Natalie shakes her head. “It’s too late.”
“The family I married into can protect you,” Fred insists, putting her hands on the plastic bag and pressing down. We all hear the material crinkle, hear something glassy inside the bag shift against itself. “They owe me that much.”
Natalie stiffens. “You’ve been gone from them too long already. You should leave before they start searching for you. You’re off the sensor network as long as you’re in this building, but it would be bad for all of us if you were somehow tracked here.”
“Please, Natalie. I can help you. And you can help me,” Fred says. She stands up unsteadily. There’s a dark smear on her dress, on her seat. We can all see that she’s in pain. “I think I—I think this is starting.”
Natalie moves toward her. At that moment the door behind us, the door onto the old school parking lot, opens again. It’s a small woman of Indian descent, wearing scrubs, looking a bit scared. “Hello,” she says uncertainly, looking around at all of us.
“Dr. Sivajee. I was going to be your patient tonight,” Natalie says briskly. “But I think the plans have changed, at least for now. This is Fredericka, Gardner’s sister. It looks like her labor has started. This is army medical officer Captain Quinn, he’ll be attending. And Fredericka and Gardner’s younger brother, Carter.”
“Please let me help you,” Fred says again.
I can see that Natalie wants to believe her. Believe in her like I do, I think at Natalie, but before I can say it, she gets back to action.
“I appreciate that. But right now it’s time for us to help you.” Then Natalie turns to me.
“If you want to be useful,” she says, “we need someone to guard the door.”
December 20
42.026383, -87.691650
I don’t know if this will reach you, Gard, or how, but I’m giving it to Natalie, and she promises that she’ll try to find a way to get it to you. I thought you would want to know what happened after you left, how we finally fit the pieces together. How we got hold of your wearable. How Fred and I finally figured out why and how you disappeared, if not where.
I’m so sorry, Gard. We’re both sorry, me and Fred. We never would have wanted this to happen to you.
Fred helped me splice this document together, along with the messages from you two, the ones that pointed the way. And I wanted to send you some of what’s true about me, too, so you know the answers to some of the questions you sent me while I was over there. I’m sorry now that I never responded. We had to pull this together pretty quickly, while Pop and Natalie and Dr. Sivajee were prepping Fred for surgery, so the letters go backward, but I can’t fix that now. The baby’s coming early. But we think it’s going to make it. Natalie says it’s looking good.
As soon as Natalie’s done with Fred, she’ll have to make her decision, whether she’s going or staying tonight. So I’m not sure how much time I have. I just want to say that we love you. Me, Fred, Pop, we all love you so much. I guess I understand that Pop wouldn’t have hidden your tracks so well if he didn’t love you so well, and if he wasn’t so scared of losing all of his kids. Try to forgive him, I guess. I will try. Fred will try, too.
Oh. You’ll like this. Fred is going to talk to your clinic’s old points-fixer into letting her pick up where that work left off, with the test code she developed. I hope it helps. I hope it works.
As for me, if Natalie and her colleagues let me, I’m going to be a guard here, right here at this door, until the day I can’t be anymore. Be a better man or die trying. That’s the new “gentle pressure, relentlessly applied.” You like it? They’re going to have a hard time getting rid of me anyway, they might as well let me do this.
I’m sorry. I love you, Gard. You and Fred both. And I wanted to tell you that you two, my sisters, and Natalie, even, although it’s hard for me to tell her that—you are the reasons I want to be a good man.
That’s why I’m here. I’m going to stand here at this doorway as long as I can. It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done. So far.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks are due to the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Salty Quill Writers Retreat for Women for their support, as well as Betsy Lerner, Karyn Marcus, and Anduriña Panezo for their excellent insights and guidance. I am grateful to Kara Krauze, Jeremy Warneke, and the Voices from War teachers, students, and volunteers for their welcome and community. I am humbly indebted to the writers Karl Marlantes, Peter Heller, Kevin Powers, Claire Vaye Watkins, Joe Haldeman, Margaret Atwood, and Ben Fountain. And my greatest thanks, as always, goes to Andrew.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© SARA BONISTEEL
Siobhan Adcock is the author of the novel The Barter. Her short fiction has been published in Triquarterly and The Massachusetts Review, and her essays have appeared in Salon, The Daily Beast, and The Huffington Post. She lives with her husband and daughter in Brooklyn.
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ALSO BY SIOBHAN ADCOCK
The Barter
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Siobhan Adcock
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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition June 2018
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Adcock, Siobhan, author.
Title: The completionist / Siobhan Adcock.
Description: New York : Simon & Schuster, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017048287| ISBN 9781501183478 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501183485 (softcover) | ISBN 9781501183492 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Future life—Chicago (Ill.)—Fiction. | Fertility, Human—Chicago (Ill.)—Fiction. | Sisters—Chicago (Ill.)—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Thrillers. | LCGFT: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3619.I58 C66 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017048287
ISBN 978-1-5011-8347-8
ISBN 978-1-5011-8349-2 (ebook)
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The Completionist Page 29
