The time traveler's wife (61 page)

"Cream of Wheat Jell-O, yum." Clare
gets out the brown sugar and the milk and the Cream of Wheat package. She sets
them on the counter and looks at me inquiringly. "How 'bout you? Omelet
Jell-O?"

"If you're making it, yeah." I marvel
at Clare's efficiency, moving around the kitchen as though she's Betty Crocker,
as though she's been doing this for years. She'll be okay without me, I think
as I watch her, but I know that she will not. I watch Alba mix the water and
the wheat together, and I think of Alba at ten, at fifteen, at twenty. It is
not nearly enough, yet. I am not done, yet. I want to be here. I want to see
them, I want to gather them in my arms, I want to live—

"Daddy's crying" Alba whispers to
Clare.

"That's because he has to eat my
cooking" Clare tells her, and winks at me, and I have to laugh.

NEW YEAR'S EVE,
TWO

Sunday, December 31, 2006 (Clare is 35, Henry
is 43) (7:25p.m.) Clare: We're having a party! Henry was kind of reluctant at
first but he seems perfectly content now. He's sitting at the kitchen table
showing Alba how to cut flowers out of carrots and radishes. I admit that I
didn't exactly play fair: I brought it up in front of Alba and she got all
excited and then he couldn't bear to disappoint her.

"It'll be great, Henry. We'll ask everyone
we know."

"Everyone?" he queried, smiling.

"Everyone we like ," I amended. And
so for days I've been cleaning, and Henry and Alba have been baking cookies
(although half the dough goes into Alba's mouth if we don't watch her).
Yesterday Charisse and I went to the grocery store and bought dips, chips,
spreads, every possible kind of vegetable, and beer, and wine, and champagne,
little colored hors d'ouvres toothpicks, and napkins with Happy New Year printed
in gold, and matching paper plates and Lord knows what else. Now the whole
house smells like meatballs and the rapidly dying Christmas tree in the living
room. Alicia is here washing our wineglasses. Henry looks up at me and says,
"Hey, Clare, it's almost showtime. Go take your shower." I glance at
my watch and realize that yes, it's time. Into the shower and wash hair and dry
hair and into underwear and bra, stockings and black silk party dress, heels
and a tiny dab of perfume and lipstick and one last look in the mirror (I look
startled) and back into the kitchen where Alba, oddly enough, is still pristine
in her blue velvet dress and Henry is still wearing his holey red flannel shirt
and ripped-up blue jeans.

"Aren't you going to change?"

"Oh—yeah. Sure. Help me, huh?" I
wheel him into our bedroom.

"What do you want to wear?" I'm
hunting through his drawers for underwear and socks.

"Whatever. You choose." Henry reaches
over and shuts the bedroom door. "Come here."

I stop riffing through the closet and look at
Henry. He puts the brake on the wheelchair and maneuvers his body onto the bed.

"There's no time" I say.

"Right, exactly. So let's not waste time
talking." His voice is quiet and compelling. I flip the lock on the door.
"You know, I just got dressed—"

"Shhh." He holds out his arms to me,
and I relent, and sit beside him, and the phrase one last time pops into my
mind unbidden.

(8:05p.m.)

Henry: The doorbell rings just as I am knotting
my tie. Clare says nervously, "Do I look all right?" She does, she is
pink and lovely, and I tell her so. We emerge from the bedroom as Alba runs to
answer the door and starts yelling "Grandpa! Grandpa! Kimy!" My
father stomps his snowy boots and leans to hug her. Clare kisses him on both
cheeks. Dad rewards her with his coat. Alba commandeers Kimy and takes her to
see the Christmas tree before she even gets her coat off.

"Hello, Henry," says Dad, smiling,
leaning over me and suddenly it hits me: tonight my life will flash before my
eyes. We've invited everyone who matters to us: Dad, Kimy, Alicia, Gomez,
Charisse, Philip, Mark and Sharon and their kids, Gram, Ben, Helen, Ruth,
Kendrick and Nancy and their' kids, Roberto, Catherine, Isabelle, Matt, Amelia,
artist friends of Clare's, library school friends of mine, parents of Alba's
friends, Clare's dealer, even Celia Attley, at Clare's insistence...The only
people missing have been unavoidably detained: my mother, Lucille, Ingrid...Oh,
God. Help me. (8:20 p.m.)

Clare: Gomez and Charisse come breezing in like
kamikaze jet fighters. "Hey Library Boy, you lazy coot, don't you ever
shovel your sidewalks?"

Henry smacks his forehead. "I knew I
forgot something." Gomez dumps a shopping bag full of CDs in Henry's lap
and goes out to clean the walks. Charisse laughs and follows me into the
kitchen. She takes out a huge bottle of Russian vodka and sticks it in the
freezer. We can hear Gomez singing "Let It Snow" as he makes his way
down the side of the house with the shovel.

"Where are the kids?" I ask Charisse.

"We parked them at my mom's. It's New
Year's; we figured they'd have more fun with Grandma. Plus we decided to have
our hangovers in privacy, you know?" I've never given it much thought,
actually; I haven't been drunk since before Alba was conceived. Alba comes running
into the kitchen and Charisse gives her an enthusiastic hug. "Hey, Baby
Girl! We brought you a Christmas present!"

Alba looks at me. "Go ahead and open
it." It's a tiny manicure set, complete with nail polish. Alba is
open-mouthed with awe. I nudge her, and she remembers.

" Thank you, Aunt Charisse."

"You're welcome, Alba."

"Go show Daddy," I tell her, and she
runs off in the direction of the living room. I stick my head into the hall and
I can see Alba gesturing excitedly at Henry, who holds out his fmgers for her
as though contemplating a fingernailectomy. "Big hit," I tell
Charisse. She smiles. "That was my trip when I was little. I wanted to be
a beautician when I grew up." I laugh. "But you couldn't hack it, so
you became an artist."

"I met Gomez and realized that nobody ever
overthrew the bourgeois capitalist misogynist corporate operating system by
perming its hair."

"Of course, we haven't exactly been
beating it to its knees by selling it art, either." "Speak for
yourself, babe. You're just addicted to beauty, that's all."

"Guilty, guilty, guilty." We wander
into the dining room and Charisse begins to load up her plate. "So what
are you working on?" I ask her.

"Computer viruses as art."

"Oooh." Oh, no. "Isn't that kind
of illegal?"

"Well; no. I just design them, then I
paint the html onto canvas, then I have a show. I don't actually put them into
circulation."

"But someone could."

"Sure." Charisse smiles wickedly.
"I hope they do. Gomez scoffs, but some of these little paintings could
seriously inconvenience the World Bank and Bill Gates and those bastards who
make ATM machines."

"Well, good luck. When's the show?"

"May. I'll send you a card."

"Yeah, when I get it I'll convert our
assets into gold and lay in bottled water"

Charisse laughs. Catherine and Amelia arrive,
and we cease to speak of World Anarchy Through Art and move on to admiring each
other's party dresses. (8:50 p.m.)

HENRY: The house is packed with our nearest and
dearest, some of whom I haven't seen since before the surgery. Leah Jacobs, Clare's
dealer, is tactful and kind, but I find it difficult to withstand the pity in
her gaze. Celia surprises me by walking right up to me and offering her hand. I
take it, and she says, "I'm sorry to see you like this."

"Well, you look great," I say, and
she does. Her hair is done up really high and she's dressed all in shimmery
blue.

"Uh-huh," says Celia in her fabulous
toffee voice. "I liked it better when you were bad and I could just hate
your skinny white self."

I laugh. "Ah, the good old days."

She delves into her purse. "I found this a
long time ago in Ingrid's stuff. I thought Clare might want it." Celia
hands me a photograph. It's a photo of me, probably from around 1990. My hair
is long and I'm laughing, standing on Oak Street Beach, no shirt. It's a great
photograph. I don't remember Ingrid taking it, but then again, so much of my
time with Ing is kind of a blank now.

"Yeah, I bet she would like it. Memento
mori." I hand the picture back to her. Celia glances at me sharply.
"You're not dead, Henry DeTamble."

"I'm not far from it, Celia."

Celia laughs. "Well, if you get to Hell
before I do, save me a place next to Ingrid." She turns abruptly and walks
off in search of Clare.

(9:45 p.m.)

Clare: The children have run around and eaten
too much party food and now they are sleepy but cranky. I pass Colin Kendrick
in the hall and ask if he wants to take a nap; he tells me very solemnly that
he'd like to stay up with the grownups. I am touched by his politeness and his
fourteen-year-old's beauty, his shyness with me even though he's known me all
his life. Alba and Nadia Kendrick are not so restrained. "Mamaaa,"
Alba bleats, "you said we could stay up!"

"Sure you don't want to sleep for a while?
I'll wake you up right before midnight."

" Nooooo." Kendrick is listening to
this exchange and I shrug my shoulders and he laughs.

"The Indomitable Duo. Okay, girls, why
don't you go play quietly in Alba's room for a while." They shuffle off,
grumbling. We know that within minutes they'll be playing happily.

"It's good to see you, Clare,"
Kendrick says as Alicia ambles over.

"Hey, Clare. Get a load of Daddy." I
follow Alicia's gaze and realize that our father is flirting with Isabelle.
"Who is that?"

"Oh, my god." I'm laughing.
"That's Isabelle Berk." I start to outline Isabelle's draconian
sexual proclivities for Alicia. We are laughing so hard we can hardly breathe.
"Perfect, perfect. Oh. Stop," Alicia says. Richard comes over to us,
drawn by our hysterics. "What's so funny, bella donnas?"

We shake our heads, still giggling.
"They're mocking the mating rituals of their paternal authority
figure," says Kendrick. Richard nods, bemused, and asks Alicia about her
spring concert schedule. They wander off in the direction of the kitchen,
talking Bucharest and Bartok. Kendrick is still standing next to me, waiting to
say something I don't want to hear. I begin to excuse myself, and he puts his
hand on my arm.

"Wait, Clare—" I wait. "I'm
sorry," he says.

"It's okay, David." We stare at each
other for a moment. Kendrick shakes his head, rumbles for his cigarettes.
"If you ever want to come by the lab I could show you what I've been doing
for Alba..."I cast my eyes around the party, looking for Henry. Gomez is
showing Sharon how to rumba in the living room. Everyone seems to be having a
good time, but Henry is nowhere in sight. I haven't seen him for at least
forty-five minutes, and I feel a strong urge to find him, make sure he's okay,
make sure he's here. "Excuse me," I tell Kendrick, who looks like he
wants to continue the conversation. "Another time. When it's
quieter." He nods. Nancy Kendrick appears with Colin in tow, making the
topic impossible anyway. They launch into a spirited discussion of ice hockey,
and I escape.

(9:48 p.m.)

Henry: It has become very warm in the house,
and I need to cool off, so I am sitting on the enclosed front porch. I can hear
people talking in the living room. The snow is falling thick and fast now,
covering all the cars and bushes, softening their hard lines and deadening the
sound of traffic. It's a beautiful night. I open the door between the porch and
the living room.

"Hey, Gomez."

He comes trotting over and sticks his head
through the doorway. "Yeah?"

"Let's go outside."

"It's fucking cold out there."

"Come on, you soft elderly alderman."

Something in my tone does the trick. "All
right, all right. Just a minute." He disappears and comes back after a few
minutes wearing his coat and carrying mine. As I'm angling into it he offers me
his hip flask.

"Oh, no thanks."

"Vodka. Puts hair on your chest."
"Clashes with opiates."

"Oh, right. How quickly we forget."
Gomez wheels me through the living room. At the top of the stairs he lifts me
out of the chair and I am riding on his back like a child, like a monkey, and
we are out the front door and out of doors and the cold air is like an
exoskeleton. I can smell the liquor in Gomez's sweat. Somewhere out there
behind the sodium vapor Chicago glare there are stars.

"Comrade."

"Umm?"

"Thanks for everything. You've been the
best—" I can't see his face, but I can feel Gomez stiffen beneath all the
layers of clothing.