“Not now, Liesel.”
“Now,” she said. “We have to talk about this now.”
He sat back heavily in the recliner and waved at the couch across from it. “Fine. Whatever. I could use some coffee and a hot shower first so I’ll be a little better at giving you whatever it is you want, but whatever, go ahead.”
Liesel’s teeth clicked down, biting back a sharp retort. “What
I
want?”
He gave her a weary look. “I’m exhausted, okay? My mouth tastes like shit, I have a headache and my back’s killing me. This is the kind of conversation that ends with us talking about what ‘we’re’ gonna do—” he used air quotes for emphasis “—which really means whatever
you
are going to do. So let’s just cut to it, okay? I’m a lousy jerk for having a kid and never telling you about her. Okay?”
She knew better than to poke him when he woke up grumpy, but that didn’t stop her from replying, “No, you’re a lousy jerk for having a kid and never knowing about her.”
Christopher stared at her, hard. Then he crumpled. He scrubbed at his eyes again before propping his elbows on his knees and putting his face in his hands.
“We have to talk about what we’re going to do with them, that’s what I meant, Christopher.”
He shifted to look over at her. “You want to keep them.”
“Don’t you?”
He leaned forward. “They’re not puppies, for Chrissake, Liesel.”
“No! They’re children!”
“She’s not,” he pointed out. “If she’s mine, she has to be at least nineteen years old, probably almost twenty.”
“That’s still practically a child! I was in college when I was twenty, living at home with my parents and working part-time at the grocery store to earn textbook money. Twenty’s barely old enough to be married, much less be a parent.”
“I was married at eighteen.”
“And look how well that worked out,” Liesel retorted. “You were only married for three years.”
Christopher flinched. He looked away from her, a hand scraping through his hair. Her sharpness embarrassed her, made her feel like the sort of sniping, shrewish wife she’d never wanted to be. It made her sound…jealous.
“I’m just saying, it’s not that young,” he said after a moment. “You weren’t much older when we met.”
“I was twenty-five when we met, but I was twenty-seven when we got married,” Liesel said. “We’d both finished school. Had jobs. We didn’t have kids—”
“Apparently,” Christopher said, “I did.”
It was her turn to flinch. “She has
three.
She’s not even twenty years old and has three kids. Happy’s what, four years old? Which means she started having babies at fifteen? And living in that place… My God, Christopher. Everyone knows they’re crazy over there. You’ve seen them downtown, handing out their pamphlets. Have you ever read one of them?”
Christopher’s lip curled. “No. Have you?”
“As a matter of fact, I have. I felt so bad for the kid who was trying to sell them I gave him a five-dollar bill. He gave me the whole pile.” Liesel frowned. “I think I still have them somewhere.”
“Why would you keep that crap?” Christopher shook his head and tossed the hair from his eyes. Just as seeing him sleeping had reminded her of the photos of his dad, seeing him flip his hair that way took her back to when they’d first met. He’d worn his hair longer then and had flipped it back a lot.
“I don’t know. I put them away in my desk when I got home and just forgot about them. That’s not the point,” she said. “The point is, this is your daughter. And her children. And clearly she’s got no clue, Christopher, about how to take care of them, or herself, outside the confines of those walls.”
“She got them here, didn’t she?”
“Three kids in the middle of winter with almost nothing but the clothes on their backs. And dressed completely inappropriately, for that matter. How’d they get here without a car? Walk? It’s got to be at least ten miles away. God. Did they hitch?”
Christopher smiled faintly. “Sounds like she knows how to take care of herself to me.”
“Don’t you want to help her?” Liesel cried, accusing. “Or would you rather pretend you didn’t know she exists, just like you did for the first nineteen years of her life?”
Silence swirled after she said that. At least her husband looked a little bit ashamed, but she felt just as guilty for saying something so mean. It had been true, she saw that on his face. But still mean, and sometimes what saved a marriage wasn’t love or patience or mutual respect, but the ability to simply not be mean.
“What do you think we should do?” Christopher said after a moment.
“Well, you said you would get in touch with her mother, find out why she sent them here.”
Christopher said nothing, which wasn’t strange. What was odd, though, was how easily and quickly his expression became blank. He’d put on a mask of Christopher’s face, but the man beneath it seemed like someone else.
“It’s not like I can just call her up,” he said after a moment.
“There has to be a way to get in touch with her. With them. Maybe you have to go out there, I don’t know.” Liesel paused, trying for honesty. “Look, it’s not like I’m all rah-rah-rah about you hooking up again with your ex-wife.”
First he looked startled. Then guilty. That told her more than anything else, and a stone settled in her gut.
“Until then—” she continued to push past what had risen up between them “—they can stay here.”
“We don’t know anything about them.”
Liesel frowned. “She’s your
daughter.
”
“She’s Trish’s daughter,” Christopher said.
More silence.
“I don’t blame you for thinking I’m a jerk,” he said after another few long seconds. “But this isn’t something we should just rush into. Anyway, who knows. Maybe she only wants to stay for a few days.”
“We’ll see.” Liesel stood. “And I don’t think you’re being a jerk.”
Before she could say anything else, a piercing scream ripped through the house. Christopher was on his feet before Liesel could even turn, through the door and into the hall. She heard another garbled scream and took off after him, catching up to him just as he hit the kitchen.
Peace had gotten down from the stool and stood in the middle of the kitchen, eyes wide. She wasn’t the one screaming. That had come from upstairs. Sunny, then. There was a pounding of feet on the stairs, and Sunny flew into the kitchen, too, her bare toes squeaking on the tiles.
“Oh…” She sagged in the doorway. “Oh, thank goodness. I got up, she was gone, I was confused. I thought they took her.”
“Who took her? Where?” Liesel tried to catch Christopher’s eye, but he was looking away.
Sunny shook her head, her long blond hair falling over her shoulders. She looked apologetically at Christopher and Liesel. Her face had been the color of chalk, but now her cheeks bloomed with pink.
“I’m sorry. I was dreaming. I had a nightmare. And then I woke up, and Peace was gone. I’m sorry I scared you.”
Peace burst into tears just as the patter of liquid on the tiles came from beneath the hem of her nightgown. Urine spread in a swiftly growing puddle around the little girl’s feet, then the soft plop of something worse.
“Oops,” Liesel said.
“What the—!” Christopher leaped across the room like he was going after a racquetball on the court to grab up a handful of paper towels. He tossed them onto the puddle, then took the entire roll and dropped to his knees. “Hey, kid, cut it out!”
That’s when Peace threw up on his head.
Chapter 6
“T
his is all you brought?” Liesel looked over what Sunny had laid out on the guest bed.
Heat settled in Sunny’s face again. It was bad enough that she’d embarrassed herself by screaming this morning when Peace had only been in the kitchen. Not stolen away by John Second to make sure Sunny understood how important it was to obey. It was worse that Peace had puked on Christopher and all over herself. The floor, too. Christopher was still in the shower, and Sunny had insisted on mopping the floor, but there wasn’t much to be done about Peace’s clothes.
Bliss was sleeping in a makeshift crib of pillows, and Happy had been sent downstairs to watch more television. Peace sat on the bed, hair still wet, tucked into a towel after the scrubbing Sunny had given her in a tub so big and shiny bright it had been intimidating. The nightgown she’d been wearing was in the laundry, and the clothes she’d been wearing the night before were filthy as well from the run through the woods. Liesel had put everything in the washer.
“I… We left in a hurry.” Sunny didn’t know what else to say. Liesel was blemished. Sunny shouldn’t talk about family things with her. Within the walls of Sanctuary it had seemed entirely normal that nobody had more than a change or two of clothes accessible to them at any time, but Sunny knew that out here in the blemished world things were different. Here, people indulged in excess and greed, the accumulation of material goods. Out here, people relied on
things
for comfort instead of listening with their hearts.
“Sunny, look at me.”
The zipper of Sunny’s sweatshirt was still stuck halfway. She tugged it over Peace’s head. The girl would swim in it, but it was better than nothing. She looked at Liesel…at her stepmother, she thought. Liesel was her father’s wife and therefore had an authority in this house that Sunny needed to respect.
“We can go to the store and buy you some new things for the kids. For you, too.”
At Liesel’s kind look, sharp and shameful tears pricked at Sunny’s eyelids. She took a deep breath to push them away. “Oh, no. I couldn’t have you do that.”
“Sunny, all of this—” Liesel gestured at the bed, where everything that had been stuffed into both their knapsacks had made only a tiny pile on the soft comforter “—I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but it’s worn-out. And dirty.”
Sunny nodded, biting her lip, and concentrated on tugging a borrowed comb through Peace’s curls. In Sanctuary, clothes were shared and then recycled when they became too worn to wear. But at least there they had other clothes to wear while dirty outfits were being washed.
“I have money,” Sunny said.
Liesel hesitated. “Of course, that’s fine. But if you don’t have enough, I’m sure your…dad…and I can cover it.”
Sunny smiled faintly at that. “I can’t think of him as my dad. I’m sorry. It just sounds funny.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
Liesel smiled. This time the warmth welling up inside Sunny wasn’t from embarrassment. She smiled back.
“You don’t have to call him Dad if you don’t feel comfortable,” Liesel said. “I think he feels strange about it, too.”
Sunny smoothed Peace’s hair through her fingers to get at a particularly bad tangle. Peace wriggled, complaining at the tugging. “Hush, my sweetheart. Just a bit more.”
Sunny looked up to see Liesel watching her closely, her head tilted a little. Liesel, caught, didn’t look away. She leaned against the dresser with a small smile.
“This is all a surprise to us. A good one,” Liesel added quickly. Sunny didn’t think she was telling the whole truth about that. “It’s just that we didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know, either.” Not that it would’ve mattered. The man who’d fathered her was blemished, not part of the family. Even if her mother had told her about him long ago, Sunny wouldn’t have considered him her father.
“She didn’t tell you about him? I mean, not ever?”
“Not until she told us it was time to go.” Sunny finished with Peace’s hair. “Do you have to use the toilet?”
“She doesn’t need a diaper?” Liesel sounded surprised.
Sunny looked up. “I know she had an accident in the kitchen, but she was just scared.”
“No, I mean… Never mind. It was an accident, I know that. I’m not upset.” Liesel laughed softly.
Liesel spent a lot of time saying things she didn’t mean, Sunny thought. Or thinking of things she meant to say but didn’t. Either way, it was clear she didn’t spend much time listening with her heart, because while Sunny might sometimes let her thoughts fly out of her mouth before she could restrain them, she always meant whatever it was she actually said. Liesel didn’t seem so certain of herself.
“Christopher might take some time to recover, though.”
Sunny winced, thinking of how he’d shouted and the disgust on his face when Peace had thrown up. Only a little had gotten on him, most had been on the floor or down her own front, but even so it had been bad, especially with the rest of the mess. “I’m sorry.”
Liesel shook her head. “I’m not upset about it. I’m just surprised that she’s not in diapers, that’s all. She’s so young.”
Sunny considered this. Peace was just over two years old. “She’s been using the toilet for a few months now.”
Clearly, this wasn’t something Liesel had expected. She shook her head slowly. “Wow. That’s some accomplishment.”
What did that mean?
Liesel must’ve seen her confusion. “None of my friend’s kids got out of diapers until they were over three years old.”
Sunny had been reprimanded many times for her inability to hold her tongue, and she was no better at it now. “That’s ridiculous!”
Liesel laughed and shrugged, though she did give both Peace and Sunny another curious look. “That’s what my friend Becka said about it when she was trying to get them out of diapers. But I think that’s normal, isn’t it? Never mind. That was a dumb thing to say.”
It was normal for the children in the family to be using the toilet by Peace’s age. Sunny’d already said too much. She found a rubber band in the pocket of one of the backpacks and slipped it onto her wrist while she quickly braided Peace’s hair into a smooth twist, then used the band to secure it tightly at the nape of her neck. She should do the same to her own hair. Leaving it unbound and uncovered this way made her feel more naked than if she’d taken off her dress, but the rubber band she’d been using had snapped this morning.
“Do you have another rubber band?”
Liesel put a hand to her own hair. She wore it short, cropped like a man’s. Like Bethany’s. “Oh, sorry. I don’t have any hair bands or anything like that. We can get some from the store. We can leave the kids here with Christopher while we go shopping. It’ll do him some good.”
Bliss was still sleeping, and Sunny paused, remembering his reaction to Peace’s accident. At home she’d have thought nothing of leaving her children in another’s care, just like nobody there would’ve blinked at leaving their children with Sunny. Everyone shared the responsibilities. But, as with everything else, Sunny was immediately reminded that
here
was not
there.
“It’ll be fine,” Liesel reassured her. She’d turned to look into Sunny’s face. “Christopher’s a good guy. He can’t handle puke, but he’s a good guy.”
Sunny nodded uncertainly. Bliss would probably sleep for another hour, then wake hungry. “I should take the baby, though. She’ll need to eat.”
Liesel chewed at her lip for a second. “Right. Right, I didn’t think about that. And you don’t have a car seat for her or anything, right?”
Sunny shook her head. “I can hold her on my lap.”
“Oh, wow. No. That’s against the law, Sunny.” Liesel shook her head harder than Sunny had.
“I didn’t know.”
“How’d you get here?”
Sunny was silent for too long, she could see that in Liesel’s face. “We walked. And…a man in a truck gave us a ride. He didn’t say anything about a car seat.”
He hadn’t said much of anything. It had been sort of scary, as a matter of fact, the way he’d looked them over before opening the door to let them in. He’d asked only where they were going, driven in silence and dropped them off at the bottom of the driveway without waiting to see where they went.
Liesel visibly flinched. “Oh. How’d you get her home from the hospital? Didn’t they give you a car seat then?”
Sunny blinked. “She’s never been in the hospital.”
“But surely when she was born—” Liesel stopped. “You didn’t have her in a hospital.”
“Hospitals are places the blemished go to die,” Sunny blurted, then bit down on her tongue. Hard. She cast her face in stone to keep from betraying anything else.
“The blemished? Is that what you call us?”
Sunny nodded.
Liesel murmured something Sunny couldn’t quite hear. “I guess it’s better than some of the other things we could be called, huh?”
Sunny lifted a hand before she thought, but kept herself from touching Liesel’s shoulder. “It’s just that you’re not one of us. That’s all. It’s not meant to be disrespectful. You can’t help it.”
“Let me call my friend,” Liesel said after a moment. “I think she has a car seat and some baby clothes she could lend you.”
She’d said
lend,
but Sunny knew Liesel meant
give.
This generosity pricked tears into Sunny’s eyes that she refused to let fall. It wasn’t that she was unused to being given things. Papa had said there was never any shame in taking what other people didn’t want or couldn’t use, whether it be from local charity organizations or Dumpsters behind the shopping malls. People threw away so many things with life still in them, it was more shameful to let them go unused than to take them.
This felt different. It felt like pity, and no wonder, because it was pitiful to show up on someone’s doorstep with three kids wearing dirty, worn clothes. Like refugees.
Papa had said the blemished were greedy, selfish, full of the need to take and acquire, but all Liesel had shown Sunny so far was the desire to give. She didn’t know what to think about this, just that it embarrassed her to have Liesel think she didn’t know how to take care of herself or her children.
But…wasn’t that the truth?
“That would be great,” she said. “If your friend has those things. I can pay her for them, I have money.”
She’d said that already, and in fact hadn’t actually counted the money her mother had given her. She had no idea how much was in the wallet. She didn’t really know how much things cost when it came right down to it, because she’d never been allowed to handle money for spending.
“Oh, honey, don’t you worry about that. Becka’s my oldest friend, she’s like a sister to me. Which means she’ll be happy to help you. That’s what happens when you’re like…well. You’re family. Right?”
To this, Sunny had nothing to say. She had a family, and her mother had forced her to run from it. Still, she managed a small smile. “Sure. Thanks. Right.”
It was a lie, and Liesel seemed to know it. She didn’t say anything though, just nodded and gave Sunny’s shoulder a squeeze. She touched Peace’s curls lightly, twining one around her finger. “Let me call Becka.”
Sunny nodded. Forced a smile. She had no other choice.