It had been so hard moving from our nice apartment in the Wrightwood Arms to that horrid modular. Living next door to Sandy was the only thing that wasn’t awful about Cementville. I’d learned to deal with cheap clothes and school lunches and snubs from higher-tiers. Ginnie’d managed to find the credits to get me into art classes, thankfully. I don’t know what I would have done without those. Usually only tier-fives or higher took art, so they could get a Creatives’ designation. Ginnie wanted me to have that opportunity, too. But when the kids in the class found out my mom was a tier-two cashier, most of them quit talking to me. I didn’t let it get to me too much—when we were tier-five, I never talked to tier-twos. Besides, I get so caught up in my drawings that I’d have probably ignored Van Stacy if he’d walked in the room.
Even thinking about that move made me feel angry, and then guilty… how could I be angry at Ginnie now? Then Dee came in and hung over the back of a chair, her toes skimming the floor. “You think Maddie and Justin still go to Dickens?”
“Sure. I bet most of your friends will be at your old school. We’ve only been gone four years.” I hoped I was right. She needed something to make her feel better. She needed friends.
“Neens… I miss Mom.” She sobbed quietly next to me.
I scooped her up, knocking over the container of flour with my elbow, hugging her as tight as I could, holding back my own tears. Even though she was eleven, she felt so small, so vulnerable. Eventually, she stopped crying.
“I’m sorry.” She sniffed and swallowed hard “You miss her, too, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“What did they do with her body? Is it out in space with all the burial pods?” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and looked at me expectantly.
I didn’t know what had happened—“We’ll dispose of the body in the usual manner…”—I had to say something comforting. “Yes, it is. They sent her body out that very morning. She’s up among the stars now.”
“Gran says she’s in heaven.” Dee looked at me. “You don’t believe in heaven, do you?”
“If Gran says so, then it has to be true, Deeds. Gran does not lie.” Not like me.
Religion was one thing I’d never really thought much about. We’d studied the Religion Wars of the past and I’d decided then that it was not for me. It helped that Ginnie’d felt the same way. Religion seemed to me like one group of people telling another group that their color of red was the best. And that everyone had to believe that, or else.
The End-of-Wars treaty required that churches not attempt to impose their beliefs on anyone. The Governing Council had taken that a step further and made it illegal to preach religious beliefs in any form of Media. They claimed such preaching could be used to sow discontent and incite rioting. After everything I’d read about the Religion Wars, it was easy to understand how people would accept the GC’s edict.
Without Media support and broadcasts of religious programming, most churches ended up closing. Gran and Pops occasionally went to one of the only ones left in Chicago. Gran told me once that they could close all the churches in the universe, but they couldn’t close a body’s heart to God. I hadn’t done a lot of thinking about God in my life, either.
Dee startled me back from my thoughts. “I’m glad Mom’s in the stars,” she said. “Gran says we’ll all be together in heaven someday.”
“Then I’m sure we will.” No sooner were the words out of my mouth than my longing for Ginnie ripped through me like a blade. She wouldn’t be there when I earned my Creatives. It wouldn’t be her hand holding mine when the needle pierced the XVI into my wrist. We’d never again snuggle together on the couch, after Dee was asleep, watching old movies, munching popcorn and sipping Sparkles. She’d never make it all better when I couldn’t figure out how to.
And now that I needed answers about my father, the book, and just how I was supposed to deal with turning sixteen… I could feel the tears welling up. I had to focus on something else. My eyes lit on the flour I’d spilled everywhere. “Look at this mess! Will you help me clean it up?”
“Sure.” Dee pulled the vac hose from the wall and swept up what had landed on the floor. “Think Gran will let us make lunch?”
“You go ask. I’ll finish up.”
“Oh, Neens,” Dee called out from the hallway. “My dad called me this morning. Just to make sure I was okay.”
My knees buckled and I had to grab the countertop to keep from falling. I knew he’d call again. He was, after all, Dee’s father. Ginnie’s words rang in my ears: Don’t let Ed near Dee. I’d promised. The comfort I’d felt at Gran’s telling me about her and Pops’s legal guardianship of me and Dee vanished. I didn’t trust Ed. Not one tiny bit.
Over lunch, I questioned Dee about the call. “So, Deeds, what did Ed say?” I tried to appear nonchalant, but nearly choked on a spoonful of soup while waiting for her answer.
“Ed?” Gran exchanged a look with Pops, then turned her attention to Dee. “When did you talk to Ed?”
“What’s the big deal? He called this morning to ask if I was all right.” Dee took a bite of her sandwich.
“And?” Trying to get information out of her if she wasn’t in a talkative mood could be tougher than avoiding verts downtown.
“I said I was fine.” She continued munching.
“Did he say anything else?”
“Nuh-uh, just that he was sorry he hadn’t called before but he was gone somewhere on business.”
I didn’t believe that for a minute. He’d been at the hospital that night. He probably knew more than anyone else about what had happened.
“Pops?” Dee said. “We’re going to Grant Park for the Ethno-festival like last year, aren’t we?”
“Yes indeedy, Deedles.” Pops grinned. “Remember last year when those clowns tried to get me on that trapeze?” He feigned falling backward, flailing his arms about. Dee giggled and they put their heads together, planning what they wanted to see at this year’s festival.
While it felt good to see Dee smiling, my suspicions about Ed were growing stronger. Since Ginnie set up the custody, she shouldn’t have had to warn me against him. But she did. She didn’t think that Dee was safe. I had to keep my guard up. No way was Ed going to take Dee away from me.
Dee, Pops, and Gran headed out to the festival, but I’d decided ahead of time to stay home, supposedly to get my room together, but really I needed time to search the baby book in private. It was the first time I’d been completely alone since Ginnie’s death. Knowing Ed had called Dee, I felt even more of an urgency to find my father and get in contact with him. Surely he would help me keep her safe. Even if Dee wasn’t his daughter, she was my sister and Ginnie’s daughter. That had to count for something.
My PAV beeped. It was Mike.
“Hey, whatcha doing? Wanna go downtown?”
“Not really. I’m busy unpacking.”
“Okay. We might stop by later anyway.”
“Please don’t,” I said. “I really need to get this done. Besides, I don’t feel like hanging out. I kinda want to be alone.”
“Oh, okay. Yeah. Sure. See you later then Nina. Bye.” Mike clicked off.
That taken care of, I retrieved the book from my dresser (which was nothing more than a packing box turned sideways). I took it and a little notebook to the living room and plopped into Pops’s chair. It smelled like him—ginger and aftershave. He loved candied ginger, said he picked up the habit from one of my father’s high school friends. I made a note to ask him about that—I needed any information I could get about my father now. Snuggling into the folds of the chair, I opened up “Baby Days.”