“Sure.”
We’re angry at each other. It’s not a new feeling. We’re always angry at each other.
“I didn’t get to meet Fred’s young man, though,” I admit, after a while. I might be trying to get a rise out of him after all. “Sophie tried to introduce me a few times, but he was always surrounded.”
Pop nods. He’s looking down toward the table, at nothing specific. “Big party. He and Fredericka had to talk to a lot of people.” He finishes his beer and then leans back in his chair, opens the fridge behind him, pulls two more out of the door, sets about opening them. “Still, you should have tried, Carter. You could have met him, if you’d tried to get there on time.”
He said it gently enough. He could have bawled me out, and I would have deserved it. “I know, Pop. I’m sorry.” As I’m saying it to the old man, I honestly am sorry. No one would know it from how I act, but I don’t like to embarrass him, or Fred. Or myself. “So what’s he like?”
Pop is silent for a moment, then he shakes his head and comes as close as he ever does to cracking a smile. I know what he’s going to say before he even says it. “If you’re ready for a shock, he’s an idiot.” I laugh, but his half smile is gone just as quickly as it ghosted across his face. He’s not happy about any of this. Fred was always his favorite; we all knew it.
“Well, now he’s Fred’s idiot.” A little unkind of me, I guess.
Pop ignores it. “He’s not in his father’s line, at least. I’ll give him that. His old man is in engineered water like the rest of them, but Kenneth works in health care.”
“Also very profitable.”
“Sure.” Pop drinks his beer. The half smile almost ghosts back as he remembers something. “He calls her Fredda. You can imagine how Fredericka responds to that. I asked him about his job—How do you like it?—you know. You know what he says to me? He says, ‘I always loved my job,’ and then he says, ‘And now that I’ll be supporting Fredda and our baby, I’ve never felt more proud of what I do.’ And then he smiled at Fredericka. Who has to give up all her clients for the Care Circle program she’s in—you might want to talk to her about that; I think she’s a bit upset. Anyway, you should’ve seen her face. I thought she was going to pop him.” He sips his beer, then adds, “She’ll be all right.”
“We always assume that about Fred.”
“It’s a safe assumption.”
“I don’t know.” I belch, very gently. Through my nose. Like a gentleman. It’s true that Fred has always had a certain invincibility to her, for as long as I can remember—she pretty much raised me and Gard, and by the time I was old enough to have my head out of my ass, Fred was finishing an accelerated program at New Chicago University in code development, full ride. She made enough money on her first start-up that she supported Gard at nursing school, and she made enough on her second startup to pay for me to go to college, since I am not what anyone would consider scholarship material. But Fred’s also always been a little wild, in her way. A lot of drinking, drugs, guys. Not that I’m one to judge—her day-to-day was pretty intense, from what I could tell, and I honestly couldn’t give a shit what she does whenever she’s blowing off steam from her gig as ruler of the universe. But I know Pop cares. And I have to wonder how much Ken Walker and his fancy family know about the real Fred, the one I’ve always known. “I met a guy tonight who was . . . trying to make the argument to me, I guess, that Fred and Ken’s situation was just a return to the natural order. Ken had to wait until he’s sure that the cow gives milk.”
Pop yawns in an amused and musical way. “Well, the rich will always be a little bit medieval. They can’t help it.”
“It is medieval, but it’s not a joke,” I insist. “You know it wasn’t that long ago that you could marry who you wanted. Before.”
“Before what?”
“Before, you know, the Family Protection Laws. Before anybody got pregnant.” He’s looking right at me, but his face is hard to read, partly because of the darkness of the kitchen and partly because I’ve never been great at reading him. And partly because I’m wasted. “Come on, Pop. Fred’s situation?”
Nothing.
“Listen. Pop. When you got married, it had nothing to do with the—the . . . national fertility rate. Or having someone to share a Care Hours quota with. Regular people just did it because they liked each other. People used to get married because they liked each other.” I’m losing the thread a bit. Embarrassed at myself, too, of course, because the fuck do I know about marriage? Pop and my mother’s marriage dated from well before the fertility crisis, obviously: three kids. But if their marriage proved anything, it’s that liking each other doesn’t cut it in the long run.
“You,” he observes, “sound like you’ve had enough to drink.”
Maybe Pop just hasn’t wanted to think about it, why Fred’s in this mess. “Pop, let me help you understand what’s really going on here. Okay? Listen. How can I put this without making Fred sound . . . Okay. Look. Most people didn’t used to spend their whole lives fucking around—excuse me, messing around—with every inconsequential person they were half attracted to, because they knew none of it would matter, that they’d never be tied down, that no relationship would ever need to—to—change, or progress, or even, you know, end, because why bother, it’s all nothing anyway, you just drift, in and out of people’s lives. There are no stakes. For people my age, there are no stakes.”
Pop looks at me blankly. I’m reminded, uncomfortably, of the time when I was nine or ten and got up to take a leak in the middle of the night, and as I stumbled into the hallway, I met with Fred, who was coming in the front door, quietly, her dress all askew, a big grin on her face. She would have been sixteen or seventeen. When she saw me she gave me a wink and slipped into the bathroom ahead of me and locked the door. When you have two older sisters, you learn better than to wait in the hall for the bathroom. I went outside in the middle of the night and peed on the sidewalk.
“Pop, that’s what it’s like now. For us. Us . . . kids. Young people. No one gets married anymore, no one can. Unless they have to. So why pretend like any of it matters—sex, I mean.” I clear my throat. How that word came out of my mouth, at my father’s kitchen table, I will never know. I don’t seem to be in control.
“So what is your point?” he asks mildly. This is all an exercise to him, I see. That’s what makes it sad.
“Pop, don’t you know Fred just ended up with this guy by accident? Ken Walker, and his family, and that room full of medieval jokers—you think this is what she would have picked if she had known she was going to have a baby? This guy? These people? Come on.” Now I am hearing a faint ringing in my ears, but I ignore it. “They used to call them shotgun weddings, right? But back then the people who had them were the people without money. Doesn’t that crack you up? It cracks me up. We are living in an age of miracles. That’s what Sophie said.” That’s not exactly what she said. The ringing in my ears continues. It may be louder. “An age of miracles.”
As I wind down from this incoherent speech, I am panting a little bit. I am in bad shape tonight, folks, make no mistake. I have been in bad shape since my conversation this afternoon in the hot-as-baking-balls park with Natalie B. I want to put my head down on the table.
“Hold on a minute, Carter. I have something I’ve been meaning to give you.” Pop gets up from the table and disappears into the dark. While he’s gone I have time to put my hands, my clammy white trembling hands, on the tabletop and look at them, the hugeness of them. I don’t even know half of what they’ve done. That’s the weird thing I think whenever I look at my hands. But how can you avoid seeing your own hands? I hear the cat, skulking around, and then she’s rubbing on my chair legs while avoiding, it seems to me, rubbing on my suit legs, which is good because it’s my one suit and I don’t have time to have it cleaned again between now and Fred’s wedding.
And then Pop is back in the kitchen as suddenly as he left. It’s a little startling. To cover
my involuntary jump I say to him, “Did you hear that Fred wanted us to wear our dress uniforms tonight? My dress blues. I don’t even know what they call yours.” A long-standing shit pile between us that I can’t help but step in every time I get a chance: I’m a Marine, Pop was Army—medical corps, but still Army. It was a problem when I surprised the whole family, unpleasantly, by enlisting instead of graduating. Fred’s never been angrier at me. To add insult to injury, I didn’t even go in for officers’ training and instead entered as your basic-level everyday grunt, in a separate branch of service from Decorated Dad. People don’t do that. Smart people don’t, anyway. It was a problem then, and it’s probably going to be a problem until we’re both dead, and then even after that. And actually, I do know that they’re blues for him, too.
Pop deadpans, “Fred would have me wear my dress blues to pick up the mail.” And now I’m falling all out, laughing hunched over the kitchen table, helpless, tears coming out of my eyes; my head is ringing and ringing and my heart is pounding, and it’s a few minutes before I see what he’s slid onto the table next to my elbow.
“What’s this, Pop?” I’m still wiping tears of laughter from my eyes. I can’t really see anyway. It appears to be a stiff little piece of paper with a contact number and a name: Rafiq.
“Carter. That’s a man I want you to see.”
My head is on the table.
“Go see him. I was with him in the Wars. We worked on a lot of wounded together. I trust him.”
My head is ringing.
“You can trust him, too. He’s not a Kenneth Walker type.”
Flowers.
“I’ll make you an appointment. For tomorrow. Carter. Go see him.”
“Pop.” It’s about all I can manage. The flowers are swarming up, taking over.
“You worry me, Carter. Go see him. I’m asking you.”
“I’m busy tomorrow,” I mumble. My eyes are shut tight, so I can’t see what his face is like, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t tell me much anyway.
“Carter. What are you doing tomorrow that you’re so busy? Come on.” I hear him take his seat. I hear him exhale. “What’s so important.”
“I’m meeting one of Gard’s former colleagues tomorrow,” I tell him. “I’m looking for Gardner. I haven’t given up on her. That’s what’s important.”
The ringing has turned to shrieking static in my head, so it’s not until he finally speaks that I’m 100 percent sure that he hasn’t been raging at me for hours.
“Carter. That’s . . . unforgivable.”
“You don’t know what’s unforgivable. You clearly don’t,” I tell him. I am saying this into the table, my head cradled in my arms. “I can tell you what’s unforgivable, if you really want to know. It’s giving up on your daughter. It’s not looking for her. It’s not knowing where she might be and not doing anything about it. That’s unforgivable, I think.”
Again there’s a swelling of sound in my ears, in my head, and I’m riding it and riding it, and it’s not until he actually says something that it’s clear he hasn’t said anything in quite a while. “Have you thought about your sister?”
“I’m thinking about my sister. Yes. Obviously I am thinking about her.”
“Not Gardner. Fredericka.”
“What about Fred?”
“Have you thought about what that would mean for her, if Gardner were found—right now, days before she gets married, into a family like that one?” Pop says.
“Fuck that guy. Fuck the Walkers. If he really wants Fred, let him stand up with his dick in his hand and be a fucking man about it.”
“Don’t talk like that to me,” Pop thunders. I sit up. My eyes are shut. For the moment, I can’t open them. But I’m sitting up.
“I’m sorry, sir. All I mean is Ken should be willing to take a little heat on Fred’s behalf if it comes to that. Gard’s his sister-in-law.”
“Carter. You haven’t been around for a while. I’m telling you something that might be hard for you to hear. Gardner made some mistakes. She got into some dangerous territory. I tried to help her, Fredericka tried to help her, even Kenneth Walker tried to help her, and you can believe that or not, it’s your choice. Gardner didn’t want to be helped.”
“God help you,” I manage to say. I get to my feet. It’s bad. It’s not my finest moment. My suit jacket slithers to the floor.
I open my eyes and look down at him. I can’t see much, my vision is ringed by a corona of black, but from what I can tell he’s still sitting at the table looking at his hands, tired and old. We’re angry at each other. It’s not a new feeling. “God help you, Pop.”
Then I make my way toward the blackout-dark hallway off the kitchen, and the cat follows me and I’m falling again.
F. QUINN
RISE 8, UNIT 7 LAKE
NEW CHICAGO 06060601
NEW STATES
PFC C. P. QUINN 2276766
MCC 167 1ST MAW
FPO NEW CHICAGO 06040309
November 1, 3:17 p.m.
Hi, CQ,
Hope you’re taking care of yourself over there. I need this kid’s uncle in one piece with all his parts attached. I don’t want to have to explain to this baby why Uncle CQ has half a face or whatever. Be good. Be good at what you do, whatever that is. Gard is always trying to tell me some crazy shit she’s been reading about the triggers and I just can’t EVEN with her sometimes but it sounds like some real shit, so watch out, because people who don’t otherwise pray are praying for you because they like your dumb face the way it is. Not that I know any of those people, I just hear things.
So I am wondering, speaking of Gard, if you have heard from her. I think she might have gotten herself into a bit of trouble. I think I can handle it; I’ve got some backup that could come in handy, but it certainly would be helpful if you would share whatever you might have heard, or whatever she might have told you, before I really start to worry. Worry is bad, because then I have to take extra pills and they make me barf even more than usual, which, if you can imagine . . . Like a river? Of barf? Just . . . like flowing and flowing, and so delicious? And I look so so pretty all the time from all the barfing? So yeah. I would like less of that, please. Whatever she told you, it’s time to let me know.
Pop’s cat is still alive, can you believe that shit? I was over at his place visiting and I swear the fucking thing crawled into my lap straight out of a fucking sarcophagus.
Be good. Seriously.
Fred
G. QUINN
NEW CHICAGO
NEW STATES
PFC C. P. QUINN 2276766
MCC 167 1ST MAW
FPO NEW CHICAGO 06040309
October 15, 6:30 a.m.
CQ, little brother,
I don’t want you to worry. I love you. I love all you guys. I’ll be in touch when I can. Take care of Fred. And be good to Pop.
Love you.
Gard
FOUR
Dec 19 6:37 AM
Sorry we missed each other last night.
But you’re an asshat and it’s your fault anyway.
Listen, CQ, are you going to meet with that
woman from the clinic again?
Whatever else you’re doing today,
on top of being a hungover pile of fly-speckled
shit, please don’t blow her off. Please.
I know I’m nagging you about this.
I know I keep nagging.
But it’s been weeks and we’re running
out of time, like seriously running out now,
and there are some
things
I’ve got to talk to Gard about.
Right now you’re the only one who can
help us find her. I’m trapped.
Please keep trying. I’ll catch up to you later.
It’s more than a hangover. When I try to focus my eyes, see what I’m supposed to be seeing, there’s a dark gray corona hovering around a supernova. That can’t be right. As my friend Was
h used to say. About everything, over there. That can’t be right. A hole in the ground, an extra patrol, a stick with a skull on it that was probably an animal’s but that looked horribly like a human child’s. That can’t be right. It was his catchphrase, I suppose, like Gentle pressure, relentlessly applied was Gard’s. Wash is dead now—if I wanted to, I could pick up his catchphrase, sort of like I’ve done with my sister’s. It’d be just as useful. But I wouldn’t. I’m not stupid, but I am superstitious. Most vets are, I think.
So now I’m rolling out of bed and I can’t find the floor, and then I find it in the least pleasant way possible. Pop’s cat regards me with disgust from the end of the bed. Good to have cats around. Just in case you’re worried you might be too fucking dignified.
When I stand up I think I might be dying of standing up. Stars. Flowers. Shooting things.
What did Pop say last night? Get up, or I’ll knock you down and leave you here. That’s what this thing is saying to me, too. Get up and keep getting up or I will make it so you never get up again.
It takes me a few minutes to be able to see or hear or feel anything, but when I do, I reread the message on my wearable from Fred, from earlier this morning. It’s been weeks and we’re running out of time. . . . You’re the only one who can help us find her. I’m trapped. Please keep trying.
So now I’m moving.
Moving hurts. Everything hurts. I admit that Pop took me by surprise last night—a referral to one of his army medic buddies must mean that he’s noticed more than I thought. I haven’t talked to Pop about any of this, the physical things. What Carter Is Experiencing. I know it’s not normal; I know that. I know that the flowers date back to that one time I set off a boom and caught the tail fire of it, about nine months before I came home. I know that the headaches and the blind spots go back to that, too. There are other things that are harder to explain—the way that the smell of flowers comes over me, the horrible thin everywhereness of it, that smell, not just in my nose and my mouth but in my eyes, in my throat, in my gut. And not just the way it comes over me, but the when: When I’m enraged, or upset. Upset. Oh, let’s call it suicidal, that’s more like it; that’ll look nice in the VA’s psych workup. When I want to die, that’s when it comes over me, and makes me think I’m actually dying. Which scares me enough to want to live again, somewhere, in my reptile brain where the real decisions get made. Usually.
The Completionist Page 5
