All Fall Down Read online

  “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