All Fall Down Read online

  To Chris, who’d taken out a bottle of beer and stood in front of the sink, looking out the window while he loosened his tie, Sunny said, “I can make some dinner.”

  He turned, bottle at his lips. “Maybe we should just order a pizza.”

  She didn’t blame him for being wary. “Chris, really, I can make us some sandwiches, and I know there’s pasta salad in the fridge because I made some yesterday. I learned how at work. I’m not so bad at cooking anymore.”

  She wasn’t up to the challenge of anything complicated, but she wasn’t totally helpless, either. Chris drained his beer and tossed the bottle into the recycling bin, then nodded. He pulled his tie free of his shirt collar with a sigh and looked down at it in his hand like it might turn into a snake and bite him.

  “Why don’t you go take a shower,” Sunny suggested. “Change your clothes and stuff. I can handle this. Really.”

  He gave her a faint smile. “Sure, okay.”

  He paused to kiss both Bliss and Happy on their heads as he passed and then stopped in the family room to call Peace over for a hug and a kiss. Watching them, Sunny’s heart twisted. Peace jumped into his arms with a cry of glee, her little arms and legs wrapped around him while he spun her.

  This…was home. This was what a normal life was like, she thought as Chris put Peace down with a pat on her bottom to send her into the kitchen to help Happy clean off the table. Family who loved each other.

  “Mama?” Happy tugged her sleeve. “What’s-a-matter?”

  Sunny shook her head and took the time to hug him close and stroke his blond hair from his face. Liesel had taken Happy for a haircut that he’d asked for. It had broken Sunny’s heart to see him without his long curls, but apparently the other kids on the playground had called him a girl once too often. She kissed both his cheeks.

  “Nothing’s the matter, my sweetheart. Let Mama make the tuna salad, okay? If you’re finished putting the toys away, you and Peace can go play. Turn the TV off,” she added when Peace headed straight for it. “Play a game or something.”

  Happy sighed but nodded. Peace, on the other hand, stomped her feet and crossed her arms over her belly. She grimaced.

  “Noooooooooo!”

  Sunny’s brows lifted. “Peace, hush.”

  But Peace didn’t hush. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  Sunny straightened. In the drawer, the wooden spoon. Her child’s shoulder, bones small and fragile in her fingers. Soft hair falling down the girl’s back, covering Sunny’s hand as she shook the girl into sobs. Happy’s wide eyes, solemn face, and the pound-pound-pound of Bliss’s fists on the high-chair tray.

  No.

  No.

  The angel’s voice that was really Sunny’s own whispered, soft in Sunny’s ear. A phantom touch on her cheek. She closed her eyes for a moment, listening, but there was nothing more to hear.

  Sunny put the spoon away. She knelt to take Peace more gently by the shoulders and wiped her face with a napkin. “Peace. Hush.”

  Peace let out another series of strangled sobs. Sunny gathered her close, rocking the girl back and forth while she shushed her. When Peace’s sobs had faded, Sunny pushed her away to look at her again.

  “Go play,” she told her. “No television. Play a game with Happy, or with your babies. Do you hear me?”

  Peace nodded, cheeks stained with tears, small mouth still pouting. “I wanna watch ’toons.”

  “Later. But when you cry this way and don’t listen to me, you don’t get what you want, do you understand?”

  Peace didn’t understand, clearly, but she nodded after half a second. She stomped away, not at all pleased with the situation, but in front of the TV she hesitated before pushing the button to turn it on. Instead, she went to the bin containing her dolls and pulled one out.

  Sunny drew in a breath. Then another. There wasn’t time to think this over, because Bliss had started to whine as well as thump her hands. Upstairs, the hissing of water in the pipes stopped. Chris would be downstairs in a few minutes, and she hadn’t even started the sandwiches. There wasn’t time for Sunny to ponder how she felt about almost beating her child with a spoon for the sin of back talk.

  That she had not done it was more important than the fact she’d wanted to, she told herself as she went from cupboard to counter to fridge. A can of tuna, some mayo, some mustard, a few stalks of celery and half an onion went into the mixing bowl and she stirred it up. She hadn’t done it.

  The food was ready just as Chris, hair wet and wearing sweatpants, came into the kitchen. Sunny’d set the table and added a basket of sliced bread, a platter of tomatoes, some carrot sticks and fresh fruit. It wasn’t a bad meal at all, she thought as Chris called the kids to come to the table. In fact, it was as good as anything Liesel could’ve done.

  “Looks good,” Chris said, and Sunny beamed.

  Chris usually didn’t talk much, but without Liesel here to keep the conversation going, it fell on Sunny to ask him questions about his day and to share pieces of her own so they could find something to talk about. She’d seen her mother do it with John Second enough, this drawing out of a man who wasn’t in the mood for chatter. Sunny wasn’t nearly as good at it. Conversations were still so often like a field full of stones that stubbed her toes or tripped her up when she tried to be clever. Still, she made him laugh with a story about something that had happened at the coffee shop, and she considered that an accomplishment.

  When he winced, though, rolling his head on his neck with a grimace, Sunny frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “Neck hurts. Back hurts. Getting old, I guess.” Chris shrugged.

  The meal finished, Bliss put to bed and the other kids sent to play in the family room, Chris grimaced again as he was helping her load the dishwasher. Sunny gestured. “Sit down. I can help you with that.”

  He tried to put her off, but she insisted until he sat in the kitchen chair, still protesting. “Hush,” she told him, and surprisingly, he did.

  She felt the knot as soon as she put her hands on his shoulders. A thick bulge of too-tight muscle just at the base of his left shoulder and a spot just a little higher on his neck that made him hiss when she pushed on it. She eased the pressure and used the tips of her fingers to find the edges of the tension.

  Chris groaned, leaning forward with his hands loose and open on the table in front of him. “God. Ouch.”

  She paused, but he shook his head. “No, it’s a good ouch. Right there, it really hurts.”

  “John Second,” she said, and stopped herself short before she could tell him John Second had been the one to teach her just how to squeeze and roll her fingers to soothe sore muscles.

  Chris suffered her attentions in silence for a minute or two before he said, “John Second was the man who convinced your mom to leave me. Right?”

  She was glad she didn’t have to look at his face when she answered. “Yes.”

  Beneath her working fingers, Chris’s shoulders tensed again. “Was he good to you?”

  The angel whispered again, another single word. The same as before. Sunny spoke it aloud. “No.”

  Chris twisted in his seat to look at her, one of his hands pressing on hers to keep it from moving. “You want to talk about it?”

  Sunny pulled her hand away, gently, not a yank. “No. I don’t have anything to say about it. He wasn’t a good man. That’s all. And he’s gone now.”

  She didn’t want to think about John Second, or Sanctuary, or her mother, but Chris who hardly ever spoke had found his voice and came after her with it.

  “Was she happy? Your mom. Was she happy?”

  Sunny leaned against the counter with her arms crossed over her belly. She thought of her mother, laughing at something the children had done. Her mother’s eyes closed, mouth moving but