter, she reminded herself. Except she thought maybe it did, for Tyler. She wanted to be pretty for him.

  She hadn’t really expected him to come in to the coffee shop early on the day they were supposed to go out, but every time the bell over the door jingled, Sunny looked up with her heart thumping and the breath catching in her throat. It was never him, but half an hour before Tyler was supposed to pick her up, Josiah strode through the door.

  “Sunny, Sunny, Sunshine.” It was the way he’d greeted her so often in the past.

  A wave of nostalgia washed over her. Or was it déjà vu? Something lifted inside her at the sight of him, even though she didn’t let it show on her face.

  “Can I get an organic soy and orange smoothie with one of those scones?” Josiah pointed at the glass case.

  She served him his drink and his scone because that was her job. Josiah studied her without walking away from the counter. He held the cup in one hand, the plate in the other, like he was balancing them. Or weighing them.

  “You look different,” he said.

  Men’s clothes didn’t set them apart the way women’s did. Sunny had seen that when she was sent out to sell pamphlets and even more so since she’d been living with Chris and Liesel. A woman could be set aside simply from what she wore, while a man in jeans and a white shirt could pass as anything he wanted. Josiah didn’t look different becaus
e he didn’t have to.

  She lifted her chin and kept herself from smoothing the front of the skirt she’d picked out. It hung to her toes and had been sewn of multiple colored layers of fabric that had also been twisted. She wore it with a plain, pale pink T-shirt, though she’d added a thin cardigan to cover her arms.

  “Relax. You look nice.” Josiah sipped from the cup. “How’ve you been, Sunshine?”

  “Fine.” Wendy and Amy both were out. They were supposed to be back before it was time for Sunny to leave, and though she enjoyed it when they were gone and she was here alone, now she wished they’d come back early.

  “I’m fine, too.” His grin was tempting, but faded quickly to become a look of sorrow. “You’re afraid of me.”

  She shook her head and felt the brush of her hair all down her back. She’d pulled just the top part back into a wide barrette and left the rest to hang down. Tyler would notice, she thought suddenly, the way Josiah did. He would notice she was trying too hard.

  “I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

  “I’m not.”

  Liar’s tongue, she thought. Josiah knew it, she could tell. He put the plate and cup on the counter to grip it with both his hands, so he could lean closer to her. Speaking low, so nobody could overhear them, though they were all alone.

  “I am not my brother,” Josiah said.

  Sunny knew that was the truth. She’d always known. It was the reason her mother hadn’t left with him when John Second threw him out…and the reason Sunny’d wanted to go.

  “I’m not my father, either. I know you’re living with your biological dad. Trying to adjust. And you’re doing a great job, Sunshine. You should be proud of yourself. I sure am.”

  The way he said it made her feel anything but proud. How hard was it supposed to be to “adjust,” anyway, after being raised in a way most so-called normal people found strange and appalling? She frowned. She didn’t deserve praise for just doing what people were supposed to do to be normal.