— The Time Traveler's Wife —
by Audrey Niffenegger

Someone’s come along and taken out all your innards, and left only nerve endings.” I’ve got the tip of my index finger on her clit.

“Poor little Clare. No innards.”

“Ah, but it’s a good thing, you see, because there’s all this extra room in there. Think of all the stuff you could put inside you if you didn’t have all those silly kidneys and stomachs and pancreases and what not.”

“Like what?” She’s very wet. I remove my hand and carefully rip open the condom packet with my teeth, a maneuver I haven’t performed in years.

“Kangaroos. Toaster ovens. Penises.”

Clare takes the condom from me with fascinated distaste. She’s lying on her back and she unfurls it and sniffs it. “Ugh. Must we?”

Although I often refuse to tell Clare things, I seldom actually lie to her. I feel a twinge of guilt as I say, “’Fraid so.” I retrieve it from her, but instead of putting it on I decide that what we really need here is cunnilingus. Clare, in her future, is addicted to oral sex and will leap tall buildings in a single bound and wash the dishes when it’s not her turn in order to get it. If cunnilingus were an Olympic event I would medal, no doubt about it. I spread her out and apply my tongue to her clit.

“Oh God,” Clare says in a low voice. “Sweet Jesus.”

“No yelling,” I warn. Even Etta and Nell will come down to the Meadow to see what’s wrong if Clare really gets going. In the next fifteen minutes I take Clare several steps down the evolutionary ladder until she’s pretty much a limbic core with a few cerebral cortex peripherals. I roll on the condom and slowly, carefully slide into Clare, imagining things breaking and blood cascading around me. She has her eyes closed and at first I think she’s not even aware that I’m actually inside her even though I’m directly over her but then she opens her eyes and smiles, triumphant, beatific.

I manage to come fairly quickly; Clare is watching me, concentrating, and as I come I see her face turn to surprise. How strange things are. What odd things we animals do. I collapse onto her. We are bathed in sweat. I can feel her heart beating. Or perhaps it’s mine.

I pull out carefully and dispose of the condom. We lie, side by side, looking at the very blue sky. The wind is making a sea sound with the grass. I look over at Clare. She looks a bit stunned.

“Hey. Clare.”

“Hey” she says weakly.

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Did you like it?”

“Oh, yes!” she says, and starts to cry. We sit up, and I hold her for a while. She is shaking.

“Clare. Clare. What’s wrong?”

I can’t make out her reply at first, then: “You’re going away. Now I won’t see you for years and years.”

“Only two years. Two years and a few months.” She is quiet. “Oh, Clare. I’m sorry. I can’t help it. It’s funny, too, because I was just lying here thinking what a blessing today was. To be here with you making love instead of being chased by thugs or freezing to death in some barn or some of the other stupid shit I get to deal with. And when I go back, I’m with you. And today was wonderful.” She is smiling, a little. I kiss her.

“How come I always have to wait?”

“Because you have perfect DNA and you aren’t being thrown around in time like a hot potato. Besides, patience is a virtue.” Clare is pummeling my chest with her fists, lightly. “Also, you’ve known me your whole life, whereas I only meet you when I’m twenty-eight. So I spend all those years before we meet—”

“Fucking other women.”

“Well, yeah. But, unbeknownst to me, it’s all just practice for when I meet you. And it’s very lonely and weird. If you don’t believe me, try it yourself. I’ll never know. It’s different when you don’t care.”

“I don’t want anybody else.”

“Good.”

“Henry just give me a hint. Where do you live? Where do we meet? What day?”

“One hint. Chicago”

“More.”

“Have faith. It’s all there, in front of you.”

“Are we happy?”

“We are often insane with happiness. We are also very unhappy for reasons neither of us can do anything about. Like being separated.”

“So all the time you’re here now you’re not with me then?”

“Well, not exactly. I may end up missing only ten minutes. Or ten days. There’s no rule about it. That’s what makes it hard, for you. Also, I sometimes end up in dangerous situations, and I come back to you broken and messed up, and you worry about me when I’m gone. It’s like marrying a policeman.” I’m exhausted. I wonder how old I actually am, in real time. In calendar time I’m forty-one, but with all this coming and going perhaps I’m really forty-five or -six. Or maybe I’m thirty-nine. Who knows? There’s something I have to tell her; what was it?

“Clare?”

“Henry.”

“When you see me again, remember that I won’t know you; don’t be upset when you see me and I treat you like a total stranger, because to me you will be brand new. And please don’t blow my mind with everything all at once. Have mercy, Clare.”

“I will! Oh, Henry stay!”

“Shh. I’ll be with you.” We lie down again. The exhaustion permeates me and I will be gone in a minute.

“I love you, Henry. Thank you for…my birthday present.”

“I love you, Clare. Be good.”

I’m gone.

 

 

SECRET

 

Thursday, February 10, 2005 (Clare is 33, Henry is 41)

CLARE: It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m in the studio making pale yellow kozo paper. Henry’s been gone for almost twenty-four hours now, and as usual I’m torn between thinking obsessively about when and where he might be and being pissed at him for not being here and worrying about when he’ll be back. It’s not helping my concentration and I’m ruining a lot of sheets; I plop them off the su and back into the vat. Finally I take a break and pour myself a cup of coffee. It’s cold in the studio, and the water in the vat is supposed to be cold although I have warmed it a little to save my hands from cracking. I wrap my hands around the ceramic mug. Steam wafts up. I put my face over it, inhale the moisture and coffee smell. And then, oh thank you, God, I hear Henry whistling as he comes up the path through the garden, into the studio. He stomps the snow off his boots and shrugs off his coat. He’s looking marvelous, really happy. My heart is racing and I take a wild guess: “May 24, 1989?”

“Yes, oh, yes!” Henry scoops me up, wet apron and Wellingtons and all, and swings me around. Now I’m laughing, we’re both laughing. Henry exudes delight. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been needlessly wondering all these years. Vixen! Minx!” He’s biting my neck and tickling me.

“But you didn’t know, so I couldn’t tell you.”

“Oh. Right. My God, you’re amazing.” We sit on the grungy old studio couch. “Can we turn up the heat in here?”

“Sure.” Henry jumps up and turns the thermostat higher. The furnace kicks in. “How long was I gone?”

“Almost a whole day.”

Henry sighs. “Was it worth it? A day of anxiety in exchange for a few really beautiful hours?”

“Yes. That was one of the best days of my life.” I am quiet, remembering. I often invoke the memory of Henry’s face above me, surrounded by blue sky, and the feeling of being permeated by him. I think about it when he’s gone and I’m having trouble sleeping.

“Tell me…”

“Mmmm?” We are wrapped around each other, for warmth, for reassurance.

“What happened after I left?”

“I picked everything up and made myself more or less presentable and went back up to the house. I got upstairs without running into anyone and I took a bath. After a while Etta started hammering on the door wanting to know why I was in the tub in the middle of the day and I had to pretend I was sick. And I was, in a way… I spent the summer lounging around, sleeping a lot. Reading. I just kind of rolled up into myself. I spent some time down in the Meadow, sort of hoping you might show up. I wrote you letters. I burned them. I stopped eating for a while and Mom dragged me to her therapist and I started eating again. At the end of August my parents informed me that if I didn’t ‘perk up’ I wouldn’t be going to school that fall, so I immediately perked up because my whole goal in life was to get out of the house and go to Chicago. And school was a good thing; it was new, I had an apartment, I loved the city. I had something to think about besides the fact that I had no idea where you were or how to find you. By the time I finally did run into you I was doing pretty well; I was into my work, I had friends, I got asked out quite a bit—”

“Oh?”

“Sure.”

“Did you go? Out?”

“Well, yeah. I did. In the spirit of research…and because I occasionally got mad that somewhere out there you were obliviously dating other women. But it was all a sort of black comedy. I would go out with some perfectly nice pretty young art boy, and spend the whole evening thinking about how boring and futile it was and checking my watch. I stopped after five of them because I could see that I was really pissing these guys off. Someone put the word out at school that I was a dyke and then I got a wave of girls asking me out.”

“I could see you as a lesbian.”

“Yeah; behave yourself or I’ll convert.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a lesbian.” Henry is looking dreamy and heavy-lidded; not fair when I am wound up and ready to jump on him. He yawns. “Oh, well, not in this lifetime. Too much surgery.”

In my head I hear the voice of Father Compton behind the grille of the confessional, softly asking me if there’s anything else I want to confess. No, I tell him firmly. No, there isn’t. That was a mistake. I was drunk, and it doesn’t count. The good Father sighs, and pushes the curtain across. End of confession. My penance is to lie to Henry, by omission, as long as we both shall live. I look at him, happily postprandial, sated with the charms of my younger self, and the image of Gomez sleeping, Gomez’s bedroom in morning light flashes across my mental theater. It was a mistake, Henry, I tell him silently. I was waiting, and I got sideswiped, just once. Tell him, says Father Compton, or somebody, in my head. I can’t, I retort. He’ll hate me.

“Hey,” Henry says gently. “Where are you?”

“Thinking.”

“You look so sad.”

“Do you worry sometimes that all the really great stuff has already happened?”

“No. Well, sort of, but in a different way than you mean. I’m still moving through the time you’re reminiscing about, so it’s not really gone, for me. I worry that we aren’t paying close attention here and now. That is, time travel is sort of an altered state, so I’m more…aware when I’m out there, and it seems important, somehow, and sometimes I think that if I could just be that aware here and now, that things would be perfect. But there’s been some great things, lately.” He smiles, that beautiful crooked radiant smile, all innocence, and I allow my guilt to subside, back to the little box where I keep it crammed in like a parachute.

“Alba.”

“Alba is perfect. And you are perfect. I mean, as much as I love you, back there, it’s the shared life, the knowing each other…”

“Through thick and thin…”

“The fact that there are bad times makes it more real. It’s the reality that I want.”

Tell him, tell him.

“Even reality can be pretty unreal…” If I’m ever going to say it, now’s the time. He waits. I just. Can’t.

“Clare?” I regard him miserably, like a child caught in a complicated fib, and then I say it, almost inaudibly.

“I slept with someone.” Henry’s face is frozen, disbelieving.

“Who?” he asks, without looking at me,

“Gomez.”

“Why?” Henry is still, waiting for the blow.

“I was drunk. We were at a party, and Charisse was in Boston—”

“Wait a minute. When was this?”

“1990.”

He starts to laugh. “Oh, God. Clare, don’t do that to me, shit. 1990. Jesus, I thought you were telling me something that happened, like, last week.” I smile, weakly. He says, “I mean, it’s not like I’m overjoyed about it, but since I just got through telling you to go out and experiment I can’t really… I dunno.” He’s getting restless. He gets up and starts pacing around the studio. I am incredulous. For fifteen years I’ve been paralyzed with fear, fear that Gomez would say something, do something in his big lumbering Gomez callousness, and Henry doesn’t mind. Or does he?

“How was it?” he asks, quite casually, with his back to me as he messes with the coffeemaker.

I pick my words with care. “Different. I mean, without getting real critical of Gomez—”

“Oh, go ahead.”

“It was sort of like being a china shop, and trying to get off with a bull.”

“He’s bigger than me.” Henry states this as fact.

“I wouldn’t know about now, but back then he had no finesse at all. He actually smoked a cigarette while he was fucking me.” Henry winces. I get up, walk over to him. “I’m sorry. It was a mistake.” He pulls me to him, and I say, softly, into his collar, “I was waiting very patiently…” but then I can’t go on. Henry is stroking my hair. “It’s okay, Clare,” he says. “It’s not so bad.” I wonder if he is comparing the Clare he has just seen, in 1989, with the duplicitous me in his arms, and, as if reading my mind he says, “Any other surprises?”

“That was it.”

“God, you can really keep a secret.” I look at Henry, and he stares back at me, and I can tell that I have altered for him somehow.

“It made me understand, better…it made me appreciate…”

“You’re trying to tell me that I did not suffer by comparison?”

“Yes.” I kiss him, tentatively, and after a moment of hesitation Henry begins to kiss me back, and before too long we are on our way to being all right again. Better than all right. I told him, and it was okay, and he still loves me. My whole body feels lighter, and I sigh with the goodness of confessing, finally, and not even having a penance, not one Hail Mary or Our Father. I feel like I’ve walked away scot free from a totaled car. Out there, somewhere, Henry and I are making love on a green blanket in a meadow, and Gomez is looking at me sleepily and reaching for me with his enormous hands, and everything, everything is happening now, but it’s too late, as usual, to change any of it, and Henry and I unwrap each other on the studio couch like brand new never before boxes of chocolate and it’s not too late, not yet, anyway.

Saturday, April 14, 1990 (Clare is 18) (6:43 a.m.)

CLARE: I open my eyes and I don’t know where I am. Cigarette smell. Venetian blind shadow across cracked yellow wall. I turn my head and beside me, sleeping, in his bed, is Gomez. Suddenly I remember, and I panic.

Henry. Henry will kill me. Charisse will hate me. I sit up. Gomez’s bedroom is a wreck of overfilled ashtrays, clothes, law textbooks, newspapers, dirty dishes. My clothes lie in a small, accusing pile on the floor beside me.

Gomez sleeps beautifully. He looks serene, not like a guy who’s just cheated on his girlfriend with his girlfriend’s best friend. His blond hair is wild, not in its usual perfect controlled state. He looks like an overgrown boy, exhausted from too many boyish games.

My head is pounding. My insides feel like they’ve been beaten. I get up, shakily, and walk down the hall to the bathroom, which is dank and mold-infested and filled with shaving paraphernalia and damp towels. Once I’m in the bathroom I’m not sure what I wanted; I pee and I wash my face with the hard soap sliver, and I look at myself in the mirror to see if I look any different, to see if Henry will be able to tell just by looking at me… I look kind of nauseous, but otherwise I just look the way I look at seven in the morning.

The house is quiet. There’s a clock ticking somewhere nearby. Gomez shares this house with two other guys, friends who are also at Northwestern’s Law School. I don’t want to run into anyone. I go back to Gomez’s room and sit on the bed.

“Good morning.” Gomez smiles at me, reaches out to me. I recoil, and burst into tears. “Whoa. Kitten! Clare, baby, hey, hey…” He scrambles up and soon I am weeping in his arms. I think of all the times I have cried on Henry’s shoulder. Where are you? I wonder desperately. I need you, here and now. Gomez is saying my name, over and over. What am I doing here, without any clothes on, crying in the embrace of an equally naked Gomez? He reaches over and hands me a box of tissue, and I blow my nose, and wipe my eyes, and then I look at him with a look of unconditional despair, and he looks back at me in confusion.

“Okay now?”

No. How can I be okay? “Yeah.”

“What’s wrong?”

I shrug. Gomez shifts into cross-examining fragile witness mode.

“Clare, have you ever had sex before?” I nod. “Is it Charisse? You feel bad about it ’cause of Charisse?” I nod. “Did I do something wrong?” I shake my head. “Clare, who is Henry?” I gape at him incredulously.

“How do you know?…” Now I’ve done it. Shit. Son of a bitch.

Gomez leans over and grabs his cigarettes from the bedside table, and lights one. He waves out the match and takes a deep drag. With a cigarette in his hand, Gomez seems more…dressed, somehow, even though he’s not. He silently offers me one, and I take it, even though I don’t smoke. It just seems like the thing to do, and it buys me time to think about what to say. He lights it for me, gets up, rummages around in his closet, finds a blue bathrobe that doesn’t look all that clean, and hands it to me. I put it on; it’s huge. I sit on the bed, smoking and watching Gomez put on a pair of jeans. Even in my wretchedness I observe that Gomez is beautiful, tall and broad and…large, an entirely different sort of beauty from Henry’s lithe panther wildness. I immediately feel horrible for comparing. Gomez sets an ashtray next to me, and sits down on the bed, and looks at me.