The time traveler's wife (63 page)

DASEIN

Saturday, July 12, 2008 (Clare is 37)

CLARE: Charisse has taken Alba and Rosa and Max
and Joe roller skating at the Rainbo. I drive over to her house to pick Alba
up, but I'm early and Charisse is running late. Gomez answers the door wearing
a towel.

"Come on in," he says, opening the
door wide. "Want some coffee?"

"Sure." I follow him through their
chaotic living room to the kitchen. I sit at the table, which is still littered
with breakfast dishes, and clear a space large enough to rest my elbows. Gomez
rambles around the kitchen, making coffee.

"Haven't seen your mug in a while."

"I've been pretty busy. Alba takes all
these different lessons, and I just drive her around."

"You making any art?" Gomez sets a
cup and saucer in front of me and pours coffee into the cup. Milk and sugar are
already on the table, so I help myself.

"No."

"Oh." Gomez leans against the kitchen
counter, hands wrapped around his coffee cup. His hair is dark with water and
combed back flat. I've never noticed before that his hairline is receding.
"Well, other than chauffeuring her highness, what are you doing?"

What am I doing? I am waiting. I am thinking. I
am sitting on our bed holding an old plaid shirt that still smells of Henry,
taking deep breaths of his smell I am going for walks at two in the morning,
when Alba is safe in her bed, long walks to tire myself out enough to sleep. I
am conducting conversations with Henry as though he were here with me, as
though he could see through my eyes, think with my brain.

"Not much."

"Hmm."

"How 'bout you?"

"Oh, you know. Aldermanning. Playing the
stern paterfamilias. The usual."

"Oh." I sip my coffee. I glance at
the clock over the sink. It is shaped like a black cat: its tail twitches back
and forth like a pendulum and its big eyes move in time with each twitch,
ticking loudly. It's 11:45,

"Do you want anything to eat?"

I shake my head. "No, thanks."
Judging from the dishes on the table, Gomez and Charisse had honeydew melon,
scrambled eggs, and toast for breakfast. The children ate Lucky Charms,
Cheerios, and something that had peanut butter on it. The table is like an
archeological reconstruction of a twenty-first-century family breakfast.

"Are you dating anybody?" I look up
and Gomez is still leaning on the counter, still holding his coffee cup at chin
level.

"No."

"Why not?"

None of your business, Gomez. "It never
occurred to me." "You should think about it." He sets his cup in
the sink.

"Why?"

"You need something new. Someone new. You
can't sit around for the rest of your life waiting for Henry to show up."
"Sure I can. Watch me."

Gomez takes two steps and he's standing next to
me. He leans over and puts his mouth next to my ear. "Don't you ever
miss.. .this?" He licks the inside of my ear. Yes, I miss that. "Get
away from me, Gomez," I hiss at him, but I don't move away. I am riveted
in my seat by an idea. Gomez picks up my hair and kisses the back of my neck.
Come to me, oh! come to me! I close my eyes. Hands pull me out of my seat,
unbutton my shirt. Tongue on my neck, my shoulders, my nipples. I reach out
blindly and find terrycloth, a bath towel that falls away. Henry. Hands
unbutton my jeans, pull them down, bend me back over the kitchen table.
Something falls to the floor, metallic. Food and silverware, a half-circle of
plate, melon rind against my back. My legs spread. Tongue on my cunt.
"Ohh..." We are in the meadow. It's summer. A green blanket. We have
just eaten, the taste of melon is still in my mouth. Tongue gives way to empty
space, wet and open. I open my eyes; I'm staring at a half-full glass of orange
juice. I close my eyes. The firm, steady push of Henry's cock into me. Yes.
I've been waiting very patiently, Henry. I knew you'd come back sooner or
later. Yes. Skin on skin, hands on breasts, push pull clinging rhythm deeper
yes, oh—

"Henry—"

Everything stops. A clock is ticking loudly. I
open my eyes. Gomez is staring down at me, hurt? angry? in a moment he is expressionless.
A car door slams. I sit up, jump off the table, run for the bathroom. Gomez
throws my clothes in after me. As I'm dressing I hear Charisse and the kids
come in the front door, laughing. Alba calls, "Mama?" and I yell
"I'll be out in a minute!" I stand in the dim light of the pink and
black tiled bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror. I have Cheerios in my
hair. My reflection looks lost and pale. I wash my hands, try to comb my hair
with my fingers. What am I doing? What have I allowed myself to become? An
answer comes, of sorts: You are the traveler now.

Saturday, July 26, 2008 (Clare is 37)

Clare: Alba's reward for being patient at the
galleries while Charisse and I look at art is to go to Ed Debevic's, a faux
diner that does a brisk tourist trade. As soon as we walk in the door it's
sensory overload circa 1964. The Kinks are playing at top volume and there's
signage everywhere:

"If you're really a good customer you'd
order more!!!"

"Please talk clearly when placing your
order."

"Our coffee is so good we drink it
ourselves!"

Today is evidently balloon-animal day; a
gentleman in a shiny purple suit whips up a wiener dog for Alba and then turns
it into a hat and plants it on her head. She squirms with joy. We stand in line
for half an hour and Alba doesn't whine at all; she watches the waiters and
waitresses flirt with each other and silently evaluates the other children's
balloon animals. We are finally escorted to a booth by a waiter wearing thick
horn-rimmed glasses and a name tag that says spaz. Charisse and I flip open our
menus and try to find something we want to eat amidst the Cheddar Fries and the
meatloaf. Alba just chants the word milkshake over and over. When Spaz
reappears Alba has a sudden attack of shyness and has to be coaxed into telling
him that she would like a peanut butter milkshake (and a small order of fries,
because, I tell her, it's too decadent to eat nothing but a milkshake for
lunch). Charisse orders macaroni and cheese and I order a blt. Once Spaz leaves
Charisse sings, " Alba and Spaz, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G..."
and Alba shuts her eyes and puts her hands over her ears, shaking her head and
smiling. A waiter with a name tag that says buzz struts up and down the lunch
counter doing karaoke to Bob Seger's I Love That Old Time Rock and Roll.

"I hate Bob Seger " Charisse says.
"Do you think it took him more than thirty seconds to write that
song?"

The milkshake arrives in a tall glass with a
bendable straw and a metal shaker that contains the milkshake that couldn't fit
into the glass. Alba stands up to drink it, stands on tiptoe to achieve the
best possible angle for sucking down a peanut butter milkshake. Her balloon
wiener dog hat keeps sliding down her forehead, interfering with her
concentration. She looks up at me through her thick black eyelashes and pushes
the balloon hat up so that it is clinging to her head by static electricity.

"When's Daddy coming home?" she asks.
Charisse makes the sound that one makes when one has accidentally gotten Pepsi
up one's nose and starts to cough and I pound her on the back until she makes
hand gestures at me to stop so I stop.

"August 29th," I tell Alba, who goes
back to slurping the dregs of her shake while Charisse looks at me
reproachfully. Later, we're in the car, on Lake Shore Drive; I'm driving and
Charisse is fiddling with the radio and Alba is sleeping in the back seat. I
exit at Irving Park and Charisse says, "Doesn't Alba know that Henry is
dead?"

"Of course she knows. She saw him" I
remind Charisse.

"Well, why did you tell her he was coming
home in August?"

"Because he is. He gave me the date
himself."

"Oh." Even though my eyes are on the
road I can feel Charisse staring at me. "Isn't that.. .kind of
weird?" "Alba loves it." "For you, though?"

"I never see him." I try to keep my
voice light, as though I am not tortured by the unfairness of this, as though I
don't mourn my resentment when Alba tells me about her visits with Henry even
as I drink up every detail. Why not me, Henry? I ask him silently as I pull into
Charisse and Gomez's toy-littered driveway. Why only Alba? But as usual there's
no answer to this. As usual, that's just how it is. Charisse kisses me and gets
out of the car, walks sedately toward her front door, which magically swings
open, revealing Gomez and Rosa. Rosa is jumping up and down and holding
something out toward Charisse, who takes it from her and says something, and
gives her a big hug. Gomez stares at me, and finally gives me a little wave. I
wave back. He turns away. Charisse and Rosa have gone inside. The door closes.
I sit there, in the driveway, Alba sleeping in the back seat. Crows are walking
on the dandelion-infested lawn. Henry, where are you? I lean my head against
the steering wheel. Help me. No one answers. After a minute I put the car in
gear, back out of the driveway, and make my way toward our silent, waiting
home.

Saturday, September 3, 1990 (Henry is 27)

Henry: Ingrid and I have lost the car and we
are drunk. We are drunk and it is dark and we have walked up and down and back
and around and no car. Fucking Lincoln Park. Fucking Lincoln Towing. Fuck.
Ingrid is pissed off. She walks ahead of me, and her whole back, even the way
her hips move, is pissed off. Somehow this is my fault. Fucking Park West
nightclub. Why would anyone put a nightclub in wretched yuppieville Lincoln
Park where you cannot leave your car for more than ten seconds without Lincoln
Towing hauling it off to their lair to gloat over it—

"Henry."

"What?"

"There's that little girl again."
"What little girl?"

"The one we saw earlier." Ingrid
stops. I look where she is pointing. The girl is standing in the doorway of a
flower shop. She's wearing something dark, so all I see is her white face and
her bare feet. She's maybe seven or eight; too young to be out alone in the
middle of the night. Ingrid walks over to the girl, who watches her
impassively.

"Are you okay?" Ingrid asks the girl.
"Are you lost?"

The girl looks at me and says, "I was
lost, but now I've figured out where I am. Thank you," she adds politely.

"Do you need a ride home? We could give
you a ride if we ever manage to find the car." Ingrid is leaning over the
girl. Her face is maybe a foot away from the girl's face. As I walk up to them
I see that the girl is wearing a man's windbreaker. It comes all the way down
to her ankles.

"No, thank you. I live too far away,
anyhow." The girl has long black hair and startling dark eyes; in the
yellow light of the flower shop she looks like a Victorian match girl, or
DeQuincey's Ann.

"Where's your mom?" Ingrid asks her.
The girl replies, "She's at home." She smiles at me and says,
"She doesn't know I'm here."

"Did you run away?" I ask her.

"No," she says, and laughs. "I
was looking for my daddy, but I'm too early, I guess. I'll come back
later." She squeezes past Ingrid and pads over to me, grabs my jacket and
pulls me toward her. "The car's across the street," she whispers. I
look across the street and there it is, Ingrid's red Porsche.
"Thanks—" I begin, and the girl darts a kiss at me that lands near my
ear and then runs down the sidewalk, her feet slapping the concrete as I stand
staring after her. Ingrid is quiet as we get into the car. Finally I say,
"That was strange," and she sighs and says, "Henry, for a smart
person you can be pretty damn dense sometimes," and she drops me off in
front of my apartment without another word.

Sunday, July 29, 1979 (Henry is 42)

Henry: It's sometime in the past. I'm sitting
on Lighthouse Beach with Alba. She's ten. I'm forty-two. Both of us are time
traveling. It's a warm evening, maybe July or August. I'm wearing a pair of
jeans and a white T-shirt I stole from a fancy North Evanston mansion; Alba is
wearing a pink nightgown she took from an old lady's clothesline. It's too long
for her so we have tied it up around her knees. People have been giving us
strange looks all afternoon. I guess we don't exactly look like an average
father and daughter at the beach. But we have done our best; we have swum, and
we have built a sand castle. We have eaten hotdogs and fries we bought from the
vendor in the parking lot. We don't have a blanket, or any towels, and so we
are kind of sandy and damp and pleasantly tired, and we sit watching little
children running back and forth in the waves and big silly dogs loping after
them. The sun is setting behind us as we stare at the water.

"Tell me a story," says Alba, leaning
against me like cold cooked pasta. I put my arm around her. "What kind of
story?"

"A good story. A story about you and Mama,
when Mama was a little girl" "Hmm. Okay. Once upon a time—"
"When was that?"