CLARE: It's hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays. I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.
I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I'm tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that's been under the snow all winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by absence?
Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them, standing on the edge of the water, scanning the horizon for the tiny ship. Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waiting. Why has he gone where I cannot follow?
HENRY: How does it feel? How does it feel? Sometimes it feels as though your attention has wandered for just an instant. Then, with a start, you realize that the book you were holding, the red plaid cotton shirt with white buttons, the favorite black jeans and the maroon socks with an almost-hole in one heel, the living room, the about-to-whistle tea kettle in the kitchen: all of these have vanished. You are standing, naked as a jaybird, up to your ankles in ice water in a ditch along an unidentified rural route. You wait a minute to see if maybe you will just snap right back to your book, your apartment, et cetera. After about five minutes of swearing and shivering and hoping to hell you can just disappear, you start walking in any direction, which will eventually yield a farmhouse, where you have the option of stealing or explaining. Stealing will sometimes land you in jail, but explaining is more tedious and time-consuming and involves lying anyway, and also sometimes results in being hauled off to jail, so what the hell.
Sometimes you feel as though you have stood up too quickly even if you are lying in bed half asleep. You hear blood rushing in your head, feel vertiginous falling sensations. Your hands and feet are tingling and then they aren't there at all. You've mislocated yourself again. It only takes an instant, you have just enough time to try to hold on, to flail around (possibly damaging yourself or valuable possessions) and then you are skid-ding across the forest-green-carpeted hallway of a Motel 6 in Athens, Ohio, at 4:16 a.m., Monday, August 6, 1981, and you hit your head on someone's door, causing this person, a Ms. Tina Schulman from Philadelphia, to open this door and start screaming because there's a naked, carpet-burned man passed out at her feet. You wake up in the County Hospital concussed with a policeman sitting outside your door listening to the Phillies game on a crackly transistor radio. Mercifully, you lapse back into unconsciousness and wake up again hours later in your own bed with your wife leaning over you looking very worried.
Sometimes you feel euphoric. Everything is sublime and has an aura, and suddenly you are intensely nauseated and then you are gone. You are throwing up on some suburban geraniums, or your father's tennis shoes, or your very own bathroom floor three days ago, or a wooden sidewalk in Oak Park, Illinois, circa 1903, or a tennis court on a fine autumn day in How the 1950s, or your own naked feet in a wide variety of times and places.
How does it feel?
It feels exactly like one of those dreams in which you suddenly realize that you have to take a test you haven't studied for and you aren't wearing any clothes. And you've left your wallet at home.
When I am out there, in time, I am inverted, changed into a desperate version of myself. I become a thief, a vagrant, an animal who runs and hides. I startle old women and amaze children. I am a trick, an illusion of the highest order, so incredible that I am actually true.
Is there a logic, a rule to all this coming and going, all this dislocation? Is there a way to stay put, to embrace the present with every cell? I don't know. There are clues; as with any disease there are patterns, possibilities. Exhaustion, loud noises, stress, standing up suddenly, flashing light—any of these can trigger an episode. But: I can be reading the Sunday Times, coffee in hand and Clare dozing beside me on our bed and suddenly I'm in 1976 watching my thirteen-year-old self mow my grand-parents' lawn. Some of these episodes last only moments; it's like listening to a car radio that's having trouble holding on to a station. I find myself in crowds, audiences, mobs. Just as often I am alone, in a field, house, car, on a beach, in a grammar school in the middle of the night. I fear finding myself in a prison cell, an elevator full of people, the middle of a highway. I appear from nowhere, naked. How can I explain? I have never been able to carry anything with me. No clothes, no money, no ID. I spend most of my sojourns acquiring clothing and trying to hide. Fortunately I don't wear glasses.
It's ironic, really. All my pleasures are homey ones: armchair splendor, the sedate excitements of domesticity. All I ask for are humble delights. A mystery novel in bed, the smell of Clare's long red-gold hair damp from washing, a postcard from a friend on vacation, cream dispersing into coffee, the softness of the skin under Clare's breasts, the symmetry of grocery bags sitting on the kitchen counter waiting to be unpacked. I love meandering through the stacks at the library after the patrons have gone home, lightly touching the spines of the books. These are the things that can pierce me with longing when I am displaced from them by Time's whim.
And Clare, always Clare. Clare in the morning, sleepy and crumple-faced. Clare with her arms plunging into the papermaking vat, pulling up the mold and shaking it so, and so, to meld the fibers. Clare reading, with her hair hanging over the back of the chair, massaging balm into her cracked red hands before bed. Clare's low voice is in my ear often.
I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going, and she cannot follow.
Friday, September 23, 1977 (Henry is 36, Clare is 6)
HENRY: I'm in the Meadow, waiting. I wait slightly outside the clearing, I'm naked, because the clothes Clare keeps for me in a box under a stone are not there; the box isn't there either, so I am thankful that the afternoon is fine, early September, perhaps, in some unidentified year. I hunker down in the tall grass. I consider. The fact that there is no box full of clothes means that I have arrived in a time before Clare and I have met. Perhaps Clare isn't even born yet. This has happened before, and it's a pain; I miss Clare and I spend the time hiding naked in the Meadow, not daring to show myself in the neighborhood of Clare's family. I think longingly of the apple trees at the western edge of the Meadow. At this time of year there ought to be apples, small and sour and munched by deer, but edible. I hear the screen door slam and I peer above the grass. A child is running, pell mell, and as it comes down the path through the waving grass my heart twists and Clare bursts into the clearing.
She is very young. She is oblivious; she is alone. She is still wearing her school uniform, a hunter green jumper with a white blouse and knee socks with penny loafers, and she is carrying a Marshall Field's shopping bag and a beach towel. Clare spreads the towel on the ground and dumps out the contents of the bag: every imaginable kind of writing implement. Old ballpoint pens, little stubby pencils from the library, crayons, smelly Magic Markers, a fountain pen. She also has a bunch of her dad's office stationery. She arranges the implements and gives the stack of paper a smart shake, and then proceeds to try each pen and pencil in turn, making careful lines and swirls, humming to herself. After listening carefully for a while I identify her humming as the theme song of "The Dick Van Dyke Show."
I hesitate. Clare is content, absorbed. She must be about six; if it's September she has probably just entered first grade. She's obviously not waiting for me, I'm a stranger, and I'm sure that the first thing you learn in first grade is not to have any truck with strangers who show up naked in your favorite secret spot and know your name and tell you not to tell your mom and dad. I wonder if today is the day we are supposed to meet for the first time or if it's some other day. Maybe I should be very silent and either Clare will go away and I can go munch up those apples and steal some laundry or I will revert to my regularly scheduled programming.
I snap from my reverie to find Clare staring straight at me. I realize, too late, that I have been humming along with her.
"Who's there?" Clare hisses. She looks like a really pissed off goose, all neck and legs. I am thinking fast.
"Greetings, Earthling," I intone, kindly.
"Mark! You nimrod!" Clare is casting around for something to throw,
and decides on her shoes, which have heavy, sharp heels. She whips them
off and does throw them. I don't think she can see me very well, but she
lucks out and one of them catches me in the mouth. My lip starts to bleed.
"Please don't do that." I don't have anything to staunch the blood, so I
press my hand to my mouth and my voice comes out muffled. My jaw hurts.
"Who is it?" Now Clare is frightened, and so am I.
"Henry. It's Henry, Clare. I won't hurt you, and I wish you wouldn't throw anything else at me."
"Give me back my shoes. I don't know you. Why are you hiding?" Clare is glowering at me.
I toss her shoes back into the clearing. She picks them up and stands holding them like pistols. "I'm hiding because I lost my clothes and I'm embarrassed. I came a long way and I'm hungry and I don't know any-body and now I'm bleeding."
"Where did you come from? Why do you know my name?"
The whole truth and nothing but the truth. "I came from the future. I am a time traveler. In the future we are friends?'
"People only time travel in movies."
"That's what we want you to believe."
why?" .
"If everybody time traveled it would get too crowded. Like when you went to see your Grandma Abshire last Christmas and you had to go through O'Hare Airport and it was very, very crowded? We time travelers don't want to mess things up for ourselves, so we keep it quiet."
Clare chews on this for a minute. "Come out."
"Loan me your beach towel:' She picks it up and all the pens and pencils and papers go flying. She throws it at me, overhand, and I grab it and turn my back as I stand and wrap it around my waist. It is bright pink and orange with a loud geometric pattern. Exactly the sort of thing you'd want to be wearing when you meet your future wife for the first time. I turn around and walk into the clearing; I sit on the rock with as much dignity as possible. Clare stands as far away from me as she can get and remain in the clearing. She is still clutching her shoes.
"You're bleeding?'
"Well, yeah. You threw a shoe at me?'
Silence. I am trying to look harmless, and nice. Nice looms large in Clare's childhood, because so many people aren't.
"You're making fun of me."
"I would never make fun of you. Why do you think I'm making fun of you?"
Clare is nothing if not stubborn. "Nobody time travels. You're lying."
"Santa time travels."
"Sure. How do you think he gets all those presents delivered in one night? He just keeps turning back the clock a few hours until he gets down every one of those chimneys."
"Santa is magic. You're not Santa."
"Meaning I'm not magic? Geez, Louise, you're a tough customer."
"I'm not Louise:"
"I know. You're Clare. Clare Anne Abshire, born May 24, 1971. Your parents are Philip and Lucille Abshire, and you live with them and your grandma and your brother, Mark, and your sister, Alicia, in that big house up there"
"Just because you know things doesn't mean you're from the future."
"If you hang around a while you can watch me disappear." I feel I can count on this because Clare once told me it was the thing she found most impressive about our first meeting.
Silence. Clare shifts her weight from foot to foot and waves away a mosquito. "Do you know Santa?"
"Personally? Urn, no." I have stopped bleeding, but I must look awful.
"Hey, Clare, do you happen to have a Band-Aid? Or some food? Time traveling makes me pretty hungry."
She thinks about this. She digs into her jumper pocket and produces a Hershey bar with one bite out of it. She throws it at me.
"Thank you. I love these." I eat it neatly but very quickly. My blood sugar is low. I put the wrapper in her shopping bag. Clare is delighted.
"You eat like a dog."
"I do not!" I am deeply offended. "I have opposable thumbs, thank you very much."
"What are posable thumbs?"
"Do this." I make the "okay" sign. Clare makes the "okay" sign.
Opposable thumbs means you can do that. It means you can open jars and tie your shoes and other things animals can't do."
Clare is not happy with this. "Sister Carmelita says animals don't have souls."
"Of course animals have souls. Where did she get that idea?"
"She said the Pope says."
"The Pope's an old meanie. Animals have much nicer souls than we do. They never tell lies or blow anybody up."
"They eat each other."
"Well, they have to eat each other; they can't go to Dairy Queen and get a large vanilla cone with sprinkles, can they?" This is Clare's favorite thing to eat in the whole wide world (as a child. As an adult Clare's favorite food is sushi, particularly sushi from Katsu on Peterson Avenue).
"They could eat grass."
"So could we, but we don't. We eat hamburgers."
Clare sits down at the edge of the clearing. "Etta says I shouldn't talk to strangers."
"That's good advice."
Silence.
"When are you going to disappear?"
"When I'm good and ready to. Are you bored with me?" Clare rolls her eyes. "What are you working on?"
"Penmanship."
"May I see?"
Clare gets up carefully and collects a few pieces of stationery while fix¬ing me with her baleful stare. I lean forward slowly and extend my hand as though she is a Rottweiler, and she quickly shoves the papers at me and retreats. I look at them intently, as though she has just handed me a bunch of Bruce Rogers' original drawings for Centaur or the Book of Kells or something. She has printed, over and over, large and larger, "Clare Anne Abshire." All the ascenders and descenders have swirling curlicues and all the counters have smiley faces in them. It's quite beautiful.
"This is lovely."
Clare is pleased, as always when she receives homage for her work. "I could make one for you"
"I would like that. But I'm not allowed to take anything with me when I time travel, so maybe you could keep it for me and I could just enjoy it while I'm here."
"Why can't you take anything?"
"Well, think about it. If we time travelers started to move things around in time, pretty soon the world would be a big mess. Let's say I brought some money with me into the past. I could look up all the win¬ning lottery numbers and football teams and make a ton of money. That doesn't seem very fair, does it? Or if I was really dishonest, I could steal things and bring them to the future where nobody could find me."
"You could be a pirate!" Clare seems so pleased with the idea of me as a pirate that she forgets that I am Stranger Danger. "You could bury the money and make a treasure map and dig it up in the future." This is in fact more or less how Clare and I fund our rock-and-roll lifestyle. As an adult Clare finds this mildly immoral, although it does give us an edge in the stock market.
"That's a great idea. But what I really need isn't money, it's clothing." Clare looks at me doubtfully.
"Does your dad have any clothes he doesn't need? Even a pair of pants would be great. I mean, I like this towel, don't get me wrong, it's just that where I come from, I usually like to wear pants" Philip Abshire is a tad shorter than me and about thirty pounds heavier. His pants are comical but comfortable on me.
"I don't know...."
"That's okay, you don't need to get them right now. But if you bring some next time I come, it would be very nice"
"Next time?"
I find an unused piece of stationery and a pencil. I print in block letters:
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1977 AFTER SUPPER. I hand Clare the paper, and she receives it cautiously. My vision is blurring. I can hear Etta calling Clare. "It's a secret, Clare, okay?"
"Why?"
"Can't tell. I have to go, now. It was nice to meet you. Don't take any wooden nickels." I hold out my hand and Clare takes it, bravely. As we shake hands, I disappear.
Wednesday, February 9, 2000 (Clare is 28, Henry is 36)
CLARE: It’s early, about six in the morning and I’m sleeping the thin dreamy sleep of six in the morning when Henry slams me awake and I realize he's been elsewhere. He materializes practically on top of me and I yell, and we scare the shit out of each other and then he starts laughing and rolls over and I roll over and look at him and realize that his mouth is bleeding profusely. I jump up to get a washcloth and Henry is still smiling when I get back and start daubing at his lip.
"How'd that happen?"
"You threw a shoe at me." I don't remember ever throwing anything at Henry.
"Did not."
"Did too. We just met for the very first time, and as soon as you laid eyes on me you said, `That's the man I'm going to marry,' and you pasted me one. I always said you were an excellent judge of character."
Sunday, September 23, 1984 (Henry is 35, Clare is 13)
HENRY: I am in the clearing, in the Meadow. It's very early in the morning, just before dawn. It's late summer, all the flowers and grasses are up to my chest. It's chilly. I am alone. I wade through the plants and locate the clothes box, open it up, and find blue jeans and a white oxford shirt and flip-flops. I've never seen these clothes before, so I have no idea where I am in time. Clare has also left me a snack: there's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich carefully wrapped in aluminum foil, with an apple and a bag of Jay's potato chips. Maybe this is one of Clare's school lunches. My expectations veer in the direction of the late seventies or early eighties. I sit down on the rock and eat the food, and then I feel much better. The sun is rising. The whole Meadow is blue, and then orange, and pink, the shadows are elongated, and then it is day. There's no sign of clare. I crawl a few feet into the vegetation, curl up on the ground even
though it is wet with dew, and sleep.
When I wake up the sun is higher and Clare is sitting next to me reading a book. She smiles at me and says, "Daylight in the swamp. The birds are singing and the frogs are croaking and it's time to get up!"
I groan and rub my eyes. "Hi, Clare. What's the date?"
"Sunday, September 23, 1984."
Clare is thirteen. A strange and difficult age, but not as difficult as what we are going through in my present. I sit up, and yawn. "Clare, if I asked very nicely, would you go into your house and smuggle out a cup of coffee for me?"
"Coffee?" Clare says this as though she has never heard of the substance. As an adult she is as much of an addict as I am. She considers the logistics. "Pretty please?"
"Okay, I'll try." She stands up, slowly. This is the year Clare got tall, quickly. In the past year she has grown five inches, and she has not yet become accustomed to her new body. Breasts and legs and hips, all newly minted. I try not to think about it as I watch her walk up the path to the house. I glance at the book she was reading. It's a Dorothy Sayers, one I haven't read. I'm on page thirty-three by the time she gets back. She has brought a Thermos, cups, a blanket, and some doughnuts. A summer's worth of sun has freckled Clare's nose, and I have to resist the urge to run my hands through her bleached hair, which falls over her arms as she spreads out the blanket.
"Bless you." I receive the Thermos as though it contains a sacrament. We settle ourselves on the blanket. I kick off the flip-flops, pour out a cup of coffee, and take a sip. It's incredibly strong and bitter. "Yowza! This is rocket fuel, Clare:'
"Too strong?" She looks a little depressed, and I hasten to compliment her.
"Well, there's probably no such thing as too strong, but it's pretty strong. I like it, though. Did you make it?"
"Uh-huh. I never made coffee before, and Mark came in and was kind of bugging me, so maybe I did it wrong."
"No, it's fine." I blow on the coffee, and gulp it down. I feel better immediately. I pour another cup.
Clare takes the Thermos from me. She pours herself half an inch of coffee and takes a cautious sip. "Ugh;" she says. "This is disgusting. Is it supposed to taste like this?"
"Well, it's usually a little less ferocious. You like yours with lots of
cream and sugar."
Clare pours the rest of her coffee into the Meadow and takes a dough-nut. Then she says, "You're making me into a freak."
I don't have a ready reply for this, since the idea has never occurred to me. "Uh, no I'm not."
"You are so."
"Am not." I pause. "What do you mean, I'm making you into a freak? I'm not making you into anything?'
"You know, like telling me that I like coffee with cream and sugar before I hardly even taste it. I mean, how am I going to figure out if that's what I like or if I just like it because you tell me I like it?"
"But Clare, it's just personal taste. You should be able to figure out how you like coffee whether I say anything or not. Besides, you're the one who's always bugging me to tell you about the future?'
"Knowing the future is different from being told what I like;" Clare says. "Why? It's all got to do with free will."
Clare takes off her shoes and socks. She pushes the socks into the shoes and places them neatly at the edge of the blanket. Then she takes my cast-off flip-flops and aligns them with her shoes, as though the blanket is a tatami mat. "I thought free will had to do with sin."
I think about this. "No," I say, "why should free will be limited to right and wrong? I mean, you just decided, of your own free will, to take off your shoes. It doesn't matter, nobody cares if you wear shoes or not, and it's not sinful, or virtuous, and it doesn't affect the future, but you've exercised your free will."
Clare shrugs. "But sometimes you tell me something and I feel like the future is already there, you know? Like my future has happened in the past I can't do anything about it?'
"That's called determinism," I tell her. "It haunts my dreams."
Clare is intrigued. "Why?"
"Well, if you are feeling boxed in by the idea that your future is unalterable, imagine how I feel. I'm constantly running up against the fact that I can't change anything, even though I am right there, watching it."
"But Henry, you do change things! I mean, you wrote down that stuff that I'm supposed to give you in 1991 about the baby with Down Syndrome. And the List, if I didn't have the List I would never know when to come meet you. You change things all the time."
I smile. "I can only do things that work toward what has already happened. I can't, for example, undo the fact that you just took off your shoes."
Clare laughs. "Why would you care if I take them off or not?"
"I don't. But even if I did, it's now an unalterable part of the history of the universe and I can't do a thing about it." I help myself to a dough
nut. It's a Bismarck, my favorite. The frosting is melting in the sun a little, and it sticks to my fingers.
Clare finishes her doughnut, rolls up the cuffs of her jeans and sits cross-legged. She scratches her neck and looks at me with annoyance.
"Now you're making me self-conscious. I feel like every time I blow my nose it's a historic event."
"Well, it is."
She rolls her eyes. "What's the opposite of determinism?" "Chaos."
"Oh. I don't think I like that. Do you like that?"
I take a big bite out of the Bismarck and consider chaos. "Well, I do and I don't. Chaos is more freedom; in fact, total freedom. But no meaning. I want to be free to act, and I also want my actions to mean some-thing."
"But, Henry, you're forgetting about God—why can't there be a God who makes it mean something?" Clare frowns earnestly, and looks away across the Meadow as she speaks.
I pop the last of the Bismarck into my mouth and chew slowly to gain time. Whenever Clare mentions God my palms start to sweat and I have an urge to hide or run or vanish.
"I don't know, Clare. I mean, to me things seem too random and meaningless for there to be a God."
Clare clasps her arms around her knees. "But you just said before that everything seems like it's all planned out beforehand."
"Hpmf;" I say. I grab Clare's ankles, pull her feet onto my lap, and hold on. Clare laughs, and leans back on her elbows. Clare's feet are cold in my hands; they are very pink and very clean. "Okay," I say, "let's see. The choices we're working with here are a block universe, where past, present and future all coexist simultaneously and everything has already hap¬pened; chaos, where anything can happen and nothing can be predicted because we can't know all the variables; and a Christian universe in which God made everything and it's all here for a purpose but we have free will anyway. Right?"
Clare wiggles her toes at me. "I guess."
"And what do you vote for?"
Clare is silent. Her pragmatism and her romantic feelings about Jesus and Mary are, at thirteen, almost equally balanced. A year ago she would have said God without hesitation. In ten years she will vote for determinism, and ten years after that Clare will believe that the universe is arbitrary, that if God exists he does not hear our prayers, that cause and effect are inescapable and brutal, but meaningless. And after that? I don't know. But right now Clare sits on the threshold of adolescence with her faith in one hand and her growing skepticism in the other, and all she can do is try to juggle them, or squeeze them together until they fuse. She shakes her head. "I don't know. I want God. Is that okay?"
I feel like an asshole. "Of course it's okay. That's what you believe."
"But I don't want to just believe it, I want it to be true."
I run my thumbs across Clare's arches, and she closes her eyes. "You and St. Thomas Aquinas both," I say.
"I've heard of him," Clare says, as though she's speaking of a long-lost favorite uncle, or the host of a TV show she used to watch when she was little.
"He wanted order and reason, and God, too. He lived in the thirteenth century and taught at the University of Paris. Aquinas believed in both Aristotle and angels."
"I love angels." says Clare. "They're so beautiful. I wish I could have wings and fly around and sit on clouds."
"Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich."'
Clare sighs, a little soft sigh that means I don't speak German, remember? "Huh?"
"`Every angel is terrifying.' It's part of a series of poems called The Duino Elegies, by a poet named Rilke. He's one of our favorite poets." Clare laughs. "You're doing it again!"
"What?"
"Telling me what I like." Clare burrows into my lap with her feet. Without thinking I put her feet on my shoulders, but then that seems too sexual, somehow, and I quickly take Clare's feet in my hands again and hold them together with one hand in the air as she lies on her back, innocent and angelic with her hair spread nimbus-like around her on the blanket. I tickle her feet. Clare giggles and twists out of my hands like a fish, jumps up and does a cartwheel across the clearing, grinning at me as if to dare me to come and get her. I just grin back, and she returns to the blanket and sits down next to me.
"Henry?"
"Yeah?"
"You are making me different."
"I know."
I turn to look at Clare and just for a moment I forget that she is young, and that this is long ago; I see Clare, my wife, superimposed on the face of this young girl, and I don't know what to say to this Clare who is old and young and different from other girls, who knows that different might be hard. But Clare doesn't seem to expect an answer. She leans against my arm, and I put my arm around her shoulders.
"Clare!" Across the quiet of the Meadow Clare's dad is bellowing her name. Clare jumps up and grabs her shoes and socks.
"It's time for church;" she says, suddenly nervous.
"Okay;" I say. "Urn, bye." I wave at her, and she smiles and mumbles goodbye and is running up the path, and is gone. I lie in the sun for a while, wondering about God, reading Dorothy Sayers. After an hour or so has passed I too am gone and there is only a blanket and a book, coffee cups, and clothing, to show that we were there at all.
Sunday, September 27, 1987 (Henry is 32, Clare is 16)
HENRY: I materialize in the Meadow, about fifteen feet west of the clearing. I feel dreadful, dizzy and nauseated, so I sit for a few minutes to pull myself together. It's chilly and gray, and I am submerged in the tall brown grass, which cuts into my skin. After a while I feel a little better, and it's quiet, so I stand up and walk into the clearing.
Clare is sitting on the ground, next to the rock, leaning against it. She doesn't say anything, just looks at me with what I can only describe as anger. Uh oh, I think. What have I done? She's in her Grace Kelly phase; she's wearing her blue wool coat and a red skirt. I'm shivering, and I hunt for the clothes box. I find it, and don black jeans, a black sweater, black wool socks, a black overcoat, black boots, and black leather gloves. I look like I'm about to star in a Wim Wenders film. I sit down next to Clare.
"Hi, Clare. Are you okay?"
"Hi, Henry. Here." She hands me a Thermos and two sandwiches.
"Thanks. I feel kind of sick, so I'll wait a little?' I set the food on the rock. The Thermos contains coffee; I inhale deeply. Just the smell makes me feel better. "Are you all right?" She's not looking at me. As I scrutinize Clare, I realize that she's been crying.
"Henry. Would you beat someone up for me?"
"What?"
"I want to hurt someone, and I'm not big enough, and I don't know how to fight. Will you do it for me?"
"Whoa. What are you talking about? Who? Why?"
Clare stares at her lap. "I don't want to talk about it. Couldn't you just take my word that he totally deserves it?"
I think I know what's going on; I think I've heard this story before. I sigh, and move closer to Clare, and put my arm around her. She leans her head on my shoulder.
"This is about some guy you went on a date with, right?"
"Yeah?'
"And he was a jerk, and now you want me to pulverize him?" "Yeah.
"Clare, lots of guys are jerks. I used to be a jerk—"
Clare laughs. "I bet you weren't as big of a jerk as Jason Everleigh." "He's a football player or something, right?"
"Yes.
"Clare, what makes you think I can take on some huge jock half my age? Why were you even going out with someone like that?"
She shrugs. "At school, everybody's been bugging me 'cause I never to anyone. Ruth and Meg and Nancy—I mean, there are all these
ors going around that I'm a lesbian. Even Mama is asking me why I won't go out with boys. Guys ask me out, and I turn them down. And then Beatrice Dilford, who is a dyke, asked me if I was, and I told her no, and she said that she wasn't surprised, but that's what everybody was saying. So then I thought, well, maybe I'd better go out with a few guys. So the
next one who asked was Jason. He's, like, this jock, and he's really good looking, and I knew that if I went out with him everyone would know, and I thought maybe they would shut up."
"So this was the first time you went out on a date?"
"Yeah. We went to this Italian restaurant and Laura and Mike were there, and a bunch of people from Theater class, and I offered to go Dutch but he said no, he never did that, and it was okay, I mean, we talked about school and stuff, football. Then we went to see Friday the 13th, Part VII, which was really stupid, in case you were thinking of seeing it."
"I've seen it."
"Oh. Why? It doesn't seem like your kind of thing."
"Same reason you did; my date wanted to see it."
"Who was your date?"
"A woman named Alex."
"What was she like?"
"A bank teller with big tits who liked to be spanked." The second this pops out of my mouth I realize that I am talking to Clare the teenager, not Clare my wife, and I mentally smack myself in the head.
"Spanked?" Clare looks at me, smiling, her eyebrows halfway to her hairline.
"Never mind. So you went to a movie, and...?"
"Oh. Well, then he wanted to go to Traver's."
"What is Traver's?"
"It's a farm on the north side." Clare's voice drops, I can hardly hear her. "It's where people go to...make out." I don't say anything. "So I told him I was tired, and wanted to go home, and then he got kind of, um, mad.” Clare stops talking; for a while we sit, listening to birds, airplanes, wind. Suddenly Clare says, "He was really mad."
"What happened then?"
"He wouldn't take me home. I wasn't sure where we were; somewhere out on Route 12, he was just driving around, down little lanes, God, I don't know. He drove down this dirt road, and there was this little cottage. There was a lake nearby, I could hear it. And he had the key to this place."
I'm getting nervous. Clare never told me any of this; just that she once went on a really horrible date with some guy named Jason, who was a football player. Clare has fallen silent again.
"Clare. Did he rape you?"
"No. He said I wasn't...good enough. He said—no, he didn't rape me. He just—hurt me. He made me...." She can't say it. I wait. Clare unbuttons her coat, and removes it. She peels her shirt off, and I see that her back is covered with bruises. They are dark and purple against her white skin. Clare turns and there is a cigarette burn on her right breast, blistered and ugly. I asked her once what that scar was, and she wouldn't say. I am going to kill this guy. I am going to cripple him. Clare sits before me, shoulders back, gooseflesh, waiting. I hand her her shirt, and she puts it on.
"All right," I tell her quietly. "Where do I find this guy?"
"I'll drive you," she says.
Clare picks me up in the Fiat at the end of the driveway, out of sight of the house. She's wearing sunglasses even though it's a dim afternoon, and lipstick, and her hair is coiled at the back of her head. She looks a lot older than sixteen. She looks like she just walked out of Rear Window, though the resemblance would be more perfect if she was blond. We speed through the fall trees, but I don't think either of us notices much color. A tape loop of what happened to Clare in that little cottage has begun to play repeatedly in my head.
“How big is he?”
Clare considers. "A couple inches taller than you. A lot heavier. Fifty pounds?"
"Christ."
"I brought this." Clare digs in her purse and produces a handgun. "Clare!"
"It's Daddy's?'
I think fast. "Clare, that's a bad idea. I mean, I'm mad enough to actu¬ally use it, and that would be stupid. Ah, wait." I take it from her, open the chamber, and remove the bullets and put them in her purse. "There. That's better. Brilliant idea, Clare." Clare looks at me, questioning. I stick the gun in my overcoat pocket. "Do you want me to do this anonymously, or do you want him to know it's from you?"
"I want to be there."
"Oh."
She pulls into a private lane and stops. "I want to take him somewhere and I want you to hurt him very badly and I want to watch. I want him scared shitless."
I sigh. "Clare, I don't usually do this kind of thing. I usually fight in self-defense, for one thing."
"Please." It comes out of her mouth absolutely flat.
"Of course." We continue down the drive, and stop in front of a large, new faux Colonial house. There are no cars visible. Van Halen emanates from an open second-floor window. We walk to the front door and I stand to the side while Clare rings the bell. After a moment the music abruptly stops and heavy footsteps clump down stairs. The door opens, and after a pause a deep voice says, "What? You come back for more?" That's all I need to hear. I draw the gun and step to Clare's side. I point it at the guy's chest.
"Hi, Jason," Clare says. "I thought you might like to come out with us."
He does the same thing I would do, drops and rolls out of range, but he doesn't do it fast enough. I'm in the door and I take a flying leap onto his chest and knock the wind out of him. I stand up, put my boot on his chest, point the gun at his head. C'est magnifique mais ce n'est pas la guerre. He looks kind of like Tom Cruise, very pretty, all-American. "What position does he play?" I ask Clare.
"Halfback."
"Hmm. Never would of guessed. Get up, hands up where I can see them;" I tell him cheerfully. He complies, and I walk him out the door. We are all standing in the driveway. I have an idea. I send Clare back into the house for rope; she comes out a few minutes later with scissors and duct tape.
"Where do you want to do this?"
"The woods."
Jason is panting as we march him into the woods. We walk for about five minutes, and then I see a little clearing with a handy young elm at the edge of it. "How about this, Clare?"
"Yeah."
I look at her. She is completely impassive, cool as a Raymond Chandler murderess. "Call it, Clare."
"Tie him to the tree." I hand her the gun, jerk Jason's hands into position behind the tree, and duct tape them together. There's almost a full roll of duct tape, and I intend to use all of it. Jason is breathing strenuously, wheezing. I step around him and look at Clare. She looks at Jason as though he is a bad piece of conceptual art. "Are you asthmatic?"
He nods. His pupils are contracted into tiny points of black. "I'll get his inhaler," says Clare. She hands the gun back to me and ambles off through the woods along the path we came down. Jason is trying to breathe slowly and carefully. He is trying to talk.
"Who...are you?" he asks, hoarsely.
"I'm Clare's boyfriend. I'm here to teach you manners, since you have
I drop my mocking tone, and walk close to him, and say softly,
"How could you do that to her? She's so young. She doesn't know anything, and now you've completely fucked up everything...."
"She's a...cock...tease."
"She has no idea. It's like torturing a kitten because it bit you."
Jason doesn't answer. His breath comes in long, shivering whinnies. Just as I am becoming concerned, Clare arrives. She holds up the inhaler, looks at me. "Darling, do you know how to use this thing?"
"I think you shake it and then put it in his mouth and press down on the top." She does this, asks him if he wants more. He nods. After four inhalations, we stand and watch him gradually subside into more normal breathing.
"Ready?" I ask Clare.
She holds up the scissors, makes a few cuts in the air. Jason flinches. Clare walks over to him, kneels, and begins to cut off his clothes. "Hey," says Jason.
"Please be quiet," I say. "No one is hurting you. At the moment?' Clare finishes cutting off his jeans and starts on his T-shirt. I start to duct tape him to the tree. I begin at his ankles, and wind very neatly up his calves and thighs. "Stop there," Clare says, indicating a point just below Jason's crotch. She snips off his underwear. I start to tape his waist. His skin is clammy and he's very tan everywhere except inside a crisp outline of a Speedo-type bathing suit. He's sweating heavily. I wind all the way up to his shoulders, and stop, because I want him to be able to breathe. We step back and admire our work. Jason is now a duct-tape mummy with a large erection. Clare begins to laugh. Her laugh sounds spooky, echoing through the woods. I look at her sharply. There's something knowing and cruel in Clare's laugh, and it seems to me that this moment is the demarcation, a sort of no-man's-land between Clare's childhood and her life as a woman.
"What next?" I inquire. Part of me wants to turn him into hamburger and part of me doesn't want to beat up somebody who's taped to a tree.
Jason is bright red. It contrasts nicely with the gray duct tape. "Oh?' says Clare. "You know, I think that's enough?'
I am relieved. So of course I say, "You sure? I mean there are all sorts of things I could do. Break his eardrums? Nose? Oh, wait, he's already broken it once himself. We could cut his Achilles' tendons. He wouldn't be playing football in the near future."
"No!" Jason strains against the tape.
"Apologize, then?' I tell him.
Jason hesitates. "Sorry."
"That's pretty pathetic—"
"I know," Clare says. She fishes around in her purse and finds a Magic Marker. She walks up to Jason as though he is a dangerous zoo animal, and begins to write on his duct-taped chest. When she's done, she stands back and caps her marker. She's written an account of their date. She sticks the marker back in her purse and says, "Let's go."
"You know, we can't just leave him. He might have another asthma attack?'
"Hmm. Okay, I know. I'll call some people."
"Wait a minute," says Jason.
"What?" says Clare.
"Who are you calling? Call Rob."
Clare laughs. "Uh-uh. I'm going to call every girl I know."
I walk over to Jason and place the muzzle of the gun under his chin. "If you mention my existence to one human and I find out about it I will come back and I will devastate you. You won't be able to walk, talk, eat, or fuck when I'm done. As far as you know, Clare is a nice girl who for some inexplicable reason doesn't date. Right?"
Jason looks at me with hatred. "Right."
"We've dealt with you very leniently, here. If you hassle Clare again in any way you will be sorry."
"Okay."
"Good. I place the gun back in my pocket. "It's been fun."
"Listen, dickface—"
Oh, what the hell. I step back and put my whole weight into a side kick to the groin. Jason screams. I turn and look at Clare, who is white under her makeup. Tears are running down Jason's face. I wonder if he's going to pass out. "Let's go," I say. Clare nods. We walk back to the car, subdued. I can hear Jason yelling at us. We climb in, Clare starts the car, turns, and rockets down the driveway and onto the street.
I watch her drive. It's beginning to rain. There's a satisfied smile play¬ing around the edges of her mouth. "Is that what you wanted?" I ask. "Yes," says Clare. "That was perfect. Thank you."
"My pleasure." I'm getting dizzy. "I think I'm almost gone."
Clare pulls onto a sidestreet. The rain is drumming on the car. It's like riding through a car wash. "Kiss me," she demands. I do, and then I'm gone.
Wednesday, July 12, 1995 (Clare is 24, Henry is 32)
CLARE: I'm lying in bed, almost asleep, when I feel Henry's hand brushing over my stomach and realize he's back. I open my eyes and he bends down and kisses the little cigarette burn scar, and in the dim night light I touch his face. "Thank you," I say, and he says, "It was my pleasure," and that is the only time we ever speak of it.
Sunday, May 31, 1992 (Clare is 21, Henry is 28)
CLARE: Henry and I are standing in the vestibule of the apartment building he grew up in. We're a little late already, but we are just standing here; Henry is leaning against the mailboxes and breathing slowly with his eyes closed.
"Don't worry," I say. "It can't be any worse than you meeting Mama." "Your parents were very nice to me."
"But Mama is...unpredictable."
"So's Dad." Henry inserts his key into the front door lock and we walk up one flight of stairs and Henry knocks on the door of an apartment. Immediately it is opened by a tiny old Korean woman: Kimy. She's wearing a blue silk dress and bright red lipstick, and her eyebrows have been drawn on a little lopsided. Her hair is salt-and-pepper gray; it's braided and coiled into two buns at her ears. For some reason she reminds me of Ruth Gordon. She comes up to my shoulder, and she tilts her head back and says, "Ohhh, Henry, she's bee-yoo-tiful!" I can feel myself turn red. Henry says, "Kimy, where are your manners?" and Kimy laughs and says' "Hello, Miss Clare Abshire!" and I say "Hello, Mrs. Kim." We smile at each other and she says, "Oh, you got to call me Kimy, everybody call me Kimy." I nod and follow her into the living room and there's Henry's dad, sitting in an armchair.
He doesn't say anything, just looks at me. Henry's dad is thin, tall,
angular, and tired. He doesn't look much like Henry. He has short gray hair, dark eyes, a long nose, and a thin mouth whose corners turn down a little. He's sitting all bunched up in his chair, and I notice his hands, long
elegant hands that lie in his lap like a cat napping.
Henry coughs and says, "Dad, this is Clare Abshire. Clare, this is my father, Richard DeTamble."
Mr. DeTamble slowly extends one of his hands, and I step forward and shake it. It's ice cold. "Hello, Mr. DeTamble. It's nice to meet you," I say.
Is it? Henry must not have told you very much about me, then." His voice is hoarse and amused. "I will have to capitalize on your optimism. Come and sit down by me. Kimy, may we have something to drink?"
"I was just going to ask everyone—Clare, what would you like? I made sangria, you like that? Henry, how 'bout you? Sangria? Okay. Richard, you like a beer?"
Everyone seems to pause for a moment. Then Mr. DeTamble says, "No
Kimy, I think I'll just have tea, if you don't mind making it." Kimy
smiles and disappears into the kitchen, and Mr. DeTamble turns to me and
says, "I have a bit of a cold. I've taken some of that cold medicine, but I'm afraid it just makes me drowsy."
Henry is sitting on the couch, watching us. All the furniture is white and looks as though it was bought at a JCPenney around 1945. The upholstery is protected with clear plastic, and there are vinyl runners over the white carpet. There's a fireplace that looks as though it's never used; above it is a beautiful ink painting of bamboo in wind.
"That's a wonderful painting," I say, because no one is saying anything. Mr. DeTamble seems pleased. "Do you like it? Annette and I brought it back from Japan in 1962. We bought it in Kyoto, but the original is from China. We thought Kimy and Dong would like it. It is a seventeenth-century copy of a much older painting."
"Tell Clare about the poem," Henry says.
"Yes; the poem goes something like this: `Bamboo without mind, yet sends thoughts soaring among clouds. Standing on the lone mountain, quiet, dignified, it typifies the will of a gentleman. —Painted and written with a light heart, Wu Chen!"
"That's lovely," I say. Kimy comes in with drinks on a tray, and Henry and I each take a glass of sangria while Mr. DeTamble carefully grasps his tea with both hands; the cup rattles against the saucer as he sets it on the table beside him. Kimy sits in a small armchair by the fireplace and sips her sangria. I taste mine and realize that it's really strong. Henry glances at me and raises his eyebrows.
Kimy says, "Do you like gardens, Clare?"
"Urn, yes," I say. "My mother is a gardener"
"You got to come out before dinner and see the backyard. All my peonies are blooming, and we got to show you the river."
"That sounds nice." We all troop out to the yard. I admire the Chicago River, placidly flowing at the foot of a precarious stairway; I admire the peonies. Kimy asks, "What kind of garden does your mom have? Does she grow roses?" Kimy has a tiny but well-ordered rose garden, all hybrid teas as far as I can tell.
"She does have a rose garden. Actually, Mama's real passion is irises."
"Oh. I got irises. They're over there." Kimy points to a clump of iris. "I need to divide them, you think your mom would like some?"
"I don't know. I could ask." Mama has more than two hundred varieties of iris. I catch Henry smiling behind Kimy's back and I frown at him. "I could ask her if she wants to trade you some of hers; she has some that she bred herself, and she likes to give them to friends."
"Your mother breeds iris?" Mr. DeTamble asks.
"Uh-huh. She also breeds tulips, but the irises are her favorites." "She is a professional gardener?"
"No," I say. "Just an amateur. She has a gardener who does most of the ' work and there's a bunch of people who come in and mow and weed and all that."
"Must be a big yard;" Kimy says. She leads the way back into the apart¬ment. In the kitchen a timer goes off. "Okay," says Kimy. "It's time to eat." I ask if I can help but Kimy waves me into a chair. I sit across from Henry. His dad is on my right and Kimy's empty chair is on my left. I notice that Mr. DeTamble is wearing a sweater, even though it's pretty warm in here. Kimy has very pretty china; there are hummingbirds painted on it. Each of us has a sweating cold glass of water. Kimy pours us white wine. She hesitates at Henry's dad's glass but passes him over when he shakes his head. She brings out salads and sits down. Mr. DeTamble raises his water glass. "To the happy couple," he says. "Happy couple," says Kimy, and we all touch glasses and drink. Kimy says, "So, Clare, Henry say you are an artist. What kind of artist?"
"I make paper. Paper sculptures."
"Ohh. You have to show me sometime 'cause I don't know about that. Uke origami?"
"Uh no.
Henry intercedes. "They're like that German artist we saw down at the Art Institute, you know, Anselm Kiefer. Big dark scary paper sculptures."
Kimy looks puzzled. "Why would a pretty girl like you make ugly things like that?"
Henry laughs. "It's art, Kimy. Besides, they're beautiful."
"I use a lot of flowers," I tell Kimy. "If you give me your dead roses I'll put them in the piece I'm working on now."
"Okay," she says. "What is it?"
"A giant crow made out of roses, hair, and daylily fiber."
"Huh. How come a crow? Crows are bad luck."
"They are? I think they're gorgeous."
Mr. DeTamble raises one eyebrow and for just a second he does look like Henry; he says, "You have peculiar ideas about beauty?'
Kimy gets up and clears our salad plates and brings in a bowl of green beans and a steaming plate of "Roast Duck with Raspberry Pink Peppercorn Sauce." It's heavenly. I realize where Henry learned to cook. "What you think?" Kimy demands. "It's delicious, Kimy;" says Mr. DeTamble, and I echo his praise. "Maybe cut down on the sugar?" Henry asks. "Yeah, I think so, too;" says Kimy. "It's really tender though," Henry says, and Kimy grins. I stretch out my hand to pick up my wine glass. Mr. DeTamble nods at me and says, "Annette's ring looks well on you."
"It's very beautiful. Thank you for letting me have it."
"There's a lot of history in that ring, and the wedding band that goes with it. It was made in Paris in 1823 for my great-great-great-grandmother, whose name was Jeanne. It came to America in 1920 with my grandmother, Yvette, and it's been sitting in a drawer since 1969, when Annette died. It's good to see it back out in the light of day?'
I look at the ring, and think, Henry's mom was wearing this when she died. I glance at Henry, who seems to be thinking the same thing, and at Mr. DeTamble, who is eating his duck. "Tell me about Annette," I ask Mr. DeTamble.
He puts down his fork and leans his elbows on the table, puts his hands against his forehead. He peers at me from behind his hands. "Well, I'm sure Henry must have told you something."
"Yes. A little. I grew up listening to her records; my parents are fans of hers."
Mr. DeTamble smiles. "Ah. Well then, you know that Annette had the most marvelous voice...rich, and pure, such a voice, and such range...she could express her soul with that voice, whenever I listened to her I felt my life meant more than mere biology... she could really hear, she understood structure and she could analyze exactly what it was about a piece of music that had to be rendered just so...she was a very emotional person, Annette. She brought that out in other people. After she died I don't think I ever really felt anything again?'
He pauses. I can't look at Mr. DeTamble so I look at Henry. He's star¬ing at his father with an expression of such sadness that I look at my plate.
Mr. DeTamble says, "But you asked about Annette, not about me. She was kind, and she was a great artist; you don't often find that those go together. Annette made people happy; she was happy herself. She enjoyed life. I only saw her cry twice: once when I gave her that ring and the other time when she had Henry?'
Another pause. Finally I say, "You were very lucky."
He smiles, still shielding his face in his hands. "Well, we were and we weren't. One minute we had everything we could dream of, and the next minute she was in pieces on the expressway." Henry winces.
"But don't you think;" I persist, "that it's better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?" Mr. DeTamble regards me. He takes his hands away from his face and stares. Then he says, "I've often wondered about that. Do you believe that?" I think about my childhood, all the waiting, and wondering, and the joy of seeing Henry walking through the Meadow after not seeing him for weeks, months, and I think about what it was like not to see him for two years and then to find him standing in the Reading Room at the Newberry Library: the joy of being able to touch him, the luxury of knowing where he is, of knowing he loves me. "Yes," I say. "I do?' I meet Henry's eyes and smile.
Mr. DeTamble nods. "Henry has chosen well." Kimy gets up to bring coffee and while she's in the kitchen Mr. DeTamble continues, "He isn't calibrated to bring peace to anyone's life. In fact, he is in many ways the opposite of his mother: unreliable, volatile, and not even especially concerned with anyone but himself. Tell me, Clare: why on earth would a lovely girl like you want to marry Henry?"
Everything in the room seems to hold its breath. Henry stiffens but doesn't say anything. I lean forward and smile at Mr. DeTamble and say, with enthusiasm, as though he has asked me what flavor of ice cream I like best: "Because he's really, really good in bed." In the kitchen there's a howl of laughter. Mr. DeTamble glances at Henry, who raises his eyebrows and grins, and finally even Mr. DeTamble smiles, and says "Touche, my dear."
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 (Henry is 38, Clare is 40)
HENRY: I'm in the Surrealist Galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago, in the future. I am not perfectly dressed; the best I could do was a long black winter coat from the coat check room and pants from a guard's locker. I did manage to find shoes, which are always the most difficult thing to get. So I figure I'll lift a wallet, buy a T-shirt in the museum store, have lunch, see some art, and then launch myself out of the building and into the world of shops and hotel rooms. I have no idea where I am in time. Not too far out there; the clothing and haircuts are not too different from 2001. I'm simultaneously excited about this little sojourn and disturbed, because in my present Clare is about to have Alba at any moment, and I absolutely want to be there, but on the other hand this is an unusually high-quality slice of forward time travel. I feel strong and really present, really good. So I stand quietly in a dark room full of spot-lit Joseph Cornell boxes, watching a school group following a docent, carrying little stools which they obediently sit on when she tells them to park themselves.
I observe the group. The docent is the usual: a well-groomed woman in her fifties with impossibly blond hair and taut face. The teacher, a good-humored young woman wearing light blue lipstick, stands at the back of the flock of students, ready to contain any who get boisterous. It's the stu¬dents who interest me. They are all about ten or so, fifth grade, I guess that would be. It's a Catholic school, so they all wear identical clothes, green plaid for the girls and navy blue for the boys. They are attentive and polite, but not excited. Too bad; I would think Cornell would be perfect for kids. The docent seems to think they are younger than they are; she talks to them as though they are little children. There's a girl in the back row who seems more engaged than the rest. I can't see her face. She has long curly black hair and a peacock-blue dress, which sets her apart from her peers. Every time the docent asks a question, this girl's hand goes up, but the docent never calls on her. I can see that the girl is getting fed up.
The docent is talking about Cornell's Aviary boxes. Each box is bleak, and many have white, painted interiors with perches and the kind of holes that a birdhouse would have, and some have pictures of birds. They are the starkest and most austere of his pieces, without the whimsy of the Soap Bubble Sets or the romance of the Hotel boxes.
"Why do you think Mr. Cornell made these boxes?" The docent brightly scans the children for a reply, ignoring the peacock-blue girl, who is waving her hand like she has Saint Vitus' Dance. A boy in the front says shyly that the artist must have liked birds. This is too much for the girl. She stands up with her hand in the air. The docent reluctantly says, "Yes?"
"He made the boxes because he was lonely. He didn't have anyone to love, and he made the boxes so he could love them, and so people would know that he existed, and because birds are free and the boxes are hiding places for the birds so they will feel safe, and he wanted to be free and be safe. The boxes are for him so he can be a bird." The girl sits down.
I am blown away by her answer. This is a ten-year-old who can empathize with Joseph Cornell. Neither the docent nor the class exactly knows what to make of this, but the teacher, who is obviously used to her, says, "Thank you, Alba, that's very perceptive." She turns and smiles grate-fully at the teacher, and I see her face, and I am looking at my daughter. I have been standing in the next gallery, and I take a few steps forward, to look at her, to see her, and she sees me, and her face lights up, and she jumps up, knocks over her little folding chair, and almost before I know it I am holding Alba in my arms, holding her tight, kneeling before her with my arms around her as she says "Daddy," over and over.
Everyone is gaping at us. The teacher hurries over.
She says, "Alba, who is this? Sir, who are you?"
"I'm Henry DeTamble, Alba's father."
"He's my daddy!"
The teacher is almost wringing her hands. "Sir, Alba's father is dead." I am speechless. But Alba, daughter mine, has a grip on the situation. "He's dead," she tells her teacher. "But he's not continuously dead" I find my wits. "It's kind of hard to explain—"
"He's a CDP," says Alba. "Like me." This seems to make perfect sense to the teacher although it means nothing to me. The teacher is a bit pale under her makeup but she looks sympathetic. Alba squeezes my hand. Say something, is what she means.
"Ah, Ms.—"
"Cooper."
"Ms. Cooper, is there any possibility that Alba and I could have a few minutes, here, to talk? We don't see each other much."
"Well...I just...we're on a field trip...the group...I can't let you just take the child away from the group, and I don't really know that you are Mr. DeTamble, you see...."
"Let's call Mama," says Alba. She runs over to her school bag and whips out a cell phone. She presses a key and I hear the phone ringing and I'm rapidly realizing that there are possibilities here: someone picks up on the other end, and Alba says "Mama?...I'm at the Art Institute_ ....No, I'm okay...Mama, Daddy's here! Tell Mrs. Cooper it's really Dadd-y, okay?... Yeah, 'k, bye!" She hands me the phone. I hesitate, pull my head z together.
"Clare?" There's a sharp intake of breath. "Clare?"
"Henry! Oh, God, I can't believe it! Come home!"
"I'll try...."
"When are you from?"
"2001. Just before Alba was born." I smile at Alba. She is leaning against me, holding my hand.
"Maybe I should come down there?"
"That would be faster. Listen, could you tell this teacher that I'm really
me?"
"Sure—where will you be?"
"At the lions. Come as fast as you can, Clare. It won't be much longer." "I love you."
"I love you, Clare." I hesitate, and then hand the phone to Mrs. Cooper. She and Clare have a short conversation, in which Clare somehow convinces her to let me take Alba to the museum entrance, where Clare will meet us. I thank Mrs. Cooper, who has been pretty graceful in a weird situation, and Alba and I walk hand in hand out of the Morton Wing, down the spiral staircase and into Chinese ceramics. My min d is racing. What to ask first?
Alba says, "Thank you for the videos. Mama gave them to me for my birthday?' What videos? "I can do the Yale and the Master, and I'm working on the Walters."
Locks. She's learning to pick locks. "Great. Keep at it. Listen, Alba?"
"Daddy?"
"What's a CDP?"
"Chrono-Displaced Person." We sit down on a bench in front of a Tang Dynasty porcelain dragon. Alba sits facing me, with her 1-lands in her lap. She looks exactly like me at ten. I can hardly believe any of this. Alba isn't even born yet and here she is, Athena sprung full blown. I level with her. "You know, this is the first time I've met you."
Alba smiles. "How do you do?" She is the most self-possessed child I've ever met. I scrutinize her: where is Clare in this child?
"Do we see each other much?"
She considers. "Not much. It's been about a year. I saw you a few times when I was eight."
"How old were you when I died?" I hold my breath.
"Five." Jesus. I can't deal with this.
"I'm sorry! Should I not have said that?" Alba is contrite. I hug her to me. "It's okay. I asked, didn't I?" I take a deep breath. "How is Clare?" "Okay. Sad" This pierces me. I realize I don't want to know anything ore.
"What about you? How's school? What are you learning?"
Alba grins. "I'm not learning much in school, but I'm reading all about ly instruments, and Egypt, and Mama and I are reading Lord of the Rings, and I'm learning a tango by Astor Piazzolla."
At ten? Heavens. "Violin? Who's your teacher?"
"Gramps." For a moment I think she means my grandfather, and then realize she means Dad. This is great. If Dad is spending time with Alba, she must actually be good.
"Are you good?" What a rude question.
"Yes. I'm very good. Thank God.
"I was never any good at music."
"That's what Gramps says." She giggles. "But you like music." "I love music. I just can't play it, myself."
"I heard Grandma Annette sing! She was so beautiful."
"Which recording?"
"I saw her for real. At the Lyric. She was singing Aida."
He's a CDP, like me. Oh, shit. "You time travel."
"Sure." Alba smiles happily. "Mama always says you and I are exactly alike. Dr. Kendrick says I am a prodigy."
"How so?"
"Sometimes I can go when and where I want." Alba looks pleased with herself; I'm so envious.
"Can you not go at all if you don't want to?"
"Well, no." She looks embarrassed. "But I like it. I mean, sometimes it's not convenient, but...it's interesting, you know?" Yes. I know.
"Come and visit me, if you can be anytime you want."
"I tried. I saw you once on the street; you were with a blond woman. You seemed like you maybe were busy, though." Alba blushes and all of a sudden Clare peeks out at me, for just a tiny fraction of a second.
"That was Ingrid. I dated her before I met your mom." I wonder what we were doing, Ing and I, back then, that Alba is so discomfited by; I feel a pang of regret, that I made a poor impression on this sober and lovely girl. "Speaking of your mom, we should go out front and wait for her." The high-pitched whining noise has set in, and I just hope Clare will get here before I'm gone. Alba and I get up and quickly make our way to the front steps. It's late fall, and Alba doesn't have a coat, so I wrap mine around both of us. I am leaning against the granite slab that supports one of the lions, facing south, and Alba leans against me, encased in my coat, pressed against my bare torso with just her face sticking out at the level of my chest. It's a rainy day. Traffic swims along on Michigan Avenue. I am drunk with the overwhelming love I feel for this amazing child, who press-es against me as though she belongs to me, as though we will never be separated, as though we have all the time in the world. I am clinging to this moment, fighting fatigue and the pulling of my own time. Let me stay, I implore my body, God, Father Time, Santa, anybody who might be listening. Just let me see Clare, and I'll come along peacefully.
"There's Mama," says Alba. A white car, unfamiliar to me, is speeding toward us. It pulls up to the intersection and Clare jumps out, leaving it where it is, blocking traffic.
"Henry!" I try to run to her, she is running, and I collapse onto the steps, and I stretch out my arms toward Clare: Alba is holding me and yelling something and Clare is only a few feet from me and I use my last reserves of will to look at Clare who seems so far away and I say as clearly as I can "I love you," and I'm gone. Damn. Damn.
