Father DiNado had rushed through the original ceremony, but Beth insisted he go through the rites again.
My husband deserves this, she’d hissed.
DiNado had been apologetic, mumbling about the danger. Best to pray quickly and quietly. God will hear anyway.
Even the prayers of cowards? she’d sneered.
Beth smoothed out the grave. No headstone. No marking of any kind, rocks, pebbles. Flowers? A joke. She’d left roses at the original Sacred Mary Church graveyard. They’d been burned. Graves had been trampled, dug up, surrounded by vicious signs: Look What God Did to America. To avoid such desecrations, all religious burial grounds had been moved to anonymous locations. Cremation was encouraged. Do what you need in the privacy of your own home. Nothing officially stopped anyone from praying, but the churches were finally torn down by mobs. See? Religion breeds anger.
Some brave folks said let us have our churches out of sight; we won’t bother anyone. Unfortunately, the new rural locations bred cults. Old ideas and beliefs flourished. Black Tops razed the grounds of at least a dozen religious retreats, thousands dying. Public practice of religion was officially outlawed under the Anti-God Act of 2080.
Perhaps God really did only listen to Allahs.
Beth kissed her husband’s grave and drew the sign of the cross in the dirt, then made it a little bigger. She crossed herself and laid down a single rose. Eduardo had brought her one rose every Tuesday even when they had no money; he’d never disappoint her. At the end, despite his pretty brown eyes sunken with diseased despair, his breaths short and labored, the single red rose would still appear in the narrow blue vase on the kitchen windowsill overlooking their garden.
Close your eyes, Eduardo would say. Turn around because I know you cheat. Here. Red rose. You can’t even tell it’s dyed.
I thought it was real. Beth would giggle playfully, sniffing the flower.
Beth finished praying and headed home along the desolate streets, remembering so intently she didn’t notice the Brown Hat until he was by her side.
“Evening, ma’am. Need help?”
Beth lowered her eyes and kept walking. “No, thank you, Detective.”
Detective Buca kept pace. “You’re out late.”
“Exercise.”
“Where do you live?’
It was safer to hand over her Lifecard, which he studied on his connector device. He flipped open a notebook from the pocket of his bulky brown overcoat and made a couple notes.
“May I go now? My son will be home and I have to make sure he’s done his homework.”
“Is that what you were praying for?”
Beth stared hard and said nothing.
“Must be forty, fifty graves.”
Beth trembled from rage.
“Husband? Wife? I had one, too.” Buca returned the Lifecard with a final nod. “Vets camp, huh? You must’ve been an athletic teenager.”
“Nothing illegal about that, either.”
“Actually, Mrs. Rivera, crossing yourself in public is illegal. But it’s dark and I doubt any judge would believe I saw it. I’m not entirely sure I saw anything. Did I?”
“No, Detective.”
In one motion, he flipped the notebook closed and back into his pocket. “The last subway leaves in less than fifteen minutes.”
“Then you shouldn’t detain me any longer.”
Buca stepped aside. “I was just out walking, like you. Have a good evening.”
Instead of being angry Ruben was still at his girlfriend Dale’s, Beth was relieved. She poured a tiny shot of Vermont Vodka, scooped out the rest of the peach pie down to the crumbs and went into his room.
The blue bed skirt was slightly awry, which meant he was hiding something under the mattress. Fortunately Ruben was a plodding idiot when he tried deceiving her. She easily lifted the bed and pulled out a wide book wrapped in brown paper.
Beth sat on the floor and opened Great Baseball Stadiums across her muscular thighs. Three or so pages were devoted to each of the old ballparks. She sighed. Just like him to plunge into this totally. Take tickets but you have to learn everything. Good trait for persistence, bad to allow emotions to consume you. Another dreamer.
Beth absently flipped another few pages before finding a couple folded sheets of paper tucked inside. There were sketches of a ballpark, notes dotting three levels, and circled numbers up to twenty pinpointing the field. In his tight, neat handwriting, Ruben had scribbled: “Here is where the first Miners treasonous assault began.”
Beth’s hands trembled.
“…more than seven thousand siblings were slaughtered…attempted assassination of Grandma…almost plunging the world into nuclear holocaust…”
She was still on the floor, book back under the mattress, when he came in. Frecklie warily looked around.
“Homework done?” she asked dully.
He nodded with scholarly assurance, slowly grinning under her doubtful stare. “Dale helped.”
“Good.” Beth brushed past. “It helps to have a smart girlfriend.”
He soon heard her chopping vegetables as if cutting down a tree. She exhaled loudly between chops. It was a scary sound, even for his insane mother. Frecklie locked the door and taped Puppy’s baseball book to the back of his dresser, just in case.
• • • •
FRECKLIE RAISED A questioning eyebrow down the line of the fifteen well-dressed DV teens until one flat-faced girl in a jacket and tie touched her temple.
“She says…”
“I understand.” Puppy smiled. He motioned the girl over. “How long to clean up the Three Amigos mural?”
She glanced at Frecklie for guidance, who was irritated by her hesitation. She quickly gestured a hammer hitting the nail, the universal DV sign for work, then flashed three fingers. She hesitated again and wiped a forefinger on her palm. Costs.
Puppy waved that off and climbed up the five-foot high ladder. The DVs closed ranks, almost protectively. He started explaining, then stopped; the kids grew concerned.
“My shorthand’s rusty.”
An acne-faced boy called out, “We speak Reg, too.” But not
