All Fall Down Read online

  Sunny stared at her so blankly, Liesel knew she’d asked a stupid question. What did okay even mean to a girl like Sunny? Instead, Liesel backed out of the room and went downstairs to her husband.

  “I’m sorry,” Christopher said before she could even speak.

  Liesel’s laugh was low and without much humor, but it surprised her anyway. “I just don’t get it, Christopher. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  His mouth worked, and he drew in a breath or two. “I didn’t really know.”

  There’d been a number of times in their marriage when he’d pissed her off. Mostly doing the sort of dumb stuff husbands always do that rub their wives the wrong way. He never answered his cell phone and he made plans without asking her first; he couldn’t put a towel in the hamper even if it would’ve saved a basketful of kittens. But she’d never thought he was in the habit of lying to her, at least not about important things. So as soon as the words slipped out of his mouth, she knew he could tell she thought he was so full of shit his eyes had turned brown.

  “Not really,” he added quickly, like he could somehow salvage this.

  There was no saving it. Liesel gave him a look of such bone-deep disgust her face ached with it. Her lip actually curled.

  “I never… I didn’t… I’m sorry,” Christopher said miserably. “There’s not even any proof she is my daughter.”

  Again, it was the absolute wrong thing to say. “All you have to do is look at her. Or her little boy. Christopher, my God, he looks just like that picture of you, the one your mom had framed in her living room.”

  Christopher shook his head, fingers squeezing Liesel’s arm until a glance from her made him let go. “I mean, Trish told me the baby wasn’t mine. She swore to me that she’d been sleeping with that guy she ran away with, that the baby was his. She never told me otherwise, how was I supposed to know? She never came to me for money or help or anything.”

  Trish. Christopher’s first wife, the one he never spoke of, not even in the most casual of ways that Liesel sometimes talked about her college boyfriend. Stories about places they’d gone, things they’d done together, in that time before she met Christopher. It wasn’t that she hadn’t known about Christopher’s brief first marriage. Just that she’d never really had to deal with it. With Trish.

  “She never came back to me, Liesel. Once she left me, that was the last I heard from her. All I knew was that Trish had gone off with that guy, and they were living in that…place.”

  “That cult,” Liesel whispered. “We all know that’s what it is. I mean, they say it’s a church, but you know it isn’t, not really.”

  “A cult is technically a church, I guess.”

  “What, for tax purposes?” Another humorless laugh wormed its way out of her. “You’ve driven past there, the big gates and that fence all around it. I’ve heard that the police have been out there half a dozen times on reports of child abuse and stuff. They don’t send their kids to school or to the hospital if they’re sick or anything.”

  She thought of the marks on Sunny’s back. The thought turned her stomach. “Oh, God, Christopher, do you think those children have been abused?”

  Christopher pulled her close so that her cheek rested against his chest. “I don’t know.”

  She shuddered. “She has marks on her back.”

  “What kind of marks?”

  “Like scars. Like…whip marks.”

  Christopher grimaced. “God.”

  “She says you’re her dad, that her mother told her to come here. If they were being abused it makes sense that she’d send them here.”

  “There has to be a way to find out.”

  “If they were abused? You can’t just…blurt it out. I don’t think you can just ask them.” She shuddered again. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  “No. I meant a way to find out if she’s really mine.”

  Liesel frowned. “Like what, a DNA test or something?”

  “Sure. Of course. Something like that.”

  Liesel pushed away from him, her frown twisted into a scowl. “How can you say that? Even if she’s not genetically your kid, Christopher, she thinks you’re her dad. Her mother obviously thought so. And you can’t just… What are you going to do? Turn them away? Put them out? Oh, my God, you can’t even think of that!”

  Christopher shook himself and reached for her, though she didn’t let him touch her. “I didn’t say that. What the hell kind of man do you think I am?”

  “Apparently,” Liesel said coldly, “the sort who had a kid almost twenty years ago and never bothered to have anything to do with her.”

  “That’s not fair.” His jaw tightened. He emptied his bottle into the sink and tossed it into the recycling container, where it landed with a clatter. “So not fair.”

  She softened, but didn’t touch him. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s not fair. None of this is. You didn’t know. But they’re here now. She came to us. We’re not turning her out, at least not tonight. Not until we find out more about what’s going on.”

  Her husband frowned. “I didn’t say I thought we should turn them out.”

  He didn’t have to say it. She could see it in his face. Still, she let him lie, just this little bit, so that neither of them had to admit he was being a bastard. She nodded once, sharply. Above them, the shower stopped. Silence.

  “I’m sorry,” Christopher said again, no lie in him this time. “I really am.”

  “Can you heat up some soup or something for dinner? Make some grilled cheese. I’m sure they’re probably starving. I’ll go check and make sure they’re okay.” She paused, then stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. At the sound of small feet on the ceiling, something lifted inside her that had been heavy for a very long time.

  “They can stay until we figure out what’s going on,” he said. “I’ll try to get in touch with Trish… Ah, shit. Shit.”

  He looked so miserable she had to take pity on him, even as something went a little gleeful inside her at how stricken he seemed to be at the idea of even calling Trish on the phone. She squeezed him.

  “It’s too late now to do anything tonight except let them get some sleep. They’re exhausted and honestly, so am I. We can work this out in the morning.”

  “Yeah,” her husband said. “Okay.”

  On the way upstairs, a slow wave of cramps rippled through her guts, the monthly aches in her womb sudden and profound. Every part of her still hurt from her fall, but the pain inside her was worse than any of them. Liesel thought again of those tiny faces, the big eyes. What had she been hoping for so desperately? And what had shown up, literally, on her doorstep?

  It was either the answer to a prayer Liesel had been very bad at making, or it was a punishment for asking in the first place.

  Chapter 4

  Everything was going to be okay. That’s what Liesel had told her over and over, but Sunny didn’t believe it, not for a second. Nothing would ever be okay again. How could it be?

  Happy and Peace were sleeping, both of them curled up tight like kittens on the huge bed that was way too soft. Sitting on it was like sinking into…what, Sunny didn’t know, just that compared to hers in Sanctuary this bed squished too much. Bliss was snuggled against Sunny, still sucking every once in a while though she’d fallen asleep a while ago. Sunny didn’t have the heart to take her off the breast. She sat in a rocker in the corner with a thick knitted blanket over both of them, but her feet stuck out. Her toes were cold. She didn’t want to squirm around to tuck them beneath her in case she woke the baby, but the soft pajama pants Liesel had given her weren’t long enough to tuck around her feet the way her nightgown had been. The material clung to her legs, between them, pressing against her bare flesh. It made her too aware of herself, just the way Papa