All Fall Down (24 page)

“You don’t know anything about me, Tyler.”

“Can’t I learn?”

She looked at him. “Maybe. But right now I have to get home. Okay? Can you just take me?”

He nodded, turned the key, eased out onto the main road again. Sunny leaned forward to change the radio station from what he’d been playing to the soft-rock channel she preferred. Tyler chuckled.

“My mom listens to this station.”

“That other music is lewd.”

Tyler was quiet for half a minute. Now Sunny knew where they were. They’d come out from a side road onto the main rural highway heading south. In just a few minutes, the entrance to Chris and Liesel’s development would be on the left. She relaxed muscles she hadn’t realized she was holding quite so tensely.

“Sunny…I really would like to get to know you.”

She let him drive her back to Chris’s house without any more conversation. When Tyler pulled into her driveway, she was already unbuckled and grabbing her purse. If the door had been unlocked she’d have been out of the car before he could say another word, but instead her fingers slipped on the door handle when she pushed.

“Hold on a sec, it locks automatically. Let me get it.” Tyler pushed a button. The door unlocked. He put his hand on her arm. “Sunny. I mean it. I’m sorry if I made you feel bad. I was just…you know. Three kids is a lot.”

Liesel hadn’t come running out the front door or anything, but Sunny knew she couldn’t sit there much longer. She had to get inside. She looked at Tyler’s hand on her arm. What would it be like to put her hand over his? To hold his hand the way those girls did in the coffee shop, so casual. Not caring what people might say or think. Just holding on to him because it would feel good to touch him and to be touched?

“I have to go inside,” Sunny said. “Thanks for the ride.”

He didn’t try to stop her, and she was glad for that. She did stop to look back at him when she got to the front door, but the glare on the windshield kept her from seeing inside. She waved and couldn’t tell if Tyler waved back.

Chapter 36

C
hristopher had ordered steak and shrimp and a baked potato, and he’d kept his mouth so full, one bite after another, so he didn’t have to say anything. Liesel, too aware of how soft her belly and butt had become now that she wasn’t running as often as she used to, had settled for a chicken Caesar salad and an unsweetened tea instead of the loaded burger and margarita she really wanted. She’d been picking at it, not satisfied.

Christopher was drinking too much. A beer when they sat down, another just before the meal came, a third with the food. Still, Liesel would’ve taken a sarcastic joke or caustic commentary over the silence that had fallen between them at the table in such utter contrast to the rest of the couples eating out here on the deck.

Hell, in contrast to the way she and her husband had been just a few months ago.

She’d tried, asking him about work, but he’d said he didn’t want to talk about it. She’d spoken briefly of the children and had discovered she didn’t want to talk about them, either. And what else was there?

“What happened to us?” she said aloud.

He looked up from the steak, a chunk speared on his fork, his jaw grinding another into a pulp he took his time swallowing. “What do you mean?”

Liesel waved a hand at the food, then him. Herself. “This. Us. Everything. It’s all just… We don’t talk, Christopher.”

He sighed and put down his fork and knife to lean back in his chair. He drank the last of his beer and set the bottle down. “Christ, Liesel. We’re talking now.”

It was so far from what she meant all she could do was stab at her salad and try not to stab at him.

“What do you want to talk about?”

She looked at him, but his mouth had twisted and eyes narrowed. He was saying it to placate her, not because he really understood. She wasn’t sure she did.

“Us. Life. Anything.” She paused to drag a finger along her jawline. It had been almost two weeks since her visit to the salon. “I mean, you haven’t even noticed my hair.”

“I noticed.” Christopher’s eyes lingered on her face, then her hair. He looked away. “I thought you said you’d never go blond.”

His former lack of comment on it had stung, but now she wished she hadn’t poked him into saying anything about it at all. “It covers up the gray.”

“Whatever makes you happy,” was all he said.

It was a long and tensely quiet ride home, and though they came back to a dark and silent house, this time there was no furtive making out in the kitchen. No sneaking up the stairs, hand in hand. This time, there was no making love.

Chapter 37

T
yler sat in his favorite spot in the front window, typing away at his computer. He’d waved at Sunny when he came in, but she’d been in the back when he ordered his food and coffee. He hadn’t yet come up to get a refill, and she busied herself behind the counter to keep herself from going to him.

He hadn’t called her since the day he drove her home and kissed her. At first, Sunny’d been relieved, but as a week passed and then another, she came to realize he probably didn’t mean to call her again. Now she stood and stared across the room at him. She listened with her heart, and it whispered to her in the angel’s voice that she should go talk to him.

But…she didn’t.

She had nothing to say to Tyler, who claimed he wanted to know her and yet hadn’t called her in over two weeks. So when he gathered his things and brought his mug up to the counter, she let Amy wait on him while Sunny took care of food prep in the back. When she came out again, he was gone.

“He asked about you.” Josiah said this when Sunny went to his table to clear it.

Sunny didn’t pretend not to know who he meant. She gave a glance toward the back of the shop, but Amy was busy chatting with someone else. She looked at Josiah. “What are you doing here?”

“Do you want to know what he said?”

“No,” Sunny said after a pause. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”

“Maybe to him. But if not to you—”

Sunny shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment, thinking of how much she’d wanted to be like the girl in the movie and knowing she would never be. “I like him, Josiah, but…”

“I understand.”

She looked at him. Josiah’s smile, so familiar, was like a candle set in a dark window.

“He’s blemished,” Josiah said.

Sunny shook her head. “I don’t think that way anymore.”

Josiah didn’t argue with her. He pushed the chair opposite him with his foot so it scraped along the floor, and gestured for her to sit. Another glance told her Amy had gone into the back. Sunny sat perched on the edge of the chair so she could get up at once if she wanted to. If she had to.

“You should come to visit us, Sunshine.”

“Where are you all?” This question had bothered her since the first day he’d shown up in the coffee shop. “Sanctuary is closed off.”

“We don’t need Sanctuary to live a good life with the family. We have several houses close to each other. It draws less attention that way.”

“Does it matter if you draw attention?” she asked, confused. “Papa said we should never hesitate to let the blemished know how they can join us.”

“That was when he was living behind walls.” Josiah sounded faintly derisive. “Him and my brother, living a reclusive life. How could they possibly hope to encourage anyone to join when they made it so obvious that the family is so different?”

“But…aren’t we?”

“Of course. We’re enlightened. But we’re still people, Sunshine. And it’s our goal to shine a light for all those who are blemished, sure, but how do you think we should do that? By doing everything we can to stand off from the rest of the world? Or by trying to embrace it? You should know that. You’ve been living outside the family now for a long time.”

Did she imagine he sounded accusing? Sunny blinked and swallowed, her throat a little dry. “My mother wanted to protect me and my children. She sent us away. And I’m…glad she did.”

“Are you, Sunshine?” Josiah smiled. “Are you…really?”

It was as though time had slowed, the rest of the world gone away while the two of them sat and stared at each other across the table. When he reached for her hand, she let him take it. And when he invited her again to come home with him, Sunny said yes.

Chapter 38

“C
’mon, Christopher. Answer the damn phone.” Liesel held the phone away from her ear at the sound of his voice mail greeting and disconnected without leaving a message.

Apparently he answered the phone when it was Sunshine calling, since Sunny had said she’d told her father he didn’t need to pick her up. But now that it was his wife calling…

Bah.

That way led to crazy town, and she had to stop herself. She’d encouraged Christopher to have a relationship with his daughter, and it should have nothing to do with her. No reason to feel slighted if he spent more time talking with Sunny than he did her, when all Liesel wanted to know was what time he would be home because she needed some things from the grocery store, and Sunny was going out again after work. Liesel could’ve told the girl to come home. Should’ve, maybe. But Sunny had sounded so freaking happy, so much like a normal girl excited about spending time with a boy she liked, who was Liesel to take that away from her?

With Bliss down for a nap, Liesel moved through the kitchen, cleaning up after the whirlwind of destruction that had been Peace in search of snacks she’d been told she wasn’t allowed to have. Liesel had dealt with the temper tantrum, understanding how easy it would’ve been to spank the little girl, but instead sending her upstairs to her room for a time-out. Happy had gone on his own to color and play with his cars.

Quiet from upstairs meant she should check and see what they were doing. Too much quiet was a warning louder than screams. Yet Liesel couldn’t bring herself to leave the silent kitchen and discover just what the children had been getting into. All she wanted to do was let herself soak in the quiet.

She listened again, heard the faint mutter of the children upstairs, and again, knew it would probably be smart for her to check on them. And again, she couldn’t face it. Not yet. Not one more minute of dealing with Peace’s constant questions, Happy’s anxieties, Bliss’s baby needs.

Some frothy women’s mag had come in the mail, full of articles about makeup and diets and sex tips and celebrity gossip. It was the sort of magazine Liesel had read only once in a while, not concerned with much of what was reported inside its pages, but today she took it along with a bowl of M&M’s and a glass of that gorgeous tequila Becka had given her, and she went into the powder room. She locked the door.

And she pretended, just for ten, fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, tops, that she’d never wanted children.

Chapter 39

S
unny had come home.

There were familiar faces even though it had been years since she’d seen them, the men with their long hair and the women without the heavy masks of makeup Sunny was embarrassed to admit had become attractive to her. She chewed at the thin sheen of lip balm she’d applied earlier. It had only the barest hint of color, and she wore it mostly to keep her lips from getting chapped, but here in a family house she might as well have painted herself with crimson lipstick and every shade of eye shadow.

Familiar scents, too. Bundles of dried rosemary, sage and other herbs hung up in the corners of the rooms the way Papa had always instructed them. The sting of Pine-Sol from the bucket of water by the door. Even the warm and cozy smell of wax from the pillar candle on the table.

And they took her in, welcomed her as one of their own. The only judgment Sunny saw was in her own eyes in the bathroom mirror when she went in to wash her hands before dinner. There she stared at herself, this worldly girl with painted lips and her hair loose around her shoulders, her clothes not quite as modest as she knew they ought to be.

Josiah put his hand on her shoulder when she came out of the bathroom and turned her to face all of them sitting at the long trestle table. Sunny knew that not everyone lived in this house, but they’d all gathered here to share a meal with her. She should have felt honored, but felt mostly shamed that she’d waited so long to come home.

“Everyone, you remember Sunshine.”

Murmured greetings, nodding heads. Sunny smiled at all of them. There was Joy and Henry and Fleur. Patch, too, looking older and giving her a smile that said he hadn’t forgotten those nights behind the barn. There were babies and children she didn’t recognize, along with some men and women she knew had not lived at Sanctuary.

“You sit with me. Here, at the front of the table.” Josiah put his hand on the small of her back to take her to the chair next to his.

It was a place of honor, one Sunny didn’t deserve or understand why she’d been given, but she sat anyway. Josiah sat next to her. He took her hand, which startled her until she saw him reach for the hand of the person on his other side and felt her own taken by the one next to her.

“Thank you for the winds that blow, thank you for the seeds that grow, thank you for the earth to plow, thank you for the love you show.”

Sunny stumbled on the words that had once been so familiar she wouldn’t have had to think twice about them. Nobody seemed to notice how her tongue tangled. Josiah squeezed her fingers and let them go.

Before even being served the first bite of food at every meal in Sanctuary, everyone sat on uncomfortable benches and had to listen to Papa, or later John Second, talk on and on about the importance of preparing your vessel by resisting overindulgences. Sunny had fallen out of the habit of automatically tasting something to make sure it wasn’t undercooked or spoiled. As the platters of roasted chicken and vegetables were brought in from the kitchen though, she didn’t think she had to worry about this meal.

“My father thought the best way to feed the soul was by starving the body,” Josiah said to her quietly as everyone passed their plates to fill with food. “I believe in limiting indulgences, of course. It makes sense that we need to keep our vessels in excellent condition, obviously, by avoiding toxins and chemicals and prepared foods. But there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a meal. When it nourishes the body, it nourishes the soul, too.”

The food was delicious, but she couldn’t eat much. Josiah sitting so close to her, paying such attention, was too distracting. That and the conversations that rose and fell all around the table.

This version of the family was far more politically aware and active than Sunny could remember Papa’s children being. They spoke eagerly and with passion about working to create awareness through their literature, not just of the ways to get through the gates, but of political and religious tolerance. Of health issues. Josiah spoke at length about his efforts in the community to work with local churches and the food bank to make sure there were organic food options for those who relied on such aid to eat.

“Nobody should be forced to destroy their vessels with food additives simply because they have to get their food from charitable resources,” Josiah said.

Papa had always talked while they listened, and his first true son had done the same. Josiah, on the other hand, also took the time to listen. He heard what his family had to say about any topic that was brought up.

But when he turned to Sunny to ask her what she thought about what she might be able to do at the coffee shop, if she might be able to convince her bosses to weed out all products containing harmful elements, she could only shake her head.

“They don’t ask me to help with anything like that.”

Josiah gave her a kind look. “You could take them some literature. The first step in getting anyone on the right path is information. You could ask them to display some of it in case any of their customers are interested.”

Amy and Wendy were both adamantly antireligion. Sunny thought it had something to do with the fact that the matching rings they wore were symbolic and not legal.

Sunny shook her head. “I don’t think they’d allow it. They wouldn’t let a church group put their materials on the bulletin board.”

“Ah, well,” Josiah said after a second’s hesitation. “Maybe you could just ask.”

She could not say yes and felt awkward saying no, so Sunny said nothing. Josiah’s eyes gleamed a little when he smiled at her. But he didn’t push.

After dinner, Sunny offered to help with the dishes but was kindly turned down.

“You’re our guest,” Josiah told her. “Come into the living room, we have testimonies.”

Sunny was not the only invited guest that night. Another young woman and an older man were both there to learn more about the family. The older man sat quietly in the corner, saying nothing, but the young woman took a seat next to Sunny.

“I’m Lisa. This is my third dinner here. It’s so cool, isn’t it? But you’d know that, you’re lucky. You’re already part of the family, right? You’re not one of us blemished.”

Sunny recoiled the tiniest bit at how casually Lisa dropped the term. “I grew up in the family, yes.”

Lisa leaned closer. “In Sanctuary, right?”

Sunny nodded.

Lisa grinned. “So lucky! Josiah told me about how it was there, your own place. Back to the land and everything. What a bummer his dad and brother had that falling-out with him. Josiah is a kick-butt leader. I’m totally going to join, if they let me. I just have to prove myself a little more.”

“How do you do that?”

Lisa shrugged. “Well, I have to do my share of information sharing. Got my dad over there to come. Since him and my mom got divorced, his health’s gone to crap. High blood pressure, angina. I got him on this healthy diet Josiah told me about, and he’s doing so much better.”

Her dad was the quiet older man sitting in the corner.

“It’s just that he doesn’t want to sell the house, which, you know, he’d have to do to bring money into the family. Help out.” Lisa said this under her breath, sharing secrets Sunny didn’t want to know. “I think he’s cool with most of the other stuff though, especially the part about maybe getting a new, young wife…or two. Or three.”

Lisa’s chuckle grated like sandpaper on Sunny’s teeth. “How’s he going to get a wife?”

“Oh, that’s easy. See, Josiah says he doesn’t agree with his father’s idea about that one-true-wife thing.”

“Thing?”

“You know, how nobody else should be allowed to get hooked up unless the leader of the family has his one true wife. Josiah says love should be free for everyone, and nobody should be forced to do what they don’t want to, with anyone they don’t want to do it with. No strings, you know what I mean? Love should be free.” Lisa repeated that like it was her favorite part.

You should never do what you hate, you should love everything you do.

“It didn’t really work that way, you know.” Sunny shifted her chair just a little bit away from Lisa.

It didn’t bother the other woman, who just leaned closer. “No?”

“No.” Sunny didn’t say anything else.

“I guess that’s why Josiah says it should be different from how it was before.”

Sunny looked at Josiah. He was making his way around the room, talking briefly with each person. He touched them all. A hand on a shoulder, a wrist, a squeeze of fingers. She thought of how his hand had felt on the small of her back, and a tiny shiver tickled her spine.

“How is it supposed to be different?” Sunny asked.

Lisa looked off with a delighted squeal. “Oh, there’s Abe! I want… I have to go talk to him.”

With that she got up and left Sunny sitting alone. Not for long. Josiah had made his way to her by then. He smiled down at her, and the shiver returned.

“Sunshine. I’m so glad you took me up on the invitation. I know you probably don’t have a testimony for me tonight.”

“What’s a testimony? Is that like a report?” She hadn’t prepared anything, though of course if he pushed, Sunny had a lot of things she could admit to having done wrong.

Josiah shook his head. “No. We don’t report on each other. That was in my father’s house, not mine. A testimony is the opposite. It’s a listing of everything you did that was positive or good. Anything that helped your vessel toward its best state, so you can be ready when it’s time to leave. Anything you did to help seekers find their way to the light.”

“I haven’t done anything like that.” Sunny shook her head.

“That’s okay.” Josiah gave her another of those kind looks. His hand came down on her shoulder. “Not everyone manages to live every day pushing toward completion. That’s why we have sharing, to help.”

Behind him, Sunny caught a glimpse of Lisa. She was sitting on Abe’s lap, her arms around him. They were…kissing?

“I’d like to share with you, Sunshine.” Josiah’s fingers squeezed, then moved to stroke the length of her hair.

It wasn’t that Sunny had never seen people kissing, but to do it here, in the middle of everyone…and Lisa and Abe were not the only two locking lips. Others were also kissing. Not just one to another, either, but back and forth between partners.

Sunny stood.

Josiah was only a couple inches taller than she was, but there was no way to get around him without pushing him. He didn’t move. Sunny put her hand on his chest, and he put his over hers.

“I know this will seem strange to you, Sunshine, seeing as how you grew up in Papa’s house. Why don’t you come with me into a private room, and I can tell you more to help you understand.”

Come over here, Sunshine.

John Second’s voice hissed inside Sunny’s head.

She tried to take a step back, but the chair behind her hit her on the backs of her calves. She could go nowhere. Josiah didn’t let go of her hand. He looked at her with those warm blue eyes. Seeing right inside her.

“Or you can leave,” he said. “You can go whenever you want, Sunshine. Nobody’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. I promise.”

Behind him, she saw mouths meeting, hands roaming. Sunny closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at the only safe place. The floor.

“Take me someplace private, yes, please.” She wanted to understand. She wanted to feel at home here. This was the family.

Josiah took her up a flight of stairs to a small bedroom at the end of the hall. A neatly made king-size bed dominated the space. It was the only place to sit, and he patted the space next to him.

Sunny hesitated, but sat stiffly, not looking at him. Josiah’s shoulder and hip nudged hers, but he didn’t touch her in any other way. He sat quietly for a moment or two, then twisted to look at her.

“Remember what I said downstairs? About food nourishing our vessels and our souls?”

She nodded.

“Well…it’s the same with other things, too. If our bodies are our vessels, the perfect container for our spirit, and our goal is to keep our vessels in the best condition…well, Sunshine, our bodies are meant to enjoy lovemaking the same way we’re meant to enjoy food.”

Sunny blinked rapidly, feeling her face try to make itself into stone, but Josiah put a finger beneath her chin. Tipped her face to look at his. It wasn’t a scary face, not at all. He had kind, warm eyes and a nice smile. She’d known this face for her entire life.

He kissed her, mouth parted, breath warm.

Sunny didn’t move. Her mother had kissed her. Her children. But who else had ever kissed her? Nothing John Second had ever done was this soft and warm and gentle, kind…sweet. Tyler had kissed her, but it wasn’t like this.

“Sunshine.” Josiah’s warm breath tickled her mouth. “Open your mouth.”

She did, just a little, and gasped when his tongue slid against hers. She pulled away, a hand over her mouth. Mortified.

Josiah smiled. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

Sunny shook her head. “I don’t understand this, Josiah. Papa said…”

“My father was wrong about a lot of things,” Josiah said flatly. “He and my brother perverted the message. And I know things were done to you. I’m sorry about that. You won’t find that here. In this family, love is shared freely or not at all. There’s no place for fear or jealousy, because we are all free to love one another.”