All Fall Down

by Megan Hart

  “Peace, do you need a diaper?”

  The little girl simply stared.

  Liesel paused in the guest-room doorway. The door was ajar, but it also creaked like most of the others in this house. She could see just inside to the bed, where a huddled lump and shock of blond hair showed her Happy was still asleep, at least. From this angle she couldn’t quite see if Sunny was still in bed, but since the only sounds in the room were the soft, in-and-out sighs of breathing, she figured the girl probably still was. Which meant that unless she wanted to wake them, no diaper.

  Ah, well. She’d have to make do. In the kitchen, she settled Peace on one of the bar stools at the counter and poured her a plastic cup of milk. “What kind of cereal do you like?”

  Peace stared, then pulled the cup closer to her. She sipped it cautiously, then drank back a gulp that had her sputtering. Liesel grabbed a clean dish towel and wiped Peace’s face, then tucked it around the little girl’s neck as a bib. Peace ignored the entire process while she concentrated on drinking the milk as fast as she could.

  “I have Froot Loops and Cap’n Crunch,” Liesel said as she looked in the pantry. “Those are Christopher’s cereals. Christopher, your…”

  Grandpa? Pappy? Pop-Pop? What on earth were these kids going to call him? At just past forty, Liesel’s husband wasn’t old enough to be a grandfather. She sagged against the wire shelves in the pantry for a second. Yesterday had been like some sort of TV-movie drama, the sort she watched on the rare days she stayed home sick. Today it hit her even harder.

  Liesel drew in a shuddering breath and looked over her shoulder. Peace was still busy with the milk. Some of it had spilled. Liesel pulled the plastic container of Froot Loops from its place on the shelf and poured some into a bowl. She added milk, found a spoon. She pushed the bowl in front of the little girl.

  “Here, honey. Try that.”

  Annabelle would’ve dived into that bowl like a starving wildebeest, but Peace first pressed her hands together and bent her head. She waited a second or two, then looked at Liesel with a question clear in those bright blue eyes, so much like Christopher’s that Liesel was too distracted to realize Peace was waiting for something from her.

  “Bwessing?”

  It took Liesel a second to interpret. “Oh. Blessing… You want to pray?”

  Peace nodded, solemn.

  Liesel’s parents were nonpracticing Jews who made much of their cultural heritage but hadn’t done much beyond the bagels and lox. Christopher’s family were Christians of various Protestant varieties, with a few far-flung Mennonites in the mix. She and Christopher didn’t put up a tree or light a menorah, but they exchanged gifts on Christmas Day, and if they weren’t traveling to New Jersey to spend the holiday with his mother and sister, Liesel usually made a turkey.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d said a blessing over anything, or even if she ever had.

  “Um…” Liesel’s teeth caught her lower lip, and she forced herself to keep from giving in to the bad habit of biting it. “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for this food?”

  Peace’s brow furrowed. Her tiny rosebud mouth pursed. “That not what we say.”

  Liesel didn’t mean to laugh at the little girl’s disdain, but a chuckle slipped out. “Okay. Why don’t you tell me what you usually say?”

  Peace sighed, very put out. “Fank you for de winds dat blow, fank you for de seeds dat grow, fank you for de earth to plow, fank you for de love you show.”

  Then, using the daintiest of touches to pinch one neon-colored circle between her thumb and forefinger, Peace lifted it from the bowl, smelled it, let her tongue come out to taste it. She looked up at Liesel with wide eyes, then put it in her mouth as cautious as she’d been with the milk. Happy had done something similar the night before, been so careful with the chocolate milk before he drank. Apparently, the food suited, because Peace lifted the spoon and started eating.

  “Careful, honey.” It was useless to tell a little kid not to spill, Liesel knew that much. As soon as you said it, that’s just what they did.

  Peace ate with the spoon as daintily as she’d done with her fingers. Liesel leaned with her elbows on the island to watch her. The perusal didn’t seem to bother Peace at all. She hummed under her breath as she ate and ignored Liesel.

  The girl had the same downy blond hair as her brother and several shades lighter than their mother’s, though her tangled mess of curls wasn’t quite as long. Soft, though, under Liesel’s palm when she stroked it. So soft.

  Liesel hadn’t ever imagined she’d be the sort of woman to get the baby bug. In fact, when Becka had started “breeding”—her term for it, not Liesel’s—Liesel had been a little appalled at how easily her best and oldest friend slipped into the role of mother. They’d become wives around the same time and that change hadn’t made much of a difference in their friendship, but that first baby had come between them in a big way.

  Dexter had been a cranky kid, now grown to a cranky teen, who took after his dad in looks. Becka had been smitten at once, talking endlessly about the color of poo and sleep training and dozens of other things Liesel hadn’t given a damn about, but pretended to because she loved her friend. There’d been times in their friendship when one or the other of them had fallen hard for a guy who’d stolen most of their attention, but this was way worse than that. Liesel had never felt she needed to compete with a boyfriend, because no matter what happened it had always been sisters before misters.

  There’d been no competing with Dexter.

  So, sort of like the time Liesel had taken up with the teammate of a minor-league baseball player Becka was dating, not because she was into sports or even the guy, but because it meant more time with her friend, Liesel took up…babies.

  She grew to appreciate, and in fact, love, the sweet smell of a baby’s head. The weight of an infant sleeping bonelessly in her arms. The sheer joy of being the one to elicit a tiny baby giggle.

  As Becka kept breeding, Liesel’s baby envy grew. By the time Annabelle was born, Liesel had decided she was ready to become a mother herself. Maybe not to four kids, that was a little too much, but at least two. Two sweet and perfect children with Christopher’s eyes and her hair. His sense of humor and her creative streak.

  Only it hadn’t happened. She’d gone off the Pill, taken her prenatal vitamins, kept track of her ovulation. Nothing. They’d been at a baby impasse for a few years, and now…

  This.

  Peace finished the cereal and now tipped the bowl to her mouth to slurp at the milk. “More?”

  “More? Really?” It had been a pretty big bowl for such a little girl, but who knew what she’d been used to eating? Liesel poured another half bowl of cereal and added milk.

  Peace didn’t go through the ritual of the blessing or smelling and tasting the food before she ate it. This time, she dug right in. She crunched happily, still tunelessly humming and kicking her bare toes against the island.

  “Honey, I’m just going to go look for Christopher. Are you okay here?”

  Peace crunched away, not looking bothered at all at being left alone. Liesel hesitated, but it wasn’t as though Peace was an infant. Besides, she wasn’t going to go far. Even if the little girl fell off the stool, Liesel would be close enough to get to her in half a minute.

  “Okay,” Liesel said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She found her husband where she’d expected to, feet up and reclining in the battered easy chair that had been his dad’s. All the other furniture they’d had before they got married had been replaced over the years, but Christopher refused to let go of this chair.

  Liesel understood the sentiment. She held on to things, too. Ticket stubs, postcards, matchbooks. It wasn’t that she hated the chair, even though it was the ugliest thing she’d ever
seen. What boggled her mind was how he could fall asleep in that dilapidated, uncomfortable relic while watching television, which was what he did a couple times a week. Usually she woke him before she went upstairs, and sometimes she stumbled down to the den with bleary eyes to shake him awake enough to spend the rest of a too-short night in bed, but last night he must’ve gotten out of bed after she fell asleep and come down here.

  She found him with his eyes closed and mouth open, the TV tuned to some sports station showing something obscure, like curling. In the early-morning light streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows they’d paid extra to put in, his face looked slack and disturbingly old. His hair was shaggier than he usually wore it, and Liesel caught a glimpse of silver in the blond. Liesel had never met Christopher’s father, who’d died young, just fifty, of a heart attack brought on by too many cigarettes and cheeseburgers. She’d seen pictures though, and her husband looked a lot like his dad.

  For an instant, she froze. Fifty used to seem so old, but Christopher was only ten years away from that. Fewer years than they’d been married. He took care of himself better than his dad ever had. Didn’t smoke, worked out regularly, and aside from his addiction to cheese curls, didn’t indulge in fast food. There was no reason for Liesel to think she’d end up a young widow, but all at once it was all she could do to stop herself from running across the room and shaking him awake just to make sure he was still alive.

  “Christopher,” she said in a low voice instead of shouting it the way she’d felt the sudden impulse to.

  He startled awake in a way that would’ve been comical if this were a normal day. The recliner rocked as he flailed. Then he scrubbed at his face, letting out a sigh, and leaned forward to put his feet flat on the floor.

  “Jesus,” he said. “What time is it?”

  “It’s almost eight.”

  “In the morning?” He looked disgusted and added a garbled sound of distaste as he stretched and winced.

  His question didn’t require an answer other than “duh,” so she kept quiet. Christopher looked up at her, then past her. He sighed.

  “Where are they?”

  “Peace is in the kitchen. She woke me up a little while ago. She was hungry, so I’m giving her some breakfast. I guess Sunshine and Happy are still sleeping, the baby, too.”

  Christopher sighed again and got up, his back snap, crackle, popping as he twisted it. His neck the same way. He had a monthly appointment with their chiropractor, courtesy of that recliner.

  He blinked and used the heel of one hand to press against his eyes. “I need a shower.”

  “Christopher,” Liesel said quietly and stopped, not sure of what she meant to say, just knowing there were a lot of words waiting to be spoken and not all of them nice.

  “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.
r />   “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.