All Fall Down Read online

  “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