All Fall Down (25 page)

“You don’t mean love,” Sunny said. “You mean sex.”

If the bluntness of her words affronted him, Josiah didn’t show it. His smile turned a little sad. “Make love. There’s a difference.”

He put his hand on her knee. Then inched his fingers along the soft fabric of her skirt, this pretty skirt she knew she took too much pride in wearing, and the hem of it crept up over her knee. When his bare fingers touched her skin, then higher, the inside of her thigh, Sunny put her hand on his.

Josiah stopped. They sat in silence. He looked into her eyes.

Sunny took her hand away.

Josiah’s hand moved higher. Slow, slow, fingertips brushing her skin. Her cotton panties. His fingers pressed against her.

Sunny had put her hand on his shoulder without realizing it. Now her fingers pinched down as her head dipped. Eyes closed. That gentle, simple pressure against her wasn’t like anything she’d ever imagined.

She knew about sex. She knew it could hurt or it could be painless. It could take a long time or be over in minutes. She knew it could make a baby. And she knew that people enjoyed it, craved it, loved it, wanted it… She never had, but now she thought she understood what could make a woman open her legs for a man and lie down naked beneath him because she wanted to.

She shivered when Josiah kissed her. Mouths open, tongues touching. It should have been disgusting, but it wasn’t.

They kissed for a long time as he touched her. Never too hard, too fast. A slow circling against her, until a pleasure built up inside her…and exploded.

Sunny cried out into Josiah’s mouth. The world tipped. Her body jerked. Everything around her swirled.

Josiah laughed when she blinked and focused, but not in a mean way. He kissed her again. Then he took his hand away.

“Don’t you feel good?”

She nodded, unable to talk.

Josiah tipped her face to his again, but this time didn’t kiss her. “You should come back to us, Sunshine. Come back to the people who love you.”

Chapter 40

L
iesel had sounded strained on the phone, her voice distant. Sunny hadn’t needed to see her face to imagine a frown. Sometimes Liesel said things like, “It’s not a big deal,” or, “Don’t worry about it,” mostly about things Sunny wouldn’t have worried about anyway. This time, she’d said, “Come home now,” and Sunny had made Josiah drive her right away.

Inside, the house was quieter than she’d expected. Cooler than outside, too, and though in a few minutes she’d think the air was too chilly, just now it felt fine. Sunny headed for the kitchen and found a tied-off garbage bag in the middle of the floor.

The faint stench of vomit was overlaid with the stronger stink of poo. Through the white plastic of the garbage bag, Sunny saw the telltale stain of disposable diapers squished up against it. She still didn’t like the disposables, but since Liesel had agreed to watch her kids and was the one paying for them, Sunny hadn’t felt she could continue to protest.

“Sunny? Oh. God. I’m so glad you’re here.” Liesel stood in the hall, Bliss on her hip. “Peace won’t stop throwing up, she can’t keep anything down. Happy’s not much better. I don’t know…”

“Where are they?” Sunny reached to take the baby, but Bliss turned her face away and clung to Liesel with a whimper. Surprised, Sunny kept her hands up for a few seconds longer, until it became obvious she’d have to actually take the baby from Liesel’s arms, and probably by force.

“In the den. I have them set up on the couches. But it’s been—” Liesel broke off with a shudder.

Sunny recoiled when she walked into the den. The faint odor in the kitchen had been bad, but in this room it was overpowering. Peace lay on the love seat, which had been covered in towels, a trash can with a plastic bag in it by her head. Happy was on the couch in a similar position, but he was the only one to look up when she came in. His face looked flushed, and when he saw her he sat up, eyes bright with tears that spilled out immediately.

Alarmed, Sunny went to him at once. “Happy, my sweetheart. You don’t feel good?”

He shook his head and clung to her, even as Sunny tried to find a way to sit next to him without messing up the towels Liesel had put down. She didn’t want to look too far into the garbage can. He clutched at her shirt, and she tried delicately to peel him off her.

“She…she maked me…”

“What, Happy?” Sunny managed to push him away enough so she could look into his face. “Who made you what?”

“He’s upset because I made him put on a Pull-ups,” Liesel said from the doorway. “But he’d messed twice, couldn’t make it in time to the potty—”

Happy let out a wail of shame and buried his face against Sunny’s side. Liesel looked pained. Sunny stroked her son’s hair.

“Shh,” she told him. “It was an accident. Liesel’s not mad.”

“Of course I’m not. Oh, Happy, honey, I’m not mad.” Liesel shook her head, bouncing Bliss a little as the baby whined. “But honey, you couldn’t keep messing in your pants.”

“I’m sorry,” Happy whispered against Sunny’s side. “I tried, Mama. I tried real hard.”

Across the room, an uncharacteristically silent Peace let out a low cry and began to heave. Liesel groaned and went to her. “Over the can, Peace. Lean over!”

Sunny went to get up, but Happy wouldn’t let her go. His shoulders heaved. He let out a hurking gag, and Sunny didn’t spend another second in thought; she grabbed up the garbage can and twisted him around to put it in front of his face. She fought her own gag as the wet splatter of vomit hit the plastic bag, followed immediately by the rancid smell.

Five minutes later, Liesel passed Sunny a fresh roll of paper towels and some Lysol, along with a damp cloth. They worked in silence to clean up both kids while Bliss sat on the floor in between them, alternately wailing and drifting into whimpers. Sunny worked on autopilot, wiping Happy’s face and trying to get him to lie back. Everything reeked, her stomach churned, and all she could think of was how grating the sound of her daughter’s whining was.

“What should we do?” Liesel sounded helpless and looked bleak. She had circles under her eyes and her hair stood in sweaty spikes.

Sunny didn’t feel too great herself. “I don’t know.”

Liesel frowned. “Should we give them some ice or something to suck on? Or Pedialyte? Some ginger ale, maybe. That’s what my mom gave me when I was sick. And saltines. I’ll have to run to the store to get some. What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Sunny repeated, unsure what sort of answer Liesel wanted. Or expected.

“Well…” Liesel carefully wiped her hands with a package of bleach cleaning wipes she normally used for the counters. “What do you usually do when they’re sick?”

Sunny felt as helpless then as Liesel had looked. She shrugged and looked down at Happy, who’d finally closed his eyes. She looked at Peace, who could only stare, her small face wan and pathetic. “I don’t know, they’ve never been sick.”

Chapter 41

“W
hat do you mean, they’ve never been sick? They’re kids! Kids are always sick!” Liesel stank of sweat and puke and shit. She felt more than a little like throwing up herself. She’d been dealing with this for the past four hours and had reached her limit.

Sunny stroked Happy’s hair back from his face. The boy looked as if he’d fallen asleep, which meant he’d probably have another accident. Liesel pushed a toy toward cranky Bliss, who tossed it aside.

“Not like this,” Sunny said. “Never like this.”

She gave Liesel one of those blank stares, and Liesel wanted to smack it off her face. It was wrong, she knew that. Sunny was doing the best she could. It wasn’t her fault the kids had thrown up or shit on nearly everything in the house today.

But they were
Sunny’s
kids. Not Liesel’s. If anyone should be dealing with this, it was Sunshine.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Liesel said because she didn’t want to say any of the other million things running through her brain. Mean things. Words that weren’t even necessarily true, but would taste so good to spew. “Then I’ll run to the store and pick up some ginger ale and saltines. Popsicles. Some medicine. Stuff like that.”

Not even a shadow of an expression twitched at Sunny’s face. Liesel wanted to shake her just to get a rise out of her. How could she sit there so stone-faced? She should look worried! Or at the least, repulsed by the choking stench in the room.

“Sunny, did you hear what I just said?”

“Yes, Liesel. I’m sorry the kids are sick and made a mess.”

Guilt, huge and painful, bopped Liesel on the back of the head…followed a second later by irritation. This was a pattern. Sunny or her children did something that made a mess, caused a scene, was a problem, and she apologized profusely like Liesel was some sort of…stepmonster. Then Liesel told her it was all okay, and she never seemed to believe it, no matter how hard Liesel and Christopher worked to prove to her she and the kids were a welcomed and yes, loved, part of this family.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Liesel repeated. “If they puke, make sure they get it in the cans, I don’t want to have to shampoo my rugs again.”

Fifteen minutes in the shower worked wonders for her psyche. The irritation faded. So did the guilt. Liesel bent her head under the hot, pounding water and let it work the tight muscles in her neck and shoulders. Anybody facing the geysers of sick she’d had to deal with today would’ve reacted the same way she had, if not worse.

She’d hit the store, stock up on everything from hand sanitizer to tummy meds. Surely Christopher would be home in a few hours, and he could help out, too. They’d get through this, and it would be awful and disgusting, but maybe someday they’d look back on it and laugh. Or at least have a story to tell at parties when the topic turned, as it inevitably did, to the worst things that ever happened to you.

Back in the den, though, everything had gotten worse. Sunny held a gagging, choking Bliss over one can while Peace dry heaved into another. Happy wept and moaned from his place on the couch with a fresh wave of stink to show he’d had another accident.

Liesel stopped in the doorway and almost turned and ran away, but instead forced herself to move a couple steps forward. “Oh, no. Bliss, too?”

Sunny looked up, her face haggard. “Yes. She just started. Liesel, they’re really sick.”

“Let me call Christopher again.” Liesel’s stomach sunk and she looked with something like longing toward the hall. The door to the garage. If only she hadn’t taken that shower, she’d have been out the door and gone by now. She’d have had an hour or so of freedom. She could still go. They still needed crackers and ginger ale…but no. She couldn’t just abandon them. “Maybe he can pick up the stuff on his way home from…wherever the hell he is.”

Sunny’s blank look faltered for a moment, but she visibly firmed her mouth and blinked away any hint of tears. “Happy needs a shower. Bliss too, she’s covered in throw up. I can take them both in with me…can you watch Peace? Please?”

The way she said it, like Liesel might refuse, set Liesel’s teeth on edge, though she knew Sunny was only trying to be respectful. “Of course. You go. Let’s do what we can. Peace, honey, let me get you a little water. Just a few sips.”

Half an hour later, none of the kids were better. In fact, they were worse. Bliss had gone glaze-eyed, head lolling. Feverish. Peace slept, but fitfully, and Happy, who almost never cried, now couldn’t stop moaning and weeping.

“I can’t get in touch with Christopher.” Liesel stabbed her phone to disconnect before leaving a third voice mail. “Sunny, we need to think about taking these babies to the emergency room.”

“What?” Sunny looked up, eyes wide. Her hair, still wet from the shower that had been made pointless moments after they got out when both kids were sick again, clung to her cheeks. “No!”

“Hon, they’re very sick.” Liesel sat next to Peace and put a hand on her forehead. Burning up. “This is more than just a stomach bug. It might be food poisoning.”

“What do you mean, food poisoning?” Sunny’s voice caught and she swallowed hard. She scraped her hair back from her face and pulled the tangled, sopping mess on top of her head to secure it with an elastic band. “Corn syrup? Did they eat toxins?”

Sunny looked blank. Liesel thought of how when they first arrived, all three of them had been so cautious with every sip, every bite, carefully tasting everything before they ate it. More irritation pricked at Liesel. Surely the girl had heard of food poisoning that had nothing to do with her mythical and overblown fear of corn syrup.

“No. When food goes bad, like when it spoils. Like past the expiration date, or something that hasn’t been properly refrigerated.”

Recognition dawned in Sunny’s eyes. Then a flash of something else Liesel couldn’t interpret. “Spoiled food could make them sick like this.”

“Of course it could!” Liesel snapped.

Then remembered.

“Christ, Sunny. The food under the beds. Did you have anything in there that could go bad? Make the kids sick?”

“I don’t…I don’t know—”

“Why do you even do that?” Liesel cried. “It’s not like we don’t feed you, for God’s sake! I mean, I never asked because I figured it was just one more of those weird things you did, but good Lord, Sunny…for someone who has a bug up her ass about what she puts in her kids’ mouths, you really don’t make any sort of sense, sometimes!”

“It was in case!” Sunny shouted.

Happy stirred on the couch with a moan, and Bliss, who’d been dozing in her lap, startled awake with a scream.

“In case of what?”

“Just in case,” Sunny said. “In case we needed it. I know it was stupid, Liesel, I’m sorry—”

“Stop being so goddamn sorry about everything!” The words bit out of her like a dog snapping. “I’m sick of it, Sunny! You act like you think me and your dad are going to toss you out on your asses for every little thing, and then you pull a stunt like that…hoarding food…that’s just crazy!”

“I’m not crazy!” Sunny shouted. She looked at the baby in her lap. “Hush, Bliss. Hush!”

But the baby would not be hushed. Nor would Peace and Happy. Sunny looked at all three of her children with frantic eyes, then at Liesel. Liesel wanted to put her face in her hands and scream herself. Scream herself raw.

Instead, she took a shallow breath of stinking air and focused. “We need to take them to the emergency room and get some fluids into them or something. They’re too sick. We can’t deal with this. You get them ready, I’m going to call Christopher again and tell him to meet us there.”

“No.” Sunny shook her head without looking at Liesel, her attention on the screaming baby. “Hush, Bliss. Mama says hush. Now!”

Liesel got on the floor beside her to squeeze her shoulder. “Sunny. Stop it. She’s not going to stop crying, she’s sick. We have to take them—”

“No!” Sunny shouted.

Spittle flew onto Liesel’s cheek. Disgusted, she swiped at it. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“No hospital. No emergency room! It’s where the blemished go!”

“Well, I have news for you, Sunshine,” Liesel said. “You’re all blemished now.”