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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
    E verything 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 had always said it would, which was why women in the family never wore pants.
    The kids slept restlessly but hard. Exhausted. Sunny was tired, too, but couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t shake the feeling that all of this had been a dream. She’d close her eyes and wake to flashing lights and the constant mumble of John Second’s voice over the speakers. Or Papa’s. Why hadn’t John Second been the one talking? Why had he used Papa’s recorded voice to bring them all to the chapel?
    Before Papa had died but after he’d gotten sick, he’d often used the recording instead of his own voice. It had been easy to tell the difference because the voice over the speakers calling them to the chapel for the drills was strong and vibrant, full of confidence and authority. The voice of the man who greeted them from his wheelchair when they got there was whisper-thin, raspy and shattered by coughs.
    Tears burned behind her lids; she closed her eyes tight to keep them from slipping out. No crying, even without anyone to see and make a report. Crying was weakness and would blemish her vessel from the inside. Bliss protested with a small squeak when Sunny’s arms tightened around her, and Sunny relaxed her grip so as not to wake her daughter.
    What now? What could the four of them do here in this house with a man she’d never known as her father, and his wife, who stared at Sunny’s children with eyes so hungry it was like she wanted to gobble them up. What could Sunny do anywhere? She had just a little money, no clothes except what they’d been wearing and the