Chapter 14: Contract Complete

I knelt on the linoleum with her head in my lap and watched the number.

00:01:51.

00:01:50.

It was not stopping.

The panel unrolled one more line over the clerk's counter, in the same cold blue.

MARRIAGE REGISTERED. CHECKING CONDITIONS.

CONDITION ONE: LEGAL MARRIAGE. MET.

CONDITION TWO: BOTH PARTIES OF FREE WILL. VERIFYING.

"Nolan," Millie said. "Talk to me. I need you here."

"I'm here."

"Hold her head. I'm getting the oxygen."

She ran out to the truck.

The clerk stood over us with the stamp still in her hand.

"Should I call someone?" she asked.

"Call an ambulance," I said. "Now."

Margot's lips were grey.

Her pulse jumped under my thumb, three beats and a stumble, then a stumble and a stumble.

00:01:12.

I had never prayed in a government building before.

I did it with my mouth shut, and I did not ask for myself.

CONDITION TWO: VERIFIED.

00:00:40.

00:00:25.

I looked at her face and said her name three times, because it was all I had.

00:00:09.

00:00:08.

The number stopped.

It stopped on 00:00:07 and stayed there, as flat and still as a photograph.

BOND RESTORED.

SURVIVAL AGREEMENT REINSTATED.

MARGOT TREHARNE: SURVIVAL STATUS 31%.

Under my hand something changed.

Her heartbeat caught, and ran even, and kept running.

The panel scrolled once more.

CONTRACT COMPLETE.

HOST FREE.

There was one last chime, the one I had heard every day of my marriage.

Then the panel went out, and it did not come back.

I waited.

The corner of my eye was empty.

For three years something had stood at the edge of everything I did, and now there was only a county clerk's wall and a flag.

Millie came back with the tank and dropped down beside us.

"Pulse is slow," she said. "It's regular, though. Nolan, it's regular."

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