The time traveler's wife (57 page)

"They're just like Dorothy's!" Alba
says, doing a little tap dance on the wooden floor. She taps her heels together
three times, but she doesn't vanish. Of course, she's already home. I laugh.
Henry looks pleased with himself.

"Did you make it to the post office?"
I ask him. His face falls. "Shit. No, I forgot. Sorry. I'll go tomorrow,
first thing." Alba is twirling around, and Henry reaches out and stops
her. "Don't, Alba. You'll get dizzy."

"I like being dizzy."

"It's not a good idea."

Alba is wearing a T-shirt and shorts. She has a
Band-Aid over the skin in the crook of her elbow. "What happened to your
arm?" I ask her. Instead of answering she looks at Henry, so I do, too.

"It's nothing," he says. "She
was sucking on her skin and she gave herself a hickey."

"What's a hickey?" Alba asks. Henry
starts to explain but I say, "Why does a hickey need a Band-Aid?"

"I dunno " he says. "She just
wanted one."

I have a premonition. Call it the sixth sense
of mothers. I walk over to Alba. "Let's see."

She hugs her arm close to her, clutching it
tight with her other arm. "Don't take off the Band-Aid. It'll hurt."

"I'll be careful." I grip her arm
firmly. She makes a whimpering noise, but I am determined. Slowly I unbend her
arm, peel off the bandage gently. There's a small red puncture wound in the
center of a purple bruise. Alba says, "It's sore, don't" and I
release her. She sticks the Band-Aid back down, and watches me, waiting.

"Alba, why don't you go call Kimy and see
if she wants to come over for dinner?" Alba smiles and races out of the
studio. In a minute the back door of the house bangs. Henry is sitting at my
drawing table, swiveling slightly back and forth in my chair. He watches me. He
waits for me to say something.

"I don't believe it," I finally say.
"How could you?"

"I had to" Henry says. His voice is
quiet. "She—I couldn't leave her without at least—I wanted to give her a
head start. So Kendrick can be working on it, working for her, just in
case." I walk over to him, squeaking in my galoshes and rubber apron, and
lean against the table. Henry tilts his head, and the light rakes his face and
I see the lines that run across his forehead, around the edges of his mouth,
his eyes. He has lost more weight. His eyes are huge in his face. "Clare,
I didn't tell her what it was for. You can tell her, when... it's time."

I shake my head, no. "Call Kendrick and
tell him to stop."

"No."

"Then I will." "Clare,
don't—"

"You can do whatever you want with your
own body, Henry, but—" "Clare!" Henry squeezes my name out
through clenched teeth. "What?"

"It's over, okay? I'm done. Kendrick says
he can't do anything more." "But—" I pause to absorb what he's
just said. "But then...what happens?"

Henry shakes his head. "I don't know.
Probably what we thought might happen...happens. But if that's what happens,
then...I can't just leave Alba without trying to help her...oh, Clare, just let
me do this for her! It may not work, she may never use it—she may love time
traveling, she may never be lost, or hungry, she may never get arrested or
chased or raped or beat up, but what if she doesn't love it? What if she wants
to just be a regular girl? Clare? Oh, Clare, don't cry..." But I can't
stop, I stand weeping in my yellow rubber apron, and finally Henry stands up
and puts his arms around me. "It's not like we ever were exempt,
Clare," he says softly. "I'm just trying to make her a safety
net." I can feel his ribs through his T-shirt. "Will you let me at
least leave her that?" I nod, and Henry kisses my forehead. "Thank
you," he says, and I start to cry again.

Saturday, October 27, 1984 (Henry is 43, Clare
is 13)

Henry: I know the end, now. It goes like this:
I will be sitting in the Meadow, in the early morning, in autumn. It will be
overcast, and chilly, and I will be wearing a black wool overcoat and boots and
gloves. It will be a date that is not on the List. Clare will be asleep, in her
warm twin bed. She will be thirteen years old. In the distance, a shot will
crack across the dry cold air. It is deer-hunting season. Somewhere out there,
men in bright orange garments will be sitting, waiting, shooting. Later they
will drink beer, and eat the sandwiches their wives have packed for them. The
wind will pick up, will ripple through the orchard, stripping the useless
leaves from the apple trees. The back door of Meadowlark House will slam, and
two tiny figures in fluorescent orange will emerge, carrying matchstick rifles.
They will walk toward me, into the Meadow, Philip and Mark. They will not see
me, because I will be huddled in the high grass, a dark, unmoving spot in a
field of beige and dead green. About twenty yards from me Philip and Mark will
turn off the path and walk towards the woods. They will stop and listen. They
will hear it before I do: a rustling, thrashing, something moving through the
grass, something large and clumsy, a flash of white, a tail perhaps? and it
will come toward me, toward the clearing, and Mark will raise his rifle, aim
carefully, squeeze the trigger, and:

There will be a shot, and then a scream, a
human scream. And then a pause. And then: " Clare! Clare!" And then
nothing.

I will sit for a moment, not thinking, not
breathing. Philip will be running, and then I will be running, and Mark, and we
will converge on the place:

But there will be nothing. Blood on the earth,
shiny and thick. Bent dead grass. We will stare at each other without
recognition, over the empty dirt. In her bed, Clare will hear the scream. She
will hear someone calling her name, and she will sit up, her heart jumping in
her ribcage. She will run downstairs, out the door, into the Meadow in her
nightgown. When she sees the three of us she will stop, confused. Behind the
backs of her father and brother I will put my finger to my lips. As Philip
walks to her I will turn away, will stand in the shelter of the orchard and
watch her shivering in her father's embrace, while Mark stands by, impatient
and perplexed, his fifteen-year-old's stubble gracing his chin and he will look
at me, as though he is trying to remember. And Clare will look at me, and I
will wave to her, and she will walk back to her house with her dad, and she
will wave back, slender, her nightgown blowing around her like an angel's, and
she will get smaller and smaller, will recede into the distance and disappear
into the house, and I will stand over a small trampled bloody patch of soil and
I will know: somewhere out there I am dying.

THE EPISODE OF
THE MONROE STREET PARKING GARAGE

Monday, January 7, 2006 (Henry is 43)

Henry: It's cold. It's very, very cold and I am
lying on the ground in snow. Where am I? I try to sit up. My feet are numb, I
can't feel my feet. I'm in an open space with no buildings or trees. How long
have I been here? It's night. I hear traffic. I get to my hands and knees. I
look up. I'm in Grant Park. The Art Institute stands dark and closed across
hundreds of feet of blank snow. The beautiful buildings of Michigan Avenue are
silent. Cars stream along Lake Shore Drive, headlights cutting through night.
Over the lake is a faint line of light; dawn is coming. I have to get out of
here. I have to get warm. I stand up. My feet are white and stiff. I can't feel
them or move them, but I begin to walk, I stagger forward through the snow,
sometimes falling, getting back up and walking, it goes on and on, finally I am
crawling. I crawl across a street. I crawl down concrete stairs backwards,
clinging to the handrail. Salt gets into the raw places on my hands and knees.
I crawl to a pay phone. Seven rings. Eight. Nine. '"Lo," says my
self.

"Help me," I say. "I'm in the
Monroe Street Parking Garage. It's unbelievably fucking cold down here. I'm
near the guard station. Come and get me."

"Okay. Stay there. We'll leave right
now."

I try to hang up the phone but miss. My teeth
are chattering uncontrollably. I crawl to the guard station and hammer on the
door. No one is there. Inside I see video monitors, a space heater, a jacket, a
desk, a chair. I try the knob. It's locked. I have nothing to open it with. The
window is wire reinforced. I am shivering hard. There are no cars down here.

"Help me!" I yell. No one comes. I
curl into a ball in front of the door, bring my knees to my chin, wrap my hands
around my feet. No one comes, and then, at last, at last, I am gone.

FRAGMENTS

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, September 25, 26,
and 27, 2006 (Clare is 35, Henry is 43)

Clare: Henry has been gone all day. Alba and I
went to McDonald's for dinner. We played Go Fish and Crazy Eights; Alba drew a
picture of a girl with long hair flying a dog. We picked out her dress for
school tomorrow. Now she is in bed. I am sitting on the front porch trying to
read Proust; reading in French is making me drowsy and I am almost asleep when
there is a crash in the living room and Henry is on the floor shivering, white
and cold—"Help me," he says through chattering teeth and I run for
the phone.

Later:

The Emergency Room: a scene of fluorescent
limbo: old people full of ailments, mothers with feverish small children,
teenagers whose friends are having bullets removed from various limbs, who will
brag about this later to admiring girls but who are now subdued and tired.

Later:

In a small white room: nurses lift Henry onto a
bed and remove his blanket. His eyes open, register me, and close. A blond
intern looks him over. A nurse takes his temperature, pulse. Henry is
shivering, shivering so intensely it makes the bed shake, makes the nurse's arm
vibrate like the Magic Fingers beds in 1970s motels. The resident looks at
Henry's pupils, ears, nose, fingers, toes, genitals. They begin to wrap him in
blankets and something metallic and aluminum foillike. They pack his feet in
cold packs. The small room is very warm. Henry's eyes flicker open again. He is
trying to say something. It sounds like my name. I reach under the blankets and
hold his icy hands in mine. I look at the nurse. "We need to warm him up,
get his core temperature up," she says. "Then we'll see."

Later:

"How on earth did he get hypothermia in
September?" the resident asks me. "I don't know," I say.
"Ask him."

Later:

It's morning. Charisse and I are in the
hospital cafeteria. She's eating chocolate pudding. Upstairs in his room Henry
is sleeping. Kimy is watching him. I have two pieces of toast on my plate; they
are soggy with butter and untouched. Someone sits down next to Charisse; it's
Kendrick. "Good news," he says, "his core temp's up to
ninety-seven point six. There doesn't seem to be any brain damage."

I can't say anything. Thank you God, is all I
think.

"Okay, um, I'll check back later when I'm
finished at Rush St. Luke's," says Kendrick, standing up. "Thank you,
David," I say as he's about to walk away, and Kendrick smiles and leaves.

Later:

Dr. Murray comes in with an Indian nurse whose
name tag says Sue. Sue is carrying a large basin and a thermometer and a
bucket. Whatever is about to happen, it will be low-tech.

"Good morning, Mr. DeTamble, Mrs.
DeTamble. We're going to rewarm your feet." Sue sets the basin on the
floor and silently disappears into the bathroom. Water runs. Dr. Murray is very
large and has a wonderful beehive hairdo that only certain very imposing and
beautiful black women can get away with. Her bulk tapers down from the hem of
her white coat into two perfect feet in alligator-skin pumps. She produces a
syringe and an ampoule from her pocket, and proceeds to draw the contents of
the ampoule into the syringe.

"What is that?" I ask.

"Morphine. This is going to hurt. His feet
are pretty far gone." She gently takes Henry's arm, which he mutely holds
out to her as though she has won it from him in a poker game. She has a
delicate touch. The needle slides in and she depresses the plunger; after a
moment Henry makes a little moan of gratitude. Dr. Murray is removing the cold
packs from Henry's feet as Sue emerges with hot water. She sets it on the floor
by the bed. Dr. Murray lowers the bed, and the two of them manipulate him into
a sitting position. Sue measures the temperature of the water. She pours the
water into the basin and immerses Henry's feet. He gasps.

"Any tissue that's gonna make it will turn
bright red. If it doesn't look like a lobster, it's a problem."

I watch Henry's feet floating in the yellow
plastic basin. They are white as snow, white as marble, white as titanium,
white as paper, white as bread, white as sheets, white as white can be. Sue
changes the water as Henry's ice feet cool it down. The thermometer shows one
hundred and six degrees. In five minutes it is ninety degrees and Sue changes
it again. Henry's feet bob like dead fish. Tears run down his cheeks and
disappear under his chin. I wipe his face. I stroke his head. I watch to see
his feet turn bright red. It's like waiting for a photograph to develop,
watching for the image slowly graying into black in the tray of chemicals. A
flush of red appears at the ankles of both feet. The red spreads in splotches
over the left heel, finally some of the toes hesitantly blush. The right foot
remains stubbornly blanched. Pink appears reluctantly as far as the ball of the
foot, and then goes no farther. After an hour, Dr. Murray and Sue carefully dry
Henry's feet and Sue places bits of cotton between his toes. They put him back
in bed and arrange a frame over his feet so nothing touches them.