"So now that you realize all that you'll never get cancer again?"
Gail sighed.
"Now that I realize all that it doesn't matter that I get cancer again. I have the best life imaginable. The best work, the best family, the best lover, the best friends. I finally feel like I'm not missing something."
"I'm still not sure how God figures into all this bliss."
"Because my body will be gone, but my soul won't. The core of me, the essence, the energy I have created—either good or bad— will go on without a corporeal vehicle. I don't know if it's reincarnation or angels or what, but I will take the lessons I've learned and apply them elsewhere. The fundamental goodness of me will persist. Just like the stars. I don't know what shape I'll take but I believe there are realities we can't sense, that we're not supposed to sense because our poor little pea brains couldn't comprehend their magnitudes. There's a joy in the mystery, in the not knowing. It's exciting. When I die I'm going on a huge adventure, like a cosmic Disneyland. I don't know what the adventure is—I don't have to know—all I do know is that it's out there."
Frank didn't say anything. God meant nothing to her and dead was dead. If there was a god, she'd reasoned when she was still a child, he wouldn't have taken her father and left her to care for a woman with one foot wedged in the nuthouse door. When Maggie died, she had irrefutable proof that there wasn't a god. She allowed people their beliefs like an indulgent parent allowed their child an invisible friend. Besides, she had so many of her own crutches she couldn't very well kick others' out from under them.
Still, she found it amusingly human that people persisted in believing in soft and warm and fuzzy. It was so much easier than admitting there was nothing out there, nothing waiting when your ticket finally got punched but oblivion. Frank didn't really think oblivion would be all that bad. Some days she felt it would be her reward for the hell she walked through now. So if Gail wanted to believe in trees and stars, and Mother Love Jones wanted to believe in chickens and hexes, then who was Frank to judge? It was still a free country.
"Look," Frank said, trying to put an end to the interrogation. "My dad was Catholic and he went to church once a year. My mom tried on religions like they were shoes. I had an aunt who was a devout Catholic and I've never seen a more pious, more bitter woman. My uncle hated the church and slammed it every chance he got, usually in front of my aunt just to drive her crazy. I didn't have any good role models for organized religion. Or unorganized religion for that matter. I learned that at the end of the day, all I could count on was me. And I haven't seen anything in forty years to change that."
"How do you explain miracles?"
Frank frowned. "Random circumstance."
"I don't believe this," Gail marveled, "I'm in love with a raving atheist."
"Ah, ah," Frank corrected, shaking one finger. "Agnostic, I don't believe in a god but I don't care if you believe in one. For all I know there might even be one and then won't I be in trouble. Now, can we drop this and go to bed?"
Gail followed Frank into the bedroom, grumbling, "A drunken agnostic. How can I ever take you home to meet my mother?"
"You'll just have to play up my other attributes."
"Remind me what they are."
"Brilliant detective, superior commander. Exquisite lover. Gourmet chef and chief bottle-washer."
"Not to mention smooth talker."
"Not to mention," Frank agreed, pulling Gail to her and hugging her oh-so-tightly. Tight enough that if there was a god, he couldn't take this woman too.
16
All Frank could see was the mouth gaping wide, with rows and rows of teeth. Sharp, glistening teeth. And laughter. The Mothers laughter, pealing like bells. And behind the laughter, bells did ring. The war was over. But Frank knew that couldn't be right. This war would never be over. Not between these two. Not now. Not ever.
The Mother was still laughing, but farther away. She stood against a red sunset, trailing black and red and white gauze. The wind flapped her wrappings, unraveling her like a mummy. The Mother held a bloody sword above her head and a hand stretched to Frank. Blood dripped from the sword into pools at the Mothers feet. She laughed, beckoning Frank.
Behind her, a soldier stood amid the rubble of a ruined city. Around him, singly and in heaps, dead men stretched to the horizon, their artifacts strewn carelessly by the eternal desert wind.
Lip-smudged photographs and letters torn at their folds blew restlessly from corpse to corpse.
Vultures flapped indifferently among the abandoned relics, feasting easily from gaping wounds.
Ragged beggars and women in chadors scurried to collect gold fillings and wedding rings.
An ancient crone knelt at a body. She stared at the soldier, her eyes milky blue, like Aegean shoals after a storm. She wrenched the dead man s neck, then dangled a crucifix, cackling.
The soldier turned away, his helmet under his arm. Sand filled his hair and blew over his boots. Still he stood. He had been here before. He had never been gone. He had always been a soldier. He scanned the desolate horizon. It was silent, empty but for the rising moon.
He listened to the steady snick and crunch of jackals feeding. They ate without snarling. No need of that tonight. There was plenty for all.
The moon cleared the earth. It lit the dead sleeping in their shadows. The dogs slipped stealthily between them.
She woke slowly, floating up from the dream into the solidity of her bed. Canceling the alarm, Frank rolled into Gail. She kissed her shoulder, pressing into the doc's flank, wanting to wake her and get lost in the sweet, ephemeral refuge of desire. But Gail didn't stir.
Frank resigned herself to a scalding shower, then dressed in the clothes she'd laid out the night before. When she flipped the light on in the kitchen, the coffee was hot in the pot. She poured it into her travel mug while the twin gods of Routine and Order maintained harmony in her world.
Frank sipped her coffee at the sink. Bobby was probably going to be in court all day, and Darcy would be on his own. They were next up on rotation so if a call came in she'd send Darcy out with Diego. Noah and Lewis would—
Frank whirled, her eye catching a flash of white. She instinctively dropped her mug, reaching for the Beretta she hadn't strapped on yet.
"Jesus fucking Christ!"
Gail stood wide-eyed and startled in a long T-shirt. Frank swore again, ripping off a handful of paper towels and swabbing the spilled coffee.
"'Jesus. Give me some warning next time you sneak up on me."
"I wasn't sneaking up. I just woke up to pee and figured I'd say goodbye. Fuck you too."
Frank threw the soggy paper into the trash can, snatching Gail's elbow before she could leave the kitchen. She apologized.
"I'm just a little edgy."
"A little? Christ, I'd hate to see a lot."
"I wasn't expecting you to be up traipsing around. You were sleeping like one of your customers a minute ago."
"Well, I think I'll just traipse on back to bed."
"Come on," Frank said, shifting Gail toward her. "You just surprised me. Guess I'm still jumpy. Had a weird dream."
"What about?" Gail asked.
"Can't tell you 'til I get a kiss."
Gail gave her a sulky one.
"I was a soldier, and there were dead bodies all around me. It must have been World War II because there were letters and black and white pictures blowing around. And the uniforms looked like they were from then. And the helmet under my arm, too. It all looked like World War II, but it felt like it could have been any time. It was weird. I was dressed like a GI, and so were the corpses, but I felt like I'd been there before. Like I could have just as easily been a Roman soldier standing there with a leather helmet instead of a metal one. And beggars were looting the corpses. Women in robes . . . veiled, like in the middle east. They were scurrying from body to body like cockroaches. It all felt like it could have been centuries ago or yesterday. It was ... eerie, but real familiar too. And the wind was blowing, getting sand all over everything. Covering the dead men's faces. And it smelled like blood. Fresh blood. Lots of it. It was sad, but at the same time it felt. ..."