The time traveler's wife (16 page)

"You're easy." She plunks her ashtray
down and leans against the inside of the bar, pondering. "What are you
doing, later?"

I review my options. I've been known to go home
with Mia a time or two, and she's good fun and all that, but I'm really not in
the mood for casual frivolity at the moment. On the other hand, a warm body is
not a bad thing when you're down. "I'm planning to get extremely drunk.
What did you have in mind?"

"Well, if you're not too drunk you could
come over, and if you're not dead when you wake up you could do me a huge favor
and come to Christmas dinner at my parents' place in Glencoe and answer to the
name Rafe."

"Oh, God, Mia. I'm suicidal just thinking
about it. Sorry."

She leans over the bar and speaks emphatically.
"C'mon, Henry. Help me out. You're a presentable young person of the male
gender. Hell, you're a librarian. You won't freak when my parents start asking
who your parents are and what college you went to."

"Actually, I will. I will run straight to
the powder room and slit my throat. Anyway, what's the point? Even if they love
me it just means they'll torture you for years with 'What ever happened to that
nice young librarian you were dating?' And what happens when they meet the real
Rafe?"

"I don't think I'll have to worry about
that. C'mon. I'll perform Triple X sex acts on you that you've never even heard
of."

I have been refusing to meet Ingrid's parents
for months. I have refused to go to Christmas dinner at their house tomorrow.
There's no way I'm going to do this for Mia, whom I hardly know. "Mia. Any
other night of the year—look, my goal tonight is to achieve a level of
inebriation at which I can barely stand up, much less get it up. Just call your
parents and tell them Rafe is having a tonsillectomy or something."

She goes to the other end of the bar to take
care of three suspiciously young male college types. Then she messes around
with bottles for a while, making something elaborate. She sets the tall glass
in front of me. "Here. It's on the house." The drink is the color of
strawberry Kool-Aid.

"What is it?" I take a sip. It tastes
like 7-Up. Mia smiles an evil little smile. "It's something I invented.
You want to get smashed, this is the express train."

"Oh. Well, thank you." I toast her,
and drink up. A sensation of heat and total well-being floods me.
"Heavens. Mia, you ought to patent this. You could have little lemonade
stands all over Chicago and sell it in Dixie cups. You'd be a millionaire."

"Another?"

"Sure."

As a promising junior partner in DeTamble &
DeTamble, Alcoholics at Large, I have not yet found the outer limit in my
ability to consume liquor. A few drinks later, Mia is peering at me across the
bar with concern.

"Henry?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm cutting you off." This is
probably a good idea. I try to nod my agreement with Mia, but it's too much
effort. Instead, I slide slowly, almost gracefully, to the floor. I wake up
much later at Mercy Hospital. Mia is sitting next to my bed. Her mascara has
run all over her face. I'm hooked up to an IV and I feel bad. Very bad. In
fact, every kind of bad. I turn my head and retch into a basin. Mia reaches
over and wipes my mouth.

"Henry—" Mia is whispering.

"Hey. What the hell."

"Henry, I'm so sorry—"

"Not your fault. What happened?"

"You passed out and I did the math—how
much do you weigh?"

"175."

"Jesus. Did you eat dinner?" I think
about it. "Yeah."

"Well, anyway, the stuff you were drinking
was about forty proof. And you had two whiskeys.. .but you seemed perfectly
fine and then all of a sudden you looked awful, and then you passed out, and I
thought about it and realized you had a lot of booze in you. So I called 911
and here you are."

"Thanks. I think"

"Henry, do you have some kind of death
wish?" I consider. "Yes." I turn to the wall, and pretend to
sleep.

Saturday, April 8, 1989 (Clare is 17, Henry is
40)

Clare: I'm sitting in Grandma Meagram's room,
doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with her. It's a bright cool April
morning and I can see red tulips whipping in the wind in the garden. Mama is
down there planting something small and white over by the forsythia. Her hat is
almost blowing off and she keeps clapping her hand to her head and finally
takes the hat off and sets her work basket on it. I haven't seen Henry in
almost two months; the next date on the List is three weeks away. We are
approaching the time when I won't see him for more than two years. I used to be
so casual about Henry, when I was little; seeing Henry wasn't anything too
unusual. But now every time he's here is one less time he's going to be here.
And things are different with us. I want something...! want Henry to say
something, do something that proves this hasn't all been some kind of elaborate
joke. I want. That's all. I am wanting. Grandma Meagram is sitting in her blue
wing chair by the window. I sit in the window seat, with the newspaper in my
lap. We are about halfway through the crossword. My attention has drifted.

"Read that one again, child," says
Grandma.

"Twenty down. 'Monkish monkey.' Eight
letters, second letter 'a', last letter 'n'."

" Capuchin." She smiles, her unseeing
eyes turn in my direction. To Grandma I am a dark shadow against a somewhat
lighter background. "That's pretty good, eh?"

"Yeah, that's great. Geez, try this one:
nineteen across, 'Don't stick your elbow out so far. Ten letters, second letter

'u'."

" Burma Shave. Before your time."

"Arrgh. I'll never get this." I stand
up and stretch. I desperately need to go for a walk. My grandmother's room is
comforting but claustrophobic. The ceiling is low, the wallpaper is dainty blue
flowers, the bedspread is blue chintz, the carpet is white, and it smells of
powder and dentures and old skin. Grandma Meagram sits trim and straight. Her
hair is beautiful, white but still slightly tinged with the red I have
inherited from her, and perfectly coiled and pinned into a chignon. Grandma's
eyes are like blue clouds. She has been blind for nine years, and she has
adapted well; as long as she is in the house she can get around. She's been
trying to teach me the art of crossword solving, but I have trouble caring
enough to see one through by myself. Grandma used to do them in ink. Henry
loves crossword puzzles.

"It's a beautiful day, isn't it,"
says Grandma, leaning back in her chair and rubbing her knuckles. I nod, and
then say, "Yes, but it's kind of windy. Mama's down there gardening, and
everything keeps blowing away on her."

"How typical of Lucille," says her
mother. "Do you know, child, I'd like to go for a walk."

"I was just thinking that same
thing," I say. She smiles, and holds out her hands, and I gently pull her
out of her chair. I fetch our coats, and tie a scarf around Grandma's hair to
stop it from getting messed up by the wind. Then we make our way slowly down
the stairs and out the front door. We stand on the drive, and I turn to Grandma
and say, "Where do you want to go?"

"Let's go to the Orchard," she says.

"That's pretty far. Oh, Mama's waving;
wave back." We wave at Mama, who is all the way down by the fountain now.
Peter, our gardener, is with her. He has stopped talking to her and is looking
at us, waiting for us to go on so he and Mama can finish the argument they are
having, probably about daffodils, or peonies. Peter loves to argue with Mama,
but she always gets her way in the end. "It's almost a mile to the
Orchard, Grandma."

"Well, Clare, there's nothing wrong with
my legs."

"Okay, then, we'll go to the
Orchard." I take her arm, and away we go. When we get to the edge of the
Meadow I say, "Shade or sun?" and she answers, "Oh, sun, to be
sure," and so we take the path that cuts through the middle of the Meadow,
that leads to the clearing. As we walk, I describe.

"We're passing the bonfire pile. There's a
bunch of birds in it—oh, there they go!"

"Crows. Starlings. Doves, too," she
says.

"Yes...we're at the gate, now. Watch out,
the path is a little muddy. I can see dog tracks, a pretty big dog, maybe Joey
from Allinghams'. Everything is greening up pretty good. Here is that wild
rose."

"How high is the Meadow?" asks
Grandma.

"Only about a foot. It's a real pale
green. Here are the little oaks."

She turns her face toward me, smiling.
"Let's go and say hello." I lead her to the oaks that grow just a few
feet from the path. My grandfather planted these three oak trees in the forties
as a memorial to my Great Uncle Teddy, Grandma's brother who was killed in the
Second World War. The oak trees still aren't very big, only about fifteen feet
tall. Grandma puts her hand on the trunk of the middle one and says,
"Hello." I don't know if she's addressing the tree or her brother. We
walk on. As we walk over the rise I see the Meadow laid out before us, and
Henry is standing in the clearing. I halt. "What is it?" Grandma
asks. "Nothing," I tell her. I lead her along the path. "What do
you see?" she asks me. "There's a hawk circling over the woods,"
I say. "What time is it?"

I look at my watch. "Almost noon."

We enter the clearing. Henry stands very still.
He smiles at me. He looks tired. His hair is graying. He is wearing his black
overcoat, he stands out dark against the bright Meadow. "Where is the
rock?" Grandma says. "I want to sit down " I guide her to the
rock, help her to sit. She turns her face in Henry's direction and stiffens. "Who's
there?" she asks me, urgency in her voice. "No one " I lie.

"There's a man, there," she says,
nodding toward Henry. He looks at me with an expression that seems to mean Go
ahead. Tell her. A dog is barking in the woods. I hesitate.

"Clare," Grandma says. She sounds
scared.

"Introduce us," Henry says, quietly.
Grandma is still, waiting. I put my arm around her shoulders. "It's okay,
Grandma," I say. "This is my friend Henry. He's the one I told you
about." Henry walks over to us and holds out his hand. I place Grandma's
hand in his. "Elizabeth Meagram," I say to Henry.

"So you're the one," Grandma says.

"Yes," Henry replies, and this Yes
falls into my ears like balm. Yes. "May I?" She gestures with her
hands toward Henry.

"Shall I sit next to you?" Henry sits
on the rock. I guide Grandma's hand to his face. He watches my face as she
touches his. "That tickles," Henry says to Grandma.

"Sandpaper," she says as she runs her
fingertips across his unshaven chin. "You're not a boy," she says.

"No."

"How old are you?"

"I'm eight years older than Clare."

She looks puzzled. "Twenty-five?" I
look at Henry's salt and pepper hair, at the creases around his eyes. He looks
about forty, maybe older.

"Twenty-five," he says firmly.
Somewhere out there, it's true.

"Clare tells me she's going to marry
you," my grandmother says to Henry. He smiles at me. "Yes, we're
going to get married. In a few years, when Clare is out of school."

"In my day, gentlemen came to dinner and
met the family."

"Our situation is...unorthodox. That
hasn't been possible."

"I don't see why not. If you're going to
cavort around in meadows with my granddaughter you can certainly come up to the
house and be inspected by her parents."

"I'd be delighted to," Henry says,
standing up, "but I'm afraid right now I have a train to catch."

"Just a moment, young man—" Grandma
begins, as Henry says, "Goodbye, Mrs. Meagram. It was great to finally
meet you. Clare, I'm sorry I can't stay longer—" I reach out to Henry but
there's the noise like all the sound is being sucked out of the world and he's
already gone. I turn to Grandma. She's sitting on the rock with her hands
stretched out, an expression of utter bewilderment on her face.

"What happened?" she asks me, and I
begin to explain. When I am finished she sits with her head bowed, twisting her
arthritic fingers into strange shapes. Finally she raises her face toward me.
"But Clare," says my grandmother, "he must be a demon." She
says it matter-of-factly, as though she's telling me that my coat's buttoned up
wrong, or that it's time for lunch. What can I say? "I've thought of
that," I tell her. I take her hands to stop her from rubbing them red.
"But Henry is good. He doesn't feel like a demon."

Grandma smiles. "You talk as though you've
met a peck of them."

"Don't you think a real demon would be
sort of—demonic?"

"I think he would be nice as pie if he
wanted to be."

I choose my words carefully. "Henry told
me once that his doctor thinks he's a new kind of human. You know, sort of the
next step in evolution,"

Grandma shakes her head. "That is just as
bad as being a demon. Goodness, Clare, why in the world would you want to marry
such a person? Think of the children you would have! Popping into next week and
back before breakfast!"