A Father's Choice Read online

  Instead of going to the apartments, Marleena walked to the big fancy food emporium. She rarely went in because of the cost and because, well, orphans didn’t eat fancy food. This time she marched through the doors as if she had every right to be there. A robo-cart rolled out of the charger and followed after her. First she selected fresh fruit and veggies for nibbling. Then she went to the meat counter. Her mouth watered as she looked at the holo-displays. “Can I help you, miss,” the man in the white coat asked, smiling.

  “Yes, please. I need, ah, let’s see.” She saw exactly what she’d dreamed of. “That. One of those please, for three people, cooked.”

  “This?” he stopped the display and enlarged the image. At her energetic nod he marked it. “For three. These only come for four and more, so you’ll have some left over. And how do you want it prepared?”

  “Um, cooked enough to be warm through the middle but not overdone, please.”

  “Medium rare it is, Miss.” He rang up the total. “Anything else?”

  “Yes, what do you recommend for park food, for three, no dietary limitations?”

  The man flipped through the images until he stopped at one with pieces of something coated in fried. “Fried chicken, Miss. It is very traditional, tastes good hot or cold, and travels well. We’re having a special on it, since there’s a surplus of birds at the moment.”

  Real animal meat, fried, and you could eat it hot or cold? Marleena danced a little. “Yes, please, for three.”

  The meat man totaled everything for her, took the delivery address, and added, “Holiday bonus, we’ll send along biscuits and butter to go with the chicken. Have a free Founders’ Day.”

  “May your rights be ever yours,” she replied. Her tools rattled a little in their bag as she bounced down the sweets aisle, picking up some biscuits and fruit spread to dip them in during the fireworks. Oscar had agreed to bring the sour stuff. The cart obediently added up the cost for her, so when she got to the checkout, all she had to do was confirm her account and the delivery location.

  That night Barb, Oscar, and Marleena ate very well, and stayed up late watching an old movie about the First Founding. 1776 wasn’t her favorite, but Marleena had to grin as Oscar sang along, or tried to. He had the perfect voice for silent musicals, she giggled. She’d miss him and Barb when they got their real housing.

  The next day was a rest day. All the shops closed, the transport didn’t run, and everyone slept as late as they wanted, lounged around, and enjoyed the freedom to do nothing. It was the one day of the year when work was prohibited, unless it was to save a life. Some people took it as a religious day, but none of the roomies followed a particular creed, so they just slept, lounged around, and played games, read, or watched the nature feeds.

  The second day of the week was Memorial Day. Everyone who could went to the Places of Honor, to look at the graves of the men and women who had died in the wars before and just after the New Founding. Those with family tidied their relatives’ graves and markers, but the orphans and crèche residents took care of the unknown dead or those without families. Marleena had chosen two to care for back when she was a child, one of the Unknowns and a man named Roger Andersen. He’d died in the next-to-last battle for New Omaha, the one where the Statist Army used gas for the last time. According to the Department of Records, he’d been an orphan, abandoned during the Battle of Pacifica in the first year of the Cities’ War. Marleena had read what she could about him, and wondered what he might have done if he’d survived the war.

  Marleena always felt solemn and sad on Memorial Day. So many men and women had died fighting the Statists, and almost as many had succumbed to hunger and cold during the bitter years before the final battles. They counted too, the people who refused to submit, who preferred to die free rather than make themselves slaves to the government. Marleena finished cleaning and tidying the graves, helped one of the workers rake the gravel on the paths around “her” section of the Field of Honor, and went to bed early. Memorial Day always hurt, opening wounds she kept thinking had closed.

  Then came New Founders’ Day, the greatest feast on the calendar! The smell of roast meat filled the little apartment, pulling Oscar and Barb out of their cubbies as Marleena opened the delivery pod. “Wow, what’s—” Oscar’s yawn stopped the words. “What’s that?”

  “Brunch. And I got stuff for the supper at the monument, too.”

  He looked at the large, steaming piece of beef and inhaled like a drowning man gasping for breath. “Oh wow. I hope Barb gets up soon.”

  “I’m up, I’m up. Ohhh!” Barbara actually squealed, her eyes wide. “A roast, a real beef roast! If you didn’t have your hands full I’d hug you,” she gushed. Then she disappeared, returning not long after with her hair braided and day-clothes on. Oscar got cleaned up while the women sliced the roast and served plates with the veggies and fruit that had come with it. They also set out half the biscuits and butter. Oscar gave a word of gratitude and thanks before the trio devoured the feast. “Mauri, this is wonderful. Thank you very, very much,” Barb said later, mopping up the meat juice with one of the biscuits.

  “You’re welcome.” Marleena felt her face warming with a blush and she looked down at the plate. It was only fair, she’d done well, and the others had put up with her grumps and whining. She liked sharing when it was her idea, not some adult ordering her to give things to the other children.

  Just before noon, washed and dressed in their best clothes, carrying the food and blankets to sit on, the trio joined the streams of people all going to one of the four Founders’ Monuments. They got there in plenty of time, and as they were looking for a place to spread out, a familiar voice called, “Hello, Marleena, we’ve got room if you’d like company.”

  She turned and saw Alonzo waving. A lovely older woman with white braids sat in a low chair beside him and waved as well. “Well?” Marleena asked her roommates.

  “Why not?” Oscar led the way and they introduced themselves.

  As Barb shook out the blankets, Alonzo said, “I’m Alonzo Morgan and this is my mother, Kendra Morgan, but she goes by Mom or Yes, Mother, right away.” He winked.

  Mrs. Morgan blushed and swatted him lightly on the back of his head. “Alonzo, you stop that. Please, join us. We have plenty of food and space.”

  “It our honor as well as our privilege to join you,” Barbara said, as Oscar and Marleena rolled their eyes and the Morgans laughed.

  The five soon had everything arranged. The food store had added more chicken to the order, Marleena discovered. The Morgans shared their bread and ham spread, a yellow lumpy thing that Mrs. Morgan declared to be potato salad from a pre-War recipe, and their own sweets and sours. The afternoon passed quickly. Oscar bought drinks for everyone and Barbara helped Mrs. Morgan serve the plates. They’d finished the main dishes by the time the band and speakers arrived. Large screens had been set up in the plaza and park, so everyone could watch and recite along.

  First came the greeting and welcome speech. Marleena half ignored them, her attention fixed on getting the last little bit of meat and fried off her chicken leg-stick. She finished and cleaned her hands in time for the first hymn, “O Beautiful for Heroes Proved.” Then came an invocation and the jeremiad, this year aimed at the committee that was trying to reintroduce the life-wage. The older people boo-ed and hissed at the very thought, and Mrs. Morgan looked as if she wanted to kill the committee members right then and there. “That’s how we ended up with the wars,” she snarled, looking very ferocious for an old lady. Alonzo didn’t try to settle her, Marleena noticed.

  After the jeremiad came more music, and pictures from the great victories of the Founders’ War. Many were new, just released from the archives, and people pointed and gasped. Marleena watched, of course, but didn’t think that much about it until Oscar grabbed her arm. “Look! Look at that!”

  A picture of her, but male, loomed on the screen. “Andrew T. Patterson, captain of volunteers, Rocky Flats, June 8,
5 Before New Founding,” the caption said. Marleena stared. She recognized her father by his bi-colored eyes, like her own, and the same curly brown hair, and strange, up-swept eyebrows. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old and he looked tired but pleased. The next image showed him as well, but lean and grim, hair touched with white, and in the uniform of one of the secret units that had worked behind the Statist lines. That picture had no location or rank caption, of course, just “Andrew T. Patterson, 2 A.N.F.”

  “Your dad’s a war hero.” Wonder filled Oscar’s voice. “That’s amazing!”

  She shook her head. “I— I— I had no idea. I’ve never seen a picture, never heard. He disowned me when he and mom divorced.”

  A warm hand touched her shoulder, and she looked around to see Mrs. Morgan leaning forward and patting her. “It’s alright, young lady. We all have surprises in our lives. I still don’t know what became of Mr. Morgan, and if I saw him up there, I’d probably faint.”

  “And then wake up and try to kill him for leaving the water running and the stove turned on when he left,” Alonzo said with a grin.

  “Of course. He knew better.” Mrs. Morgan sat back and rested her hands on the arms of the folding chair, regaining her air of dignity. Marleena and the others laughed, as they were supposed to do. She kept watching the pictures but saw no more of her father.

  Then the mayor appeared and read the original Declaration of Independence, and the Redeclaration of Independence. A judge recited the Statutes of Freedom. Everyone stood for those, even Mrs. Morgan, and most people could recite at least the first five Statutes. The plaza and park rang with voices, all declaring their loyalty to the law and to the ideas of individual liberty and personal freedom. They sang, “Not Alone for Precious Freedom,” and heard the mayor read the great poems, “Recessional.” It meant a lot more to the religious than to Marleena, but the words still stirred her, even as old as they were. Then everyone sat down.

  The evening star appeared as the sun set behind the buildings. Everyone opened the little packages of spreads and dips for the Sours and Sweets. First they shared the bitter and sour bites, reminders of the long, hard years and the taste of slavery, when the government had claimed to provide everything a man could want. Then came the sweets of independence, all the better for what came before. Mrs. Morgan had a lush, creamy fruit spread that made Marleena want to curl up and die happy, right there on the spot. The crisp little star-shaped cookies Marleena and Oscar had both found tasted very good too. “I’m getting more, if they have them,” he whispered. Marleena nodded, mouth full.

  Then came the music and fireworks. That week’s news feeds had claimed that as usual someone protested using the “1812 overture” and “Heart of Oak,” and as usual the show planners ignored the complaints. Yes, the overture had been written to commemorate a tyrant’s victory over another tyrant. But as the centuries had passed, so many people had adopted it as a victory anthem that only the die-hards complained. Plus, Marleena thought, grinning, it gave an excuse for more fireworks. Marleena wondered if by now the complaints had become as much a part of the ritual as everything else. She shook her head a little.

  “Something wrong?” Alonzo asked from beside her.

  “No, just thinking about the musi— Oooh!”

  The sky turned crimson, then shattered into dancing blue and white showers of stars that sparkled down as fire-flowers bloomed above. She’d never seen that one before. The applause and cheers told of the crowd’s approval. For twenty minutes more a steady barrage of fire and color filled the sky, until the last, enormous rocket shot up, shattering the night and revealing the flag in fireworks. The flag sizzled and sank, then winked out. Everyone cheered and waved, and Marleena discovered she had tears in her eyes. And that Alonzo was holding her hand. He let her go and joined the applause.

  #

  The holiday ended and Marleena returned to work. Kelsie sniped at her once or twice, but left her alone of the most part. Alonzo didn’t act any differently, and she wondered if she’d imagined him taking her hand during the last of the fireworks. Everything should have felt normal, but it didn’t. Marleena couldn’t forget seeing her father’s pictures. Why had no one ever told her? Was it a military secret? Probably, at least the part about his being with the Special Forces in the ending days of the war. That she understood and agreed with. But why had he left her and her mother, and since he survived, why had he never tried to contact her, or to support her? He’d been older than she had thought, too, much older. She’d guessed he was in his twenties when he left her, but he must have been at least fifty, maybe sixty. And he still owed her for dragoning without warning her.

  A month after New Founders’ Day, Alonzo met her in the locker room. “Um,” he looked embarrassed. “I don’t know how to put this.”

  “Put what, sir?”

  “My mother wants to meet you. Officially, I mean, she would like you to come for supper.” His tan face darkened as he blushed. “I’ve been trying to put her off, but once she gets an idea in her head she can’t let go of it.”

  The blush had to hurt, and he was so uncomfortable that Marleena felt sorry for him. “If I come over do you think she’ll stop?”

  “Oh yes. That is,” he finally met her eyes. “I think so. I really, really hope she’s not going through another grandchild phase. She already has ten. Grandchildren, that is.”

  He sounded so woebegone that Marleena couldn’t say no. “Sure, as long as it doesn’t cause a work problem, sir.” She really did not want to give Olivia or Kelsie fodder for more trouble.

  “Oh no, I’ll have mother invite you directly. I think she’s planning to anyway, but I thought I’d better warn you.”

  Marleena put her fists on her hips. “Bargain, sir. I’ll come over, in exchange for the potato salad instructions.”

  “Agreed.” They shook and he fled.

  Well, this is quite different, Marleena thought a few days later as she walked up the small gravel path to the Morgan family house. It was not a large house, not at all, and the green space around it had a cheerfully chaotic look, flowers and fruit trees scattered in a random assortment of colors. The whole thing reminded Marleena of the little vids she’d watched in kiddie class, just after her mother left her at the crèche, about ancient history and how families had lived before the Statists began breaking things. She stopped at the foot of the steps leading to a tiny covered entry of some kind, wondering what she should do. She didn’t see a call button or vid receiver to activate.

  “Come in, Mother doesn’t bite,” Alonzo called from the top of the stairs. He leaned out the open door. “Welcome to the Morgan family museum.” Marleena put her weight on the first step and it squeaked. “They do that. Old wood under all the paint.” She trotted the rest of the way, just in case.

  “Thank you, sir” she started. She stopped, looking at the wall. “Is that … wallpaper?”

  “No, it was painted to look like wallpaper. My older sister is an artist, or was before number four arrived and her children learned to gang up on her and Thaddeus. Her husband.” Alonzo nodded to the static holo on the table by the door, showing an absolute crowd of people, many of whom looked like him. “The last big family get-together. It was on mother’s birthday. I’d tell you which one but then I’d have to kill you.” He winked. “This way.”

  Completely confused by the informality, Marleena followed her coworker down the little hall into a comfortable room with cheerful yellow walls. She could just peek into a modern kitchen if she craned her neck. Mrs. Morgan emerged from the kitchen, all smiles, and wearing a white cloth of some kind around her waist and over her skirt. “Welcome, Miss Marleena, welcome! I’m so glad you could come.”

  Before she knew it, Marleena found herself carrying plates to a cloth-draped wooden table. Alonzo showed her where to put what, then his mother called her back into the kitchen to help move the food into the dining room. Alonzo poured water into the glasses, and real milk, then cut the large roa
sted bird into slices. It all smelled wonderful, and Marleena’s mouth watered. How could they afford such a treat? Surely Alonzo didn’t make that much? Then she caught herself and flushed a little, embarrassed by the thought. His mother might work, or have earned a savings pension of some kind. Mrs. Morgan pointed to a seat beside her, facing Alonzo, and said, “Sit, please, before the hot gets cold and the cold warms up.”

  Marleena listened more than she talked, learning all about Mrs. Morgan, and the missing Mr. Morgan. Alonzo had four brothers and sisters, all married. He wore a wedding ring, she discovered, but Mrs. Morgan did not say anything other than, “and Alonzo’s wife is away.” Marleena relaxed, no longer worried about Mrs. Morgan playing matchmaker. Romances at work were strictly forbidden. Bad break-ups and sharp tools could lead to problems, or so Mr. Otterson had implied when he’d explained policy, and Marleena had been afraid of being rude by upsetting Mrs. Morgan if she tried to push Marleena at Alonzo. Instead the older women chatted on about her grandchildren. They ranged in age from three months before due date to twenty, not much older than Marleena. Finally Mrs. Morgan asked, “Do you have a young man?”

  Alonzo covered his eyes and started to say something. Before he could speak, Marleena heard her voice saying, “No, ma’am. No one wants a crèche child who is not an orphan.”

  The old lady reared back. “Well I never. That is utterly foolish. As many wonderful people as come from the crèches, I don’t see why anyone would find it a problem these days. Some people would see it as an advantage—no in-laws poking their noses and other things into the match.”

  “Mother, please. Carrie is a wonderful woman,” Alonzo started.

  His mother wagged her finger at him. “Yes she is, and you are very lucky to have found her, but that mother of hers. She can talk the hair off a sheepskin rug and her cooking would choke a starving goat.” With the next breath Mrs. Morgan turned to Marleena, “I’m certain your mother is much nicer.”