The Time Traveler's Wife

  "Could you get there by time travel?"

  "Well. Here's my theory. Now, this is only a Special Theory of Time Travel as Performed by Henry DeTamble, and not a General Theory of Time Travel."

  "Okay."

  "First of all, I think it's a brain thing. I think it's a lot like epilepsy, because it tends to happen when I'm stressed, and there are physical cues, like flashing light, that can prompt it. And because things like running, and sex, and meditation tend to help me stay put in the present. Secondly, I have absolutely no conscious control over when or where I go, how long I stay, or when I come back. So time travel tours of the Riviera are very unlikely. Having said that, my subconscious seems to exert tremendous control, because I spend a lot of time in my own past, visiting events that are interesting or important, and evidently I will be spending enormous amounts of time visiting you, which I am looking forward to immensely. I tend to go to places I've already been in real time, although I do find myself in other, more random times and places. I tend to go to the past, rather than the future."

  "You've been to the future? I didn't know you could do that."

  Henry is looking pleased with himself. "So far, my range is about fifty years in each direction. But I very rarely go to the future, and I don't think I've ever seen much of anything there that I found useful. It's always quite brief. And maybe I just don't know what I'm looking at. It's the past that exerts a lot of pull. In the past I feel much more solid. Maybe the future itself is less substantial? I don't know. I always feel like I'm breathing thin air, out there in the future. That's one of the ways I can tell it is the future: it feels different. It's harder to run, there." Henry says this thoughtfully, and I suddenly have a glimpse of the terror of being in a foreign time and place, without clothes, without friends...

  "That's why your feet--"

  "Are like leather." The soles of Henry's feet have thick calluses, as though they are trying to become shoes. "I am a beast of the hoof. If anything ever happens to my feet you might as well shoot me."

  We ride on in silence for a while. The road rises and dips, dead fields of cornstalks flash by. Farmhouses stand washed in the winter sun, each with their vans and horse trailers and American cars lined up in the long driveways. I sigh. Going home is such a mixed experience. I'm dying to see Alicia and Etta, and I'm worried about my mother, and I don't especially feel like dealing with my father and Mark. But I'm curious to see how they deal with Henry, and he with them. I'm proud of the fact that I kept Henry a secret for so long. Fourteen years. When you're a kid fourteen years is forever.

  We pass a Wal-Mart, a Dairy Queen, a McDonald's. More cornfields. An orchard. U-Pick-M Strawberries, Blueberries. In the summer this road is a long corridor of fruit, grain, and capitalism. But now the fields are dead and dry and the cars speed along the sunny cold highway ignoring the beckoning parking lots.

  I never thought much about South Haven until I moved to Chicago. Our house always seemed like an island, sitting in the unincorporated area to the south, surrounded by the Meadow, orchards, woods, farms, and South Haven was just Town, as in Let's go to Town and get an ice cream. Town was groceries and hardware and Mackenzie's Bakery and the sheet music and records at the Music Emporium, Alicia's favorite store. We used to stand in front of Appleyard's Photography Studio making up stories about the brides and toddlers and families smiling their hideous smiles in the window. We didn't think the library was funny-looking in its faux Greek splendor, nor did we find the cuisine limited and bland, or the movies at the Michigan Theater relentlessly American and mindless. These were opinions I came to later, after I became a denizen of a City, an expatriate anxious to distance herself from the bumpkin ways of her youth. I am suddenly consumed by nostalgia for the little girl who was me, who loved the fields and believed in God, who spent winter days home sick from school reading Nancy Drew and sucking menthol cough drops, who could keep a secret. I glance over at Henry and see that he has fallen asleep.

  South Haven, fifty miles.

  Twenty-six, twelve, three, one.

  Phoenix Road.

  Blue Star Highway.

  And then: Meagram Lane. I reach over to wake Henry but he's already awake. He smiles nervously and looks out the window at the endless tunnel of bare winter trees as we hurtle along, and as the gate comes into view I fumble in the glove compartment for the opener and the gates swing apart and we pass through.

  The house appears like a pop-up in a book. Henry gasps, and starts to laugh.

  "What?" I say defensively.

  "I didn't realize it was so huge. How many rooms does this monster have?"

  "Twenty-four," I tell him. Etta is waving at us from the hall window as I pull around the drive and stop near the front door. Her hair is grayer than last time I was here, but her face is pink with pleasure. As we climb out of the car she's gingerly picking her way down the icy front steps in no coat and her good navy blue dress with the lace collar, carefully balancing her stout figure over her sensible shoes, and I run over to her to take her arm but she bats me away until she's at the bottom and then she gives me a hug and a kiss (I breathe in Etta's smell of Noxzema and powder so gladly) as Henry stands by, waiting. "And what have we here?" she says as though Henry is a small child I have brought along unannounced. "Etta Milbauer, Henry DeTamble," I introduce. I see a little 'Oh' on Henry's face and I wonder who he thought she was. Etta beams at Henry as we climb the steps. She opens the front door. Henry lowers his voice and asks me, "What about our stuff?" and I tell him that Peter will deal with it. "Where is everyone?" I ask, and Etta says that lunch is in fifteen minutes and we can take off our coats and wash and go right in. She leaves us standing in the hall and retreats to the kitchen. I turn, take off my coat and hang it in the hall closet. When I turn back to Henry he is waving at someone. I peer around him and see Nell sticking her broad, snub-nosed face out of the dining room door, grinning, and I run down the hall and give her a big sloppy kiss and she chuckles at me and says, "Pretty man, monkey girl," and ducks back into the other room before Henry can reach us.

  "Nell?" he guesses and I nod. "She's not shy, just busy," I explain. I lead him up the back stairs to the second floor. "You're in here," I tell him, opening the door to the blue bedroom. He glances in and follows me down the hall. "This is my room," I say apprehensively and Henry slips around me and stands in the middle of the rug just looking and when he turns to me I see that he doesn't recognize anything; nothing in the room means a thing to him, and the knife of realization sinks in deeper: all the little tokens and souvenirs in this museum of our past are as love letters to an illiterate. Henry picks up a wren's nest (it happens to be the first of all the many bird's nests he gave me over the years) and says, "Nice." I nod, and open my mouth to tell him and he puts it back on the shelf and says, "Does that door lock?" and I flip the lock and we're late for lunch.

  HENRY: I'm almost calm as I follow Clare down the stairs, through the dark cold hall and into the dining room. Everyone is already eating. The room is low ceilinged and comfortable in a William Morrisy sort of way; the air is warm from the fire crackling in the small fireplace and the windows are so frosted over that I can't see out. Clare goes over to a thin woman with pale red hair who must be her mother, who tilts her head to receive Clare's kiss, who half rises to shake my hand. Clare introduces her to me as "my mother" and I call her "Mrs. Abshire" and she immediately says "Oh, but you must call me Lucille, everyone does," and smiles in an exhausted but warm sort of way, as though she is a brilliant sun in some other galaxy. We take our seats across the table from each other. Clare is sitting between Mark and an elderly woman who turns out to be her Great Aunt Dulcie; I am sitting between Alicia and a plump pretty blond girl who is introduced as Sharon and who seems to be with Mark. Clare's father sits at the head of the table and my first impression is that he is deeply disturbed by me. Handsome, truculent Mark seems equally unnerved. They've seen me before. I wonder what I was doing that caused them to notice me, remember me, reco
il ever so slightly in aversion when Clare introduces me. But Philip Abshire is a lawyer, and master of his features, and within a minute he is affable and smiling, the host, my girlfriend's dad, a balding middle-aged man with aviator glasses and an athletic body gone soft and paunchy but strong hands, tennis-playing hands, gray eyes that continue to regard me warily despite the confidential grin. Mark has a harder time concealing his distress, and every time I catch his eye he looks at his plate. Alicia is not what I expected; she is matter-of-fact and kind, but a little odd, absent. She has Philip's dark hair, like Mark, and Lucille's features, sort of; Alicia looks as though someone had tried to combine Clare and Mark but had given up and thrown in some Eleanor Roosevelt to fill in the gaps. Philip says something and Alicia laughs, and suddenly she is lovely and I turn to her in surprise as she rises from the table.

  "I've got to go to St. Basil's," she informs me. "I've got a rehearsal. Are you coming to church?" I dart a look at Clare, who nods slightly, and I tell Alicia "Of course," and as everyone sighs with--what? relief? I remember that Christmas is, after all, a Christian holiday in addition to being my own personal day of atonement. Alicia leaves. I imagine my mother laughing at me, her well-plucked eyebrows raised high at the sight of her half-Jewish son marooned in the midst of Christmas in Goyland, and I mentally shake my finger at her. You should talk, I tell her. You married an Episcopalian. I look at my plate and it's ham, with peas and an effete little salad. I don't eat pork and I hate peas.

  "Clare tells us you're a librarian," Philip assays, and I admit that this is so. We have a chipper little discussion about the Newberry and people who are Newberry trustees and also clients of Philip's firm, which apparently is based in Chicago, in which case I am not clear about why Clare's family lives way up here in Michigan.

  "Summer homes," he tells me, and I remember Clare explaining that her father specializes in wills and trusts. I picture elderly rich people reclining on their private beaches, slathering on sunblock and deciding to cut Junior out of the will, reaching for their cell phones to call Philip. I recollect that Avi, who is first chair to my father's second at the CSO, has a house around here somewhere. I mention this and everyone's ears perk.

  "Do you know him?" Lucille asks.

  "Sure. He and my dad sit right next to each other."

  "Sit next to each other?"

  "Well, you know. First and second violin."

  "Your father is a violinist?"

  "Yeah." I look at Clare, who is staring at her mother with a don't embarrass me expression on her face.

  "And he plays for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra?"

  "Yes."

  Lucille s face is suffused with pink; now I know where Clare gets her blushes. "Do you think he would listen to Alicia play? If we gave him a tape?"

  I grimly hope that Alicia is very, very good. People are constantly bestowing tapes on Dad. Then I have a better idea.

  "Alicia is a cellist, isn't she?"

  "Yes."

  "Is she looking for a teacher?"

  Philip interjects: "She studies with Frank Wainwright in Kalamazoo."

  "Because I could give the tape to Yoshi Akawa. One of his students just left to take a job in Paris." Yoshi is a great guy and first chair cello. I know he'll at least listen to the tape; my dad, who doesn't teach, will simply pitch it out. Lucille is effusive; even Philip seems pleased. Clare looks relieved. Mark eats. Great Aunt Dulcie, pink-haired and tiny, is oblivious to this whole exchange. Perhaps she's deaf? I glance at Sharon, who is sitting on my left and who hasn't said a word. She looks miserable. Philip and Lucille are discussing which tape they should give me, or perhaps Alicia should make a new one? I ask Sharon if this is her first time up here and she nods. Just as I'm about to ask her another question Philip asks me what my mother does and I blink; I give Clare a look that says Didn't you tell them anything?

  "My mother was a singer. She's dead."

  Clare says, quietly, "Henry's mother was Annette Lyn Robinson." She might as well have told them my mom was the Virgin Mary; Philip's face lights up. Lucille makes a little fluttering motion with her hands.

  "Unbelievable--fantastic! We have all her recordings--" und so wiete. But then Lucille says, "I met her when I was young. My father took me to hear Madama Butterfly, and he knew someone who took us backstage afterward, and we went to her dressing room, and she was there, and all these flowers! and she had her little boy--why, that was you!"

  I nod, trying to find my voice. Clare says, "What did she look like?" Mark says, "Are we going skiing this afternoon?" Philip nods. Lucille smiles, lost in memory. "She was so beautiful--she still had the wig on, that long black hair, and she was teasing the little boy with it, tickling him, and he was dancing around. She had such lovely hands, and she was just my height, so slender, and she was Jewish, you know, but I thought she looked more Italian--" Lucille breaks off and her hand flies to her mouth, and her eyes dart to my plate, which is clean except for a few peas.

  "Are you Jewish?" Mark asks, pleasantly.

  "I suppose I could be, if I wanted, but nobody ever made a point of it. She died when I was six, and my dad's a lapsed Episcopalian."

  "You look just like her" Lucille volunteers, and I thank her. Our plates are removed by Etta, who asks Sharon and me if we drink coffee. We both say Yes at the same time, so emphatically that Clare's whole family laughs. Etta gives us a motherly smile and minutes later she sets steaming cups of coffee in front of us and I think That wasn't so bad after all. Everyone talks about skiing, and the weather, and we all stand up and Philip and Mark walk into the hall together; I ask Clare if she's going skiing and she shrugs and asks me if I want to and I explain that I don't ski and have no interest in learning. She decides to go anyway after Lucille says that she needs someone to help with her bindings. As we walk up the stairs I hear Mark say, "--incredible resemblance--" and I smile to myself.

  Later, after everyone has left and the house is quiet, I venture down from my chilly room in search of warmth and more coffee. I walk through the dining room and into the kitchen and am confronted by an amazing array of glassware, silver, cakes, peeled vegetables, and roasting pans in a kitchen that looks like something you'd see in a four-star restaurant. In the midst of it all stands Nell with her back to me, singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and waggling her large hips, waving a baster at a young black girl who points at me mutely. Nell turns around and smiles a huge gap-toothed smile and then says, "What are you doin' in my kitchen, Mister Boyfriend?"

  "I was wondering if you have any coffee left?"

  "Left? What do you think, I let coffee sit around all day gettin' vile? Shoo, son, get out of here and go sit in the living room and pull on the bell and I will make you some fresh coffee. Didn't your mama teach you about coffee?"

  "Actually, my mother wasn't much of a cook" I tell her, venturing closer to the center of the vortex. Something smells wonderful. "What are you making?"

  "What you're smellin' is a Thompson's Turkey," Nell says. She opens the oven to show me a monstrous turkey that looks like something that's been in the Great Chicago Fire. It's completely black. "Don't look so dubious, boy. Underneath that crust is the best eatin' turkey on Planet Earth."

  I am willing to believe her; the smell is perfect. "What is a Thompson's Turkey?" I ask, and Nell discourses on the miraculous properties of the Thompson's Turkey, invented by Morton Thompson, a newspaperman, in the 1930s. Apparently the production of this marvelous beast involves a great deal of stuffing, basting, and turning. Nell allows me to stay in her kitchen while she makes me coffee and wrangles the turkey out of the oven and wrestles it onto its back and then artfully drools cider gravy all over it before shoving it back into the chamber. There are twelve lobsters crawling around in a large plastic tub of water by the sink. "Pets?" I tease her, and she replies, "That's your Christmas dinner, son; you want to pick one out? You're not a vegetarian, are you?" I assure her that I am not, that I am a good boy who eats whatever is put in front of him.
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br />   "You'd never know it, you so thin," Nell says. "I'm gonna feed you up."

  "That's why Clare brought me."

  "Hmm," Nell says, pleased. "Awright, then. Now scat so I can get on, here." I take my large mug of fragrant coffee and wend my way to the living room, where there is a huge Christmas tree and a fire. It looks like an ad for Pottery Barn. I settle myself in an orange wing chair by the fire and am riffing through the pile of newspapers when someone says, "Where'd you get the coffee?" and I look up and see Sharon sitting across from me in a blue armchair that exactly matches her sweater.

  "Hi" I say. "I'm sorry--"

  "That's okay," Sharon says.

  "I went to the kitchen, but I guess we're supposed to use the bell, wherever that is." We scan the room and sure enough, there's a bell pull in the corner.

  "This is so weird," Sharon says. "We've been here since yesterday and I've been just kind of creeping around, you know, afraid to use the wrong fork or something..."

  "Where are you from?"

  "Florida." She laughs. "I never had a white Christmas 'til I got to Harvard. My dad owns a gas station in Jacksonville. I figured after school I'd go back there, you know, 'cause I don't like the cold, but now I guess I'm stuck."

  "How come?"

  Sharon looks surprised. "Didn't they tell you? Mark and I are getting married."

  I wonder if Clare knows this; it seems like something she would have mentioned. Then I notice the diamond on Sharon's finger. "Congratulations."

  "I guess. I mean, thank you."

  "Um, aren't you sure? About getting married?" Sharon actually looks like she's been crying; she's all puffy around the eyes.

  "Well, I'm pregnant. So..."

  "Well, it doesn't necessarily follow--"

  "Yeah it does. If you're Catholic." Sharon sighs, and slouches into the chair. I actually know several Catholic girls who have had abortions and weren't struck down by lightning, but apparently Sharon's is a less accommodating faith.

  "Well, congratulations. Uh, when...?"

  "January eleventh." She sees my surprise and says, "Oh, the baby? April." She makes a face. "I hope it's over spring break, because otherwise I don't see how I'll manage--not that it matters so much now..."