ALBA, AN INTRODUCTION

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 students 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 Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

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 gratefully 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 Daddy, okay?...

Yeah, ‘k, bye!” She hands me the phone. I hesitate, pull my head together. “Clare?” There’s a sharp intake of breath. “Clare?”

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

“ 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 mind 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 hands 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 more. “What about you? How’s school? What are you learning?”

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

Alba grins. “I’m not learning much in school, but I’m reading all about early 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 I 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 presses against me as though she

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

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.

7:20p.m. Friday, August 24, 2001 (Clare is 30, Henry is 38)

CLARE: I am lying on the battered chaise lounge in the backyard with books and magazines cast adrift all around me and a half-drunk glass of lemonade now diluted with melted ice cubes at my elbow. It’s beginning to cool off a bit. It was eighty-five degrees earlier; now there’s a breeze and the cicadas are singing their late summer song. Fifteen jets have passed over me on their way to O’Hare from distances unknown. My belly looms before me, anchoring me to this spot. Henry has been gone since eight o’clock yesterday morning and I am beginning to be afraid. What if I go into labor and he’s not here? What if I have the baby and he still isn’t back? What if he’s hurt? What if he’s dead? What if I die? These thoughts chase each other like those weird fur pieces old ladies used to wear around their necks with the tail in the mouth, circling around until I can’t stand one more minute of it. Usually I like to fret in a whirl of activity; I worry about Henry while I scrub down the studio or do nine loads of wash or pull three posts of paper. But now I lie here, beached by my belly in the early evening sun of our backyard while Henry is out there.. .doing what-ever it is that he is doing. Oh, God. Bring him back. Now.

But nothing happens. Mr. Panetta drives down the alley and his garage door screeches open and then closed. A Good Humor truck comes and goes. The fireflies begin their evening revels. But no Henry.

I am getting hungry. I am going to starve to death in the backyard because Henry is not here to make dinner. Alba is squirming around and I consider getting up and going into the kitchen and fixing some food and eating it. But then I decide to do the same thing I always do when Henry isn’t around to feed me. I get up, slowly, in increments, and walk sedately into the house. I find my purse, and I turn on a few lights, and I let myself out the front door and lock it. It feels good to be moving. Once again I am surprised, and am surprised to be surprised, that I am so huge in one part of my body only, like someone whose plastic surgery

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

has gone wrong, like one of those women in an African tribe whose idea of beauty requires extremely elongated necks or lips or earlobes. I balance my weight against Alba’s, and in this Siamese twin dancing manner we walk to the Opart Thai Restaurant.

The restaurant is cool and full of people. I am ushered to a table in the front window. I order spring rolls and Pad Thai with tofu, bland and safe. I drink a whole glass of water. Alba presses against my bladder; I go to the restroom and when I come back food is on the table. I eat. I imagine the conversation Henry and I would be having if he were here. I wonder where he might be. I mentally comb through my memory, trying to fit the Henry who vanished while putting on his pants yesterday with any Henry I have seen in my childhood. This is a waste of time; I’ll just have to wait for the story from Himself. Maybe he’s back. I have to stop myself from bolting out of the restaurant to go check. The entree arrives. I squeeze lime over the noodles and scoop them into my mouth. I picture Alba, tiny and pink, curled inside me, eating Pad Thai with tiny delicate chopsticks. I picture her with long black hair and green eyes. She smiles and says, “Thanks, Mama.” I smile and tell her, “You’re welcome, so very welcome.” She has a tiny stuffed animal in there with her named Alfonzo. Alba gives Alfonzo some tofu. I finish eating. I sit for a few minutes, resting.

Someone at the next table lights up a cigarette. I pay, and leave.

I toddle down Western Avenue. A car full of Puerto Rican teenagers yells something at me, but I don’t catch it. Back at the ranch I fumble for my keys and Henry swings the door open and says, “Thank God,” and flings his arms around me.

We kiss. I am so relieved to see him that it takes me a few minutes to realize that he is also extremely relieved to see me.

“Where have you been?” Henry demands. “Opart. Where have you been?”

“You didn’t leave a note, and I came home, and you weren’t here, and I thought you were at the hospital. So I called, but they said you weren’t—”

I start laughing, and it’s hard to stop. Henry looks perplexed. When I can say something I tell him, “Now you know how it feels.”

He smiles. “Sorry. But I just—I didn’t know where you were, and I sort of panicked. I thought I’d missed Alba.”

“But where were you?”

Henry grins. “Wait till you hear this. Just a minute. Let’s sit down.” “Let’s lie down. I’m beat.”

“Whadja do all day?” “Laid around.”

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

“Poor Clare, no wonder you’re tired.” I go into the bedroom and turn on the air conditioner and pull the shades. Henry veers into the kitchen and appears after a few minutes with drinks. I arrange myself on the bed and receive ginger ale; Henry kicks off his shoes and joins me with a beer in hand.

“Tell all.”

“Well.” He raises one eyebrow and opens his mouth and closes it. “I don’t know how to begin.”

“Spit it out.”

“I have to start by saying that this is by far the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me.”

“Weirder than you and me?”

“Yeah. I mean, that felt reasonably natural, boy meets girl...” “Weirder than watching your mom die over and over?”

“Well, that’s just a horrible routine, by now. It’s a bad dream I have every so often. No, this was just surreal.” He runs his hand over my belly. “I went forward, and I was really there, you know, coming in strong, and I ran into our little girl, here.”

“Oh, my god. I’m so jealous. But wow.”

“Yeah. She was about ten. Clare, she is so amazing—she’s smart and musical and just...really confident and nothing fazed her....”

“What does she look like?”

“Me. A girl version of me. I mean, she’s beautiful, she’s got your eyes, but basically she looks a lot like me: black hair, pale, with a few freckles, and her mouth is smaller than mine was, and her ears don’t stick out. She had long curly hair, and my hands with the long fingers, and she’s tall.... She was like a young cat.”

Perfect. Perfect.

“I’m afraid my genes have had their way with her.... She was like you in personality, though. She had the most amazing presence...I saw her in a group of schoolchildren at the Art Institute and she was talking about Joseph Cornell’s Aviary boxes, and she said something heartrending about him.. .and somehow I knew who she was. And she recognized me.”

“Well, I would hope so.” I have to ask. “Does she—is she—?”

Henry hesitates. “Yes,” he finally says. “She does.” We are both silent. He strokes my face. “I know.”

I want to cry.

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

“Clare, she seemed happy. I asked her—she said she likes it.” He smiles. “She said it was interesting!”

We both laugh, a little ruefully at first, and then, it hits me, and we laugh in earnest, until our faces hurt, until tears are streaming down our cheeks. Because, of course, it is interesting. Very interesting.

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

BIRTHDAY

Wednesday, September 5-Thursday September 6, 2001 (Henry is 38, Clare is 30)

HENRY: Clare has been pacing around the house all day like a tiger. The contractions come every twenty minutes or so. “Try to get some sleep,” I tell her, and she lies on the bed for a few minutes and then gets up again. At two in the morning she finally goes to sleep. I lie next to her, wakeful, watching her breathe, listening to the little fretful sounds she makes, playing with her hair. I am worried, even though I know, even though I have seen with my own eyes that she will be okay, and Alba will be okay. Clare wakes up at 3:30.

“I want to go to the hospital,” she tells me.

“Maybe we should call a cab,” I say. “It’s awfully late.” “Gomez said to call no matter what time it was.”

“Okay.” I dial Gomez and Charisse. The phone rings sixteen times, and then Gomez picks up, sounding like a man on the bottom of the sea.

“Muh?” says Gomez. “Hey, Comrade. It’s time.”

He mutters something that sounds like “mustard eggs.” Then Charisse sets on the phone and tells me that they are on their way. I hang up and call Dr. Montague, and leave a message with her answering service. Clare is crouched on all fours, rocking back and forth. I get down on the floor with her.

“Clare?”

She looks up at me, still rocking. “Henry...why did we decide to do this again?” “Supposedly when it’s over they hand you a baby and let you keep it.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Fifteen minutes later we are climbing into Gomez’s Volvo. Gomez yawns as he helps me maneuver Clare into the back seat. “Do not even think of drenching my car in amniotic fluid,” he says to Clare amiably. Charisse runs into the house for garbage bags and covers the seats. We hop in and away we go. Clare leans against me and clenches my hands in hers.

“Don’t leave me,” she says.

“I won’t” I tell her. I meet Gomez’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “It hurts,” Clare says. “Oh, God, it hurts.”

“Think of something else. Something nice,” I say. We are racing down Western Avenue,

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

headed south. There’s hardly any traffic. “Tell me...”

I cast about and come up with my most recent sojourn into Clare’s childhood. “Remember the day we went to the lake, when you were twelve? And we went swimming, and you were telling me about getting your period?” Clare is gripping my hands with bone-shattering strength.

“Did I?”

“Yeah, you were sort of embarrassed but also real proud of your-Setf- ?.. You were wearing a pink and green bikini, and these yellow sunglasses with hearts molded into the frames.”

“I remember—ah!—oh, Henry, it hurts, it hurts!”

Charisse turns around and says, “Come on, Clare, it’s just the baby leaning on your spine, you’ve got to turn, okay?” Clare tries to change her position.

“Here we are,” Gomez says, turning into Mercy Hospital’s Emergency Unloading Zone.

“I’m leaking,” Clare says. Gomez stops the car, jumps out, and we gently remove Clare from the car. She takes two steps and her water breaks.

“Good timing, kitten,” Gomez says. Charisse runs ahead with our paperwork, and Gomez and I walk Clare slowly through ER and down long corridors to the OB wing. She stands leaning against the nurses’ station while they nonchalantly prepare a room for her.

“Don’t leave me,” Clare whispers.

“I won’t” I tell her again. I wish I could be sure about this. I am feeling cold and a little nauseous. Clare turns and leans into me. I wrap my arms around her. The baby is a hard roundness between us. Come out, come out wherever you are. Clare is panting. A fat blond nurse comes and tells us the room is ready. We all troop in. Clare immediately gets down on the floor on her hands and knees. Charisse starts putting things away, clothes in the closet, toiletries in the bathroom. Gomez and I stand watching Clare helplessly. She is moaning. We look at each other. Gomez shrugs.

Charisse says, “Hey Clare, how about a bath? You’ll feel better in warm water.”

Clare nods. Charisse makes a motion with her hands at Gomez that means shoo. Gomez says, “I think I’ll go have a smoke,” and leaves.

“Should I stay?” I ask Clare.

“Yes! Don’t go—stay where I can see you.”

“Okay.” I walk into the bathroom to run the bathwater. Hospital bathrooms creep me out. They always smell like cheap soap and diseased flesh. I turn on the tap, wait for the water to get warm.

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

“Henry! Are you there?” Clare calls out.

I stick my head back into the room. “I’m here.”

“Stay in here,” Clare commands, and Charisse takes my place in the bathroom. Clare makes a sound that I have never heard a human being make before, a deep despairing groan of agony. What have I done to her? I think of twelve-year-old Clare laughing and covered with wet sand on a blanket, in her first bikini, at the beach. Oh, Clare, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. An older black nurse comes in and checks Clare’s cervix.

“Good girl,” she coos to Clare. “Six centimeters.”

Clare nods, smiles, and then grimaces. She clutches her belly and doubles over, moaning louder. The nurse and I hold her. Clare gasps for breath, and then starts to scream. Amit Montague walks in and rushes to her.

“Baby baby baby, hush—” The nurse is giving Dr. Montague a bunch of information that means nothing to me. Clare is sobbing. I clear my throat. My voice comes out in a croak. “How about an epidural?”

“Clare?”

Clare nods. People crowd into the room with tubes and needles and machines. I sit holding Clare’s hand, watching her face. She is lying on her side, whimpering, her face wet with sweat and tears as the anesthesiologist hooks up an IV and inserts a needle into her spine. Dr. Montague is examining her, and frowning at the fetal monitor.

“What’s wrong?” Clare asks her. “Something’s wrong.”

“The heartbeat is very fast. She is scared, your little girl. You have to be calm, Clare, so the baby can be calm, yes?”

“It hurts so much.”

“That is because she is big.” Amit Montague’s voice is quiet, soothing. The burly walrus-mustachioed anesthesiologist looks at me, bored, over Claire’s body. “But now we are giving you a little cocktail, eh, some narcotics sonic analgesic, soon you will relax, and the baby will relax, yes?” Clare nods, yes. Dr. Montague smiles. “And Henry, how are you?”

“Not very relaxed.” I try to smile. I could use some of whatever it is they are giving Clare. I am experiencing slight double vision; I breathe deeply and it goes away.

“Things are improving: see?” says Dr. Montague. “It is like a cloud that passes over, the pain goes away, we take it somewhere and leave it by the side of the road, all by itself, and you and the little one are still here, yes? It is pleasant here, we will take our time, there is no hurry....” The tension has left Clare’s face. Her eyes are fixed on Dr. Montague. The machines beep. The room is dim. Outside the sun is rising. Dr. Montague is watching the fetal monitor. “Tell her you are fine, and she is fine. Sing her a song, yes?”

“Alba, it’s okay,” Clare says softly. She looks at me. “Say the poem about the lovers on

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

the carpet.”

I blank, and then I remember. I feel self-conscious reciting Rilke in front of all these people, and so I begin: “ Engell: Es ware ein Platz, den wir nicht wissen—”

“Say it in English,” Clare interrupts.

“Sorry.” I change my position, so that I am sitting by Clare’s belly with my back to Charisse and the nurse and the doctor, I slide my hand under Clare’s button-strained shirt. I can feel the outline of Alba through Clare’s hot skin.

“Angel!” I say to Clare, as though we are in our own bed, as though we have been up all night on less momentous errands,

Angel!: If there were a place that we didn’t know of and there, on some unsayable carpet, lovers displayed

what they could never bring to mastery here— the bold exploits of their high-flying hearts,

their towers of pleasure, their ladders

that have long since been standing where there was no ground, leaning just on each other, trembling,— and could master all this,

before the surrounding spectators, the innumerable soundless dead: Would these, then, throw down their final,

forever saved-up, forever hidden, unknown to us, eternally valid coins of happiness before the at last

genuinely smiling pair on the gratified carpet?

“There,” says Dr. Montague, clicking off the monitor. “Everyone is serene.” She beams at us all, and glides out the door, followed by the nurse. I accidentally catch the eye of the anesthesiologist, whose expression plainly says What kind of a pussy are you, anyway?

CLARE: The sun is coming up and I am lying numb on this strange bed in this pink room and somewhere in the foreign country that is my uterus Alba is crawling toward home, or away from home. The pain has left but I know that it has not gone far, that it is sulking somewhere

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

in a corner or under the bed and it will jump out when I least expect it. The contractions come and go, remote, muffled like the peal of bells through fog. Henry lies down next to me. People come and go. I feel like throwing up, but I don’t. Charisse gives me shaved ice out of a paper cup; it tastes like stale snow. I watch the tubes and the red blinking lights and I think about Mama. I breathe. Henry watches me. He looks so tense and unhappy. I start to worry again that he will vanish. “It’s okay,” I say. He nods. He strokes my belly. I’m sweating. It’s so hot in here. The nurse comes in and checks on me. Amit checks on me. I am somehow alone with Alba in the midst of everyone. It’s okay, I tell her. You’re doing fine, you’re not hurting me. Henry gets up and paces back and forth until I ask him to stop. I feel as thoughall my organs are becoming creatures, each with its own agenda, its own train to catch. Alba is tunneling headfirst into me, a bone and flesh excavator of my flesh and bone, a deepener of my depths. I imagine her swimming through me, I imagine her falling into the stillness of a morning pond, water parting at her velocity. I imagine her face, I want to see her face. I tell the anesthesiologist I want to feel something. Gradually the numbness recedes and the pain comes back, but it’s different pain now. It’s okay pain. Time passes.

Time passes and the pain begins to roll in and out as though it’s a woman standing at an ironing board, passing the iron back and forth, back and forth across a white tablecloth. Amit comes in and says it’s time, time to go to the delivery room. I am shaved and scrubbed and moved onto a gurney and rolled through hallways. I watch the ceilings of the hallways roll by, and Alba and I are rolling toward meeting each other, and Henry is walking beside us. In the delivery room everything is green and white. I smell detergent, it reminds me of Etta, and I want Etta but she is at Meadowlark, and I look up at Henry who is wearing surgical scrubs and I think why are we here we should be at home and then I feel as though Alba is surging, rushing and I push without thinking and we do this again and again like a game, like a song. Someone says Hey, where’d the Dad go? I look around but Henry is gone, he is nowhere not here and I think God damn him, but no, I don’t mean it God, but Alba is coming, she is coming and then I see Henry, he stumbles into my vision, disoriented and naked but here, he’s here! and Amit says Sucre Dieu! and then Ah, she has crowned, and I push and Alba’s head comes out and I put my hand down to touch her head, her delicate slippery wet velvet head and I push and push and Alba tumbles into Henry’s waiting hands and someone says Oh! and I am empty and released and I hear a sound like an old vinyl record when you putthe needle in the wrong groove and then Alba yells out and suddenly she is here, someone places her on my belly and I look down and her face, Alba’s face, is so pink and creased and her hair is so black and her eyes blindly search and her hands reach out and Alba pulls herself up to my breasts and she pauses, exhausted by the effort, by the sheer fact of everything.

Henry leans over me and touches her forehead, and says, “Alba.”

Later:

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

CLARE: It’s the evening of Alba’s first day on earth. I’m lying in bed in the hospital room surrounded by balloons and teddy bears and flowers with Alba in my arms. Henry is sitting cross-legged on the foot of the bed taking pictures of us. Alba has just finished nursing and she blows colostrum bubbles from her tiny lips and then falls asleep, a soft warm bag of skin and fluid against my nightgown. Henry finishes the roll of film and unloads the camera.

“Hey,” I say, suddenly remembering. “Where did you go? In the delivery room?”

Henry laughs. “You know, I was hoping you hadn’t noticed that. I thought maybe you were so preoccupied—”

“Where were you?”

“I was wandering around my old elementary school in the middle of the night.” “For how long?” I ask.

“Oh, god. Hours. It was beginning to get light when I left. It was winter and they had the heat turned way down. How long was I gone?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe five minutes?”

Henry shakes his head. “I was frantic. I mean, I had just abandoned you, and there I was just drifting around uselessly through the hallways of Francis Parker.... It was so...I felt so..” Henry smiles. “But it turned out okay, hmm?”

I laugh. “‘All’s well that ends well.”

“‘Thou speakest wiser than thou art ware of.’” There is a quiet knock on the door; Henry says, “Come in!” and Richard steps into the room and then stops, hesitant. Henry turns and says, “Dad—” and then stops, and then jumps off the bed and says, “Come in, have a seat.” Richard is carrying flowers and a small teddy bear which Henry adds to the pile on the windowsill.

“Clare,” says Richard. “I—congratulations.” He sinks slowly into the chair beside the bed.

“Um, would you like to hold her?” Henry asks softly. Richard nods, looking at me to see if I agree. Richard looks as though he hasn’t slept for days. His shirt needs ironing and he stinks of sweat and the iodine reek of old beer. I smile at him although I am wondering if this is such a hot idea. I hand Alba over to Henry who carefully transfers her into Richard’s awkward arms. Alba turns her pink round face up to Richard’s long unshaven one, turns toward his chest and searches for a nipple. After a moment she gives up and yawns, then goes back to sleep. He smiles. I had forgotten how Richard’s smile can transform his face.

“She’s beautiful,” he tells me. And, to Henry, “She looks like your mother.” Henry nods. “There’s your violinist, Dad.” He smiles. “It skipped a generation.”

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

“A violinist?” Richard looks down at the sleeping baby, black hair and tiny hands, fast asleep. No one ever looked less like a concert violinist than Alba does right now. “A violinist.” He shakes his head. “But how do you— No, never mind. So you are a violinist, are you now, little girl?” Alba sticks out her tongue a tiny bit and we all laugh.

“She’ll need a teacher, once she’s old enough,” I suggest.

“A teacher? Yes...You’re not going to hand her over to those Suzuki idiots, are you?” Richard demands.

Henry coughs. “Er, actually we were hoping that if you had nothing better to do...”

Richard gets it. It’s a pleasure to see him comprehend, to see him realize that someone needs him, that only he can give his only granddaughter the training she will need.

“I’d be delighted,” he says, and Alba’s future unrolls in front of her like a red carpet as far as the eye can see.

Tuesday, September 11, 2001 (Clare is 30, Henry is 38)

CLARE: I wake up at 6:43 and Henry is not in bed. Alba isn’t in her crib, either. My breasts hurt. My cunt hurts. Everything hurts. I get out of bed very carefully, go to the bathroom. I walk through the hall, the dining room, slowly. In the living room Henry is sitting on the couch with Alba cradled in his arms, not watching the little black and white television with the sound turned low. Alba is asleep. I sit down next to Henry. He puts his arm around me.

“How come you’re up?” I ask him. “I thought you said it wasn’t for a couple of hours yet?” On the TV a weatherman is smiling and pointing at a satellite picture of the Midwest.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Henry says. “I wanted to listen to the world being normal for a little while longer.”

“Oh.” I lean my head on Henry’s shoulder and close my eyes. When I open them again a commercial for a cell phone company is ending and a commercial for bottled water comes on. Henry hands Alba to me and gets up. In a minute I hear him making breakfast. Alba wakes up and I undo my nightgown and feed her. My nipples hurt. I watch the television. A blond anchorperson tells me something, smiling. He and the other anchorperson, an Asian woman, laugh and smile at me. At City Hall, Mayor Daley is answering questions. I doze. Alba sucks at me. Henry brings in a tray of eggs, toast, and orange juice. I want coffee. Henry has tactfully drunk his in the kitchen, but I can smell it on his breath. He sets the tray on the coffee table and puts my plate on my lap. I eat my eggs as Alba nurses. Henry mops up yolk with his toast. On TV a bunch of kids are skidding across grass, to demonstrate the effectiveness of some laundry detergent. We finish eating; Alba finishes, too. I burp her and Henry takes all the dishes to the kitchen. When he comes back I pass her to him and head to

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

the bathroom. I take a shower. The water is so hot I almost can’t stand it, but it feels heavenly on my sore body. I breathe the steamy air, dry my skin gingerly, rub balm on my lips, breasts, stomach. The mirror is all steamed up, so I don’t have to see myself. I comb my hair. I pull on sweatpants and a sweater. I feel deformed, deflated. In the living room Henry is sitting with his eyes closed, and Alba is sucking her thumb. As I sit down again Alba opens her eyes and makes a mewing sound. Her thumb slips out of her mouth and she looks confused. A Jeep is driving through a desert landscape. Henry has turned off the sound. He massages his eyes with his fingers. I fall asleep again.

Henry says, “Wake up, Clare.” I open my eyes. The television picture swerves around. A city street. A sky. A white skyscraper on fire. An airplane, toylike, slowly flies into the second white tower. Silent flames shoot up. Henry turns up the sound. “Oh my god,” says the voice of the television. “Oh my god.”

Tuesday, June 11, 2002 (Clare is 31)

CLARE: I’m making a drawing of Alba. At this moment Alba is nine months and five days old. She is sleeping on her back, on a small light blue flannel blanket, on the yellow ochre and magenta Chinese rug on the living room floor. She has just finished nursing. My breasts are light, almost empty. Alba is so very asleep that I feel perfectly okay about walking out the back door and across the yard into my studio.

For a minute I stand in the doorway inhaling the slightly musty unused studio odor. Then I rummage around in my flat file, find some persimmon-tanned paper that looks like cowhide, grab a few pastels and other implements and a drawing board and walk (with only a small pang of regret) out the door and back into the house.

The house is very quiet. Henry is at work (I hope) and I can hear the washing machine churning away in the basement. The air conditioner whines. There’s a faint rumble of traffic on Lincoln Avenue. I sit down on the rug next to Alba. A trapezoid of sunlight is inches away from her small pudgy feet. In half an hour it will cover her.

I clip my paper to the drawing board and arrange my pastels next to me on the rug. Pencil in hand, I consider my daughter.

Alba is sleeping deeply. Her ribcage rises and falls slowly and I can hear the soft grunt she makes with each exhalation. I wonder if she’s getting a cold. It’s warm in here, on this June late afternoon, and Alba’s wearing a diaper and nothing else. She’s a little flushed. Her left hand is clenching and unclenching rhythmically. Maybe she’s dreaming music.

I begin to rough in Alba’s head, which is turned toward me. I am not thinking about this, really. My hand is moving across the paper like the needle of a seismograph, recording

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

Alba’s form as I absorb it with my eyes. I note the way her neck disappears in the folds of baby fat under her chin, how the soft indentations above her knees alter slightly as she kicks, once, and is still again. My pencil describes the convexity of Alba’s full belly which submerges into the top of her diaper, an abrupt and angular line cutting across her roundness. I study the paper, adjust the angle of Alba’s legs, redraw the crease where her right arm joins her torso.

I begin to lay in pastel. I start by sketching in highlights in white— down her tiny nose, along her left side, across her knuckles, her diaper, the edge of her left foot. Then I rough in shadows, in dark green and ultramarine. A deep shadow clings to Alba’s right side where her body meets the blanket. It’s like a pool of water, and I put it in solidly. Now the Alba in the drawing suddenly becomes three-dimensional, leaps off the page.

I use two pink pastels, a light pink the hue of the inside of a shell and a dark pink that reminds me of raw tuna. With rapid strokes I make Alba’s skin. It is as though Alba’s skin was hidden in the paper, and I am removing some invisible substance that concealed it. Over this pastel skin I use a cool violet to make Alba’s ears and nose and mouth (her mouth is slightly open in a tiny O). Her black and abundant hair becomes a mixture of dark blue and black and red on the paper. I take care with her eyebrows, which seem so much like furry caterpillars that have found a home on Alba’s face.

The sunlight covers Alba now. She stirs, brings her small hand over her eyes, and sighs. I write her name, and my name, and the date at the bottom of the paper.

The drawing is finished. It will serve as a record—I loved you, I made you, and I made this for you—long after I am gone, and Henry is gone, and even Alba is gone. It will say, we made you, and here you are, here and now.

Alba opens her eyes and smiles.

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

SECRET

Sunday, October 12, 2003 (Clare is 32, Henry is 40)

CLARE: This is a secret: sometimes I am glad when Henry is gone. Sometimes I enjoy being alone. Sometimes I walk through the house late at night and I shiver with the pleasure of not talking, not touching, just walking, or sitting, or taking a bath. Sometimes I lie on the living room floor and listen to Fleetwood Mac, the Bangles, the B-52’s, the Eagles, bands Henry can’t stand. Sometimes I go for long walks with Alba and I don’t leave a note saying where I am. Sometimes I meet Celia for coffee, and we talk about Henry, and Ingrid, and whoever Celia’s seeing that week. Sometimes I hang out with Charisse and Gomez, and we don’t talk about Henry, and we manage to enjoy ourselves. Once I went to Michigan and when I came back Henry was still gone and I never told him I had been anywhere. Sometimes I get a baby-sitter and I go to the movies or I ride my bicycle after dark along the bike path by Montrose beach with no lights; it’s like flying.

Sometimes I am glad when Henry’s gone, but I’m always glad when he comes back.

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 683