The time traveler's wife(16)

"You're me."

"When you are older."

"But...what about the others?"

"Other time travelers?"

He nods.

"I don't think there are any. I mean, I've never met any others."

A tear gathers at the edge of his left eye. When I was little, I imagined a whole society of time travelers, of which Henry, my teacher, was an emissary, sent to train me for eventual inclusion in this vast camaraderie. I still feel like a castaway, the last member of a once numerous species. It was as though Robinson Crusoe discovered the telltale footprint on the beach and then realized that it was his own. My self, small as a leaf, thin as water, begins to cry. I hold him, hold me, for a long time. Later, we order hot chocolate from room service, and watch Johnny Carson. Henry falls asleep with the light on. As the show ends I look over at him and he's gone, vanished back to my old room in my dad's apartment, standing sleep-addled beside my old bed, falling into it, gratefully. I turn off the TV and the bedside lamp. 1973 street noises drift in the open window. I want to go home. I lie on the hard hotel bed, desolate, alone. I still don't understand. Sunday, December 10, 1978 (Henry is 15, and 15)





Henry: I'm in my bedroom with my self. He's here from next March. We are doing what we often do when we have a little privacy, when it's cold out, when both of us are past puberty and haven't quite gotten around to actual girls yet. I think most people would do this, if they had the sort of opportunities I have. I mean, I'm not gay or anything. It's late Sunday morning. I can hear the bells ringing at St. Joe's. Dad came home late last night; I think he must have stopped at the Exchequer after the concert; he was so drunk he fell down on the stairs and I had to haul him into the apartment and put him to bed. He coughs and I hear him messing around in the kitchen. My other self seems distracted; he keeps looking at the door. "What?" I ask him. "Nothing," he says. I get up and check the lock. " No," he says. He seems to be making a huge effort to speak. "Come on," I say. I hear Dad's heavy step right outside my door. "Henry?" he says, and the knob of the door slowly turns and I abruptly realize that I have inadvertently unlocked the door and Henry leaps for it but it's too late: Dad sticks his head in and there we are, in flagrante delicto. "Oh," he says. His eyes are wide and he looks completely disgusted. "Jesus, Henry." He shuts the door and I hear him walking back to his room. I throw my self a reproachful glare as I pull on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I walk down the hall to Dad's bedroom. His door is shut. I knock. No answer. I wait. "Dad?" Silence. I open the door, stand in the doorway. "Dad?" He's sitting with his back to me, on his bed. He continues to sit, and I stand there for a while, but I can't bring myself to walk into the room. Finally I shut the door, walk back to my own room.

"That was completely and totally your fault," I tell my self severely. He is wearing jeans, sitting on the chair with his head in his hands. "You knew, you knew that was going to happen and you didn't say a word. Where is your sense of self preservation? What the hell is wrong with you? What use is it knowing the future if you can't at least protect us from humiliating little scenes—"

"Shut up " Henry croaks. "Just shut up."

"I will not shut up," I say, my voice rising. "I mean, all you had to do was say—"

"Listen." He looks up at me with resignation. "It was like.. .it was like that day at the ice-skating rink."

"Oh. Shit." A couple years ago, I saw a little girl get hit in the head with a hockey puck at Indian Head Park. It was horrible. I found out later that she died in the hospital. And then I started to time travel back to that day, over and over, and I wanted to warn her mother, and I couldn't. It was like being in the audience at a movie. It was like being a ghost. I would scream, No, take her home, don't let her near the ice, take her away, she's going to get hurt, she's going to die, and I would realize that the words were only in my head, and everything would go on as before. Henry says, "You talk about changing the future, but for me this is the past, and as far as I can tell there's nothing I can do about it. I mean, I tried, and it was the trying that made it happen. If I hadn't said something, you wouldn't have gotten up "

"Then why did you say anything?"

"Because I did. You will, just wait." He shrugs. "It's like with Mom. The accident. Immer wieder." Always again, always the same.

"Free will?"

He gets up, walks to the window, stands looking out over the Tatingers' backyard. "I was just talking about that with a self from 1992. He said something interesting: he said that he thinks there is only free will when you are in time, in the present. He says in the past we can only do what we did, and we can only be there if we were there."