All Fall Down Read online

  Sunny was going from the chapel, where most people are still listening, to the bathroom, because she has to use the toilet. Mama says Sunny is old enough not to wear diapies anymore, she is a big girl. Too big for games now, not a baby or a little girl, now she can make reports and everything.

  “Sunshine,” says John Second. He has a big hand and a long arm that reaches to grab her, but doesn’t grab. Just curls the fingers like a poke, poke, poke. Like they want to poke her. “I said, come here.”

  Take a little step, another little step. That’s the sort of steps Sunny does, not into the bathroom to use the toilet, even though her belly’s hurting from having to go. She would run away from John Second, but he would make a report on her, tell Papa how Sunny is disobedient and how she does not listen when told. He would tell Mama, too, and she would look at Sunny with the sad eyes and be sad that Sunny isn’t a good girl.

  Not the bathroom, which is far, far away at the end of the hall, but down the other hall and into the bedroom. This is a big, big room, not small like the one Sunny sleeps in with Mama. Sunny’s room has two beds, Mama’s bed and the one underneath that pulls out when it’s time for Sunny to sleep. But this room has a big bed, soft and comfy with the pillows all piled up so high it’s like clouds. Papa’s true son gets to have the big room with the big bed because his vessel needs a nice place so he can sleep good. He sits on the edge of the bed and says to Sunny, “Now, be a good girl and come here. We’re going to play a game.”

  Sunny knows games. Like Pick Up Sticks and crosses-and-naughts and now this one, whatever it’s called. John Second puts a finger on top of Sunny’s head. He says, “Spin.”

  She does in a circle, his finger pointing down hard in her hair and keeping her in one place.

  John Second laughs and sings a song about flowers, that’s what Mama calls posies. And a fire, too, because he says about the ashes, and that’s what fire leaves behind after it’s all burned up. They make a fire sometimes in the yard in the summer to burn the garbage, and sometimes they let the kids poke long sticks into the hot dogs and they eat them all cooked up like that from the fire, but only sometimes, because hot dogs aren’t good for their vessels. Hot dogs are for when they don’t have other food and it’s what the food bank sends.

  “Get ready.” John Second hums and hums the song, and when he gets to the end, oh, what a surprise! Instead of falling down, he picks Sunny up, up high, so that she’s afraid her head might hit the ceiling. He’s laughing, and he tosses her down onto that big soft bed like it’s made of clouds, and he falls down, too.

  It’s not a very nice game, but John Second has lots of other games to play. Sunny doesn’t like any of them. And one day, when she’s older, he says to her, “Sunny, you come with me now,” and she stands in front of him with her belly all smooth and round and fat even though she’s been put on rationed dinner because she can’t sell all her pamphlets.

  And that was Happy.

  Happy, her sweetheart. He was working very hard with a ball of soft clay. No, not clay, dough for playing. It was bright red and smelled strange, almost like it would be good to eat, but when Sunny took a surreptitious lick it was all salty. Happy had already rolled out several long strands. Now he braided them together to make a rope of dough. This he circled on the plastic mat, building it up to make a basket.

  “Wow, look at that. So clever.” Liesel came in from outside, her cheeks pink, her hair standing on end when she took off her hat. She’d been running, which she said was exercise.

  Exercise was good for your vessel. Sunny looked at the clock. An hour had passed, a whole hour, and what had she done that entire time? Nothing but sit on this kitchen chair and watch her son make braids of dough. Peace had fallen asleep in front of the television, her thumb in her mouth, snoring lightly. Sunny shouldn’t let her watch so much TV or suck her thumb, both were bad for her vessel. One would rot her brain, the other her teeth. But somehow she hadn’t managed to even notice the time passing or what her child had been up to while she…what?

  While she remembered.

  Blinking, Sunny shook her head and bent to pick up the plastic container that Happy had dropped, so she didn’t have to look at Liesel. Liesel might see something on her face and ask her what was wrong. Sunny breathed in, pushing away memories and listening hard with her heart for any sign of a still and silent voice, but finding none. She heard the rush and roar of her blood pounding its ocean-beat in her ears, and when she sat up the world spun a little crazily, but that was all.

  “What should we make for dinner?” Liesel asked as though only a couple seconds had passed instead of the eternity it had taken for Sunny to lift the plastic cup to the table.

  Maybe that was all the time it had been.

  Disoriented, Sunny reached to roll a piece of dough in her palm. More listening, that’s what she needed. They’d been here in her father’s house for only a couple weeks. Already everything they’d lived with their entire lives was managing to fall away. They went to bed and woke up at strange times. Meals were just whenever Liesel served them instead of strictly at seven, noon and five. There was always too much food and things they weren’t used to eating.

  “I was thinking pizza,” Liesel said. “Sort of a celebration, what do you think?”

  “A celebration?”

  “What’s a celebration?” Happy asked.

  “It means when you’re excited or happy about something,” Liesel said.

  “I’m always Happy.”

  Liesel laughed. “Yes, buddy, you are.”

  “What are we celebrating?” Sunny squeezed the dough into a circle, poking it with a fingertip.

  The poke left a hole. She smoothed it over and pinched off another bit of dough, adding it to the ball in her palm. This piece was white, and where it smooshed together with the red, it made pink. How hard would she have to mix it to make it all red? Or would the white always be there, making the red a lighter shade? How much white would it take to turn this ball white?

  Liesel shrugged. “There’s always a reason to celebrate, if you think hard enough. We could celebrate you being here with us. That’s something, isn’t it?”

  Sunny looked up. She curled her fingers over the ball of dough, then mashed it back into the container. A couple weeks ago she’d been living with her mother, her family, and she’d known exactly where and how every piece of her life fit against the other.

  “It’s nice you like having us here enough to want to celebrate.”

  Liesel studied her. She did that sometimes when she thought Sunny couldn’t see her doing it. Sunny was used to people on the outside staring like that, all sideways and squint-eyed. But now Liesel did it right up front and without pretending she wasn’t. That was harder to take, so Sunny looked right back without flinching, cast her face in stone, listened with her heart about how she should react.

  “Pizza it is. I’ll order it, have your dad pick it up on the way home. We don’t get delivery out here, but I guess you’re used to that.” Liesel paused. “Do you eat pizza?”

  Sunny had eaten pizza lots of times. Fresh dough, tomatoes from the garden, garlic. Lots of cheese. “Yes. It’s good. Thank you, it will be great.”

  “You know, Sunny…” Liesel sighed a little bit and gave Happy a look, like maybe she didn’t want to say something in front of him, but did anyway. “It’s okay to say something if you don’t like it. We don’t have to have pizza. We could order subs, or even get burgers or something. Sushi.”

  “I don’t know sushi.”

  “It’s raw fish with rice. It’s so, so good.”

  Sunny recoiled. “That’s silent-room food!”

  Liesel chewed her lower lip for a second, then crossed the kitchen to sit at the table next to Sunny. “What’s the silent room? You want to talk about it?”