The time traveler's wife(19)

"But who's Henry?" wonders Laura. "I don't know. Maybe he's somebody I haven't met yet." She nods. Everyone is weirded out. I'm very weirded out. Husband? Husband?





Thursday, April 12, 1984 (Henry is 36, Clare is 12)





Henry: Clare and I are playing chess in the fire circle in the woods. It's a beautiful spring day, and the woods are alive with birds courting and birds nesting. We are keeping ourselves out of the way of Clare's family, who are out and about this afternoon. Clare has been stuck on her move for a while; I took her Queen Three moves ago and now she is doomed but determined to go down fighting. She looks up, "Henry, who's your favorite Beatle?"

"John. Of course."

"Why 'of course'?"

"Well, Ringo is okay but kind of a sad sack, you know? And George is a little too New Age for my taste." "What's 'New Age'?"

"Oddball religions. Sappy boring music. Pathetic attempts to convince oneself of the superiority of anything connected with Indians. Non-Western medicine."

"But you don't like regular medicine "

"That's because doctors are always trying to tell me I'm crazy. If I had a broken arm I would be a big fan of Western medicine."

"What about Paul?"

"Paul is for girls."

Clare smiles, shyly. "I like Paul best." "Well, you're a girl." "Why is Paul for girls?"

Tread carefully, I tell myself. "Uh, gee. Paul is, like, the Nice Beatle, you know?" "Is that bad?"

"No, not at all. But guys are more interested in being cool, and John is the Cool Beatle." "Oh. But he's dead."

I laugh. "You can still be cool when you're dead. In fact, it's much easier, because you aren't getting old and fat and losing your hair."

Clare hums the beginning of "When I'm 64." She moves her rook forward five spaces. I can checkmate her now, and I point this out to her and she hastily takes back the move.

"So why do you like Paul?" I ask her. I look up in time to see her blushing fervently.

"He's so... beautiful," Clare says. There's something about the way she says it that makes me feel strange. I study the board, and it occurs to me that Clare could checkmate me if she took my bishop with her knight. I wonder if I should tell her this. If she was a little younger, I would. Twelve is old enough to fend for yourself. Clare is staring dreamily at the board. It dawns on me that I am jealous. Jesus. I can't believe I'm feeling jealous of a multimillionaire rock star geezer old enough to be Clare's dad.

"Hmpf," I say. Clare looks up, smiling mischievously. "Who do you like?" You, I think but don't say. "You mean when I was your age?" "Um, yeah. When were you my age?"

I weigh the value and potential of this nugget before I dole it out. "I was your age in 1975. I'm eight years older than you."

"So you're twenty?"

"Well, no, I'm thirty-six." Old enough to be your dad. Clare furrows her brow. Math is not her strongest subject. "But if you were twelve in 1975...."

"Oh, sorry. You're right. I mean, I myself am thirty-six, but somewhere out there"—I wave my hand toward the south— "I'm twenty. In real time."

Clare strives to digest this. "So there are two of you?"

"Not exactly. There's always only one me, but when I'm time traveling sometimes I go somewhere I already am, and yeah, then you could say there are two. Or more."

"How come I never see more than one?"

"You will. When you and I meet in my present that will happen fairly frequently." More often than I'd like, Clare. "So who did you like in 1975?"

"Nobody, really. At twelve I had other stuff to think about. But when I was thirteen I had this huge crush on Patty Hearst."

Clare looks annoyed. "A girl you knew at school?"

I laugh. "No. She was a rich Californian college girl who got kidnapped by these awful left-wing political terrorists, and they made her rob banks. She was on the news every night for months."

"What happened to her? Why did you like her?"

"They eventually let her go, and she got married and had kids and now she's a rich lady in California. Why did I like her? Ah, I don't know. It's irrational, you know? I guess I kind of knew how she felt, being taken away and forced to do stuff she didn't want to do, and then it seemed like she was kind of enjoying it."

"Do you do things you don't want to do?"

"Yeah. All the time." My leg has fallen asleep and I stand up and shake it until it tingles. "I don't always end up safe and sound with you, Clare. A lot of times I go places where I have to get clothes and food by stealing."