The time traveler's wife by Audrey Niffenegger

explain later (although knowing Henry he
probably won't explain, he'll make me figure it out or it will explain itself
one of these days). I wave back at him, and then I check to see if Mark saw
that but Mark has his back to us, he's irritated and is waiting for me to go
away so he and Daddy can go back to hunting, but what is Henry doing here, what
did they say to each other? I look back again but I don't see Henry and Daddy
says, "Go on, now, Clare, go back to bed," and he kisses my forehead.
He seems upset and so I run, run back to the house, and then softly up the
stairs and then I am sitting on my bed, shivering, and I still don't know what
just happened, but I know it was bad, it was very, very bad.
     
    Monday, February 2, 1987 (Clare is 15, Henry is
38)
     
    Clare: When I get home from school Henry is
waiting for me in the Reading Room. I have fixed a little room for him next to
the furnace room; it's on the opposite side from where all the bicycles are. I
have allowed it to be known in my household that I like to spend time in the
basement reading, and I do in fact spend a lot of time in here, so that it
doesn't seem unusual. Henry has a chair wedged under the doorknob. I knock four
knocks and he lets me in. He has made a sort of nest out of pillows and chair cushions
and blankets, he has been reading old magazines under my desk lamp. He is
wearing Dad's old jeans and a plaid flannel shirt, and he looks tired and
unshaven. I left the back door unlocked for him this morning and here he is. I
set the tray of food I have brought on the floor. "I could bring down some
books."
    "Actually, these are great." He's
been reading Mad magazines from the '60s. "And this is indispensable for
time travelers who need to know all sorts of factoids at a moment's
notice," he says, holding up the 1968 World Almanac. I sit down next to
him on the blankets, and look over at him to see if he's going to make me move.
I can see he's thinking about it, so I hold up my hands for him to see and then
I sit on them. He smiles. "Make yourself at home," he says.
    "When are you coming from?"
"2001. October"
    "You look tired." I can see that he's
debating about telling me why he's tired, and decides against it. "What
are we up to in 2001?"
    "Big things. Exhausting things."
Henry starts to eat the roast beef sandwich I have brought him. "Hey, this
is good." "Nell made it."
    He laughs. "I'll never understand why it
is that you can build huge sculptures that withstand gale force winds, deal
with dye recipes, cook kozo, and all that, and you can't do anything whatsoever
with food. It's amazing."
    "It's a mental block. A phobia."
    "It's weird."
    "I walk into the kitchen and I hear this
little voice saying, 'Go away.' So I do." "Are you eating enough? You
look thin."
    I feel fat. "I'm eating." I have a
dismal thought. "Am I very fat in 2001? Maybe that's why you think I'm too
thin." Henry smiles at some joke I don't get. "Well, you're kind of
plump at the moment, in my present, but it will pass."
    "Ugh."
    "Plump is good. It will look very good on
you."
    "No thanks." Henry looks at me,
worrying. "You know, I'm not anorexic or anything. I mean, you don't have
to worry about it."
    "Well, it's just that your mom was always
bugging you about it."
    "'Was'?" "Is."
    "Why did you say was?"
    "No reason. Lucille is fine. Don't worry."
He's lying. My stomach tightens and I wrap my arms around my knees and put my
head down.
     
    Henry: I cannot believe that I have made a slip
of the tongue of this magnitude. I stroke Clare's hair, and I wish fervently
that I could go back to my present for just a minute, long enough to consult
Clare, to find out what I should say to her, at fifteen, about her mother's
death. It's because I'm not getting any sleep. If I was getting some sleep I
would have been thinking faster, or at least covering better for my lapse. But
Clare, who is the most truthful person I know, is acutely