Part II: A Past That Is Also a Future — SEVEN - The Time Traveler's Wife

Thursday, December 28, 2000 (Henry is 33, and 37, Clare is 29)

Henry: I am standing in our bedroom, in the future. It’s night, but moonlight gives the room a surreal, monochromatic distinctness. My ears are ringing, as they often do, in the future. I look down on Clare and myself, sleeping. It feels like death. I am sleeping tightly balled up, knees to chest, wound up in blankets, mouth slightly open. I want to touch me. I want to hold me in my arms, look into my eyes. But it won’t happen that way; I stand for long minutes staring intently at my sleeping future self. Eventually I walk softly to Clare’s side of the bed, kneel. It feels immensely like the present. I will myself to forget the other body in the bed, to concentrate on Clare.

She stirs, her eyes open. She isn’t sure where we are. Neither am I.

I am overwhelmed by desire, by a longing to be connected to Clare as strongly as possible, to be here, now. I kiss her very lightly, lingering, linking about nothing. She is drunk with sleep, moves her hand to my face and wakes more as she feels the solidity of me. Now she is present; she runs her hand down my arm, a caress. I carefully peel the sheet from her, so as not to disturb the other me, of whom Clare is still not aware. I wonder if this other self is somehow impervious to waking, but decide not to find out. I am lying on top of Clare, covering her completely with my body. I wish I could stop her from turning her head, but she will turn her head any minute now. As I penetrate Clare she looks at me and I think I don’t exist and a second later she turns her head and sees me. She cries out, not loudly, and looks back at me, above her, in her. Then she remembers, accepts it, this is pretty strange but it’s okay, and in this moment I love her more than life.

Monday, February 12, 2001 (Henry is 37, Clare is 29)

Henry: Clare has been in a strange mood all week. She’s distracted. It is as though something only Clare can hear has riveted her attention, as though she’s receiving revelations from God through her fillings, or trying to decode satellite transmissions of Russian cryptology in her head. When I ask her about it, she just smiles and shrugs. This is so unlike Clare that I am alarmed, and immediately desist.

I come home from work one evening and I can see just by looking at Clare that something awful has happened. Her expression is scared and pleading. She comes close to me and stops, and doesn’t say anything. Someone has died, I think. Who has died? Dad? Kimy? Philip?

“Say something,” I ask. “What’s happened?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“How can you—” Even as I say it I know exactly how. “Never mind, I remember.” For me, that night was years ago, but for Clare it is only weeks in the past. I was coming from 1996, when we were trying desperately to conceive, and Clare was barely awake. I curse myself for a careless fool. Clare is waiting for me to say something. I force myself to smile.

“Big surprise.”

“Yeah.” She looks a little teary. I take her into my arms, and she holds me tightly.

“Scared?” I murmur into Clare’s hair.

“Uh-huh.”

“You were never scared, before.”

“I was crazy, before. Now I know....”

“What it is.”

“What can happen.” We stand and think about what can happen.

I hesitate. “We could....” I let it hang.

“No. I can’t.” It’s true. Clare can’t. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic.

I say, “Maybe it will be good. A happy accident.”

Clare smiles, and I realize that she wants this, that she actually hopes that seven will be our lucky number. My throat contracts, and I have to turn away.

Tuesday, February 20, 2001 (Clare is 29, Henry is 37)

Clare: The clock radio clicks on at 7:46 a.m. and National Public Radio sadly tells me that there has been a plane crash somewhere and eighty-six people are dead. I’m pretty sure I am one of them. Henry’s side of the bed is empty. I close my eyes and I am in a little berth in a cabin on an ocean-liner, pitching over rough seas. I sigh and gingerly creep out of bed and into the bathroom. I’m still throwing up ten minutes later when Henry sticks his head in the door and asks me if I’m okay. “Great. Never better.”

He perches on the edge of the tub. I would just as soon not have an audience for this. “Should I be worried? You never threw up at all before.”

“Amit says this is good; I’m supposed to throw up.” It’s something about my body recognizing the baby as part of me, instead of a foreign body. Amit has been giving me this drug they give people who have organ transplants.

“Maybe I should bank some more blood for you today.” Henry and I are both type O. I nod, and throw up. We are avid blood bankers; he has needed transfusions twice, and I have had three, one of them requiring a huge amount. I sit for a minute and then stagger to my feet. Henry steadies me. I wipe my mouth and brush my teeth. Henry goes downstairs to make breakfast. I suddenly have an overpowering desire for oatmeal.

“Oatmeal!” I yell down the stairs.

“Okay!”

I begin to brush out my hair. My reflection in the mirror shows me pink and puffy. I thought pregnant women were supposed to glow. I am not glowing. Oh, well. I’m still pregnant, and that’s all that counts.

Thursday, April 19, 2001 (Henry is 37, Clare is 29)

Henry: We are at Amit Montague’s office for the ultrasound. Clare and I have been both eager and reluctant to have an ultrasound. We have refused amniocentesis because we are sure we will lose the baby if we poke a huge long needle at it. Clare is eighteen weeks pregnant. Halfway there; if we could fold time in half right now like a Rorschach test, this would be the crease down the middle. We live in a state of holding breath, afraid to exhale for fear of breathing out the baby too soon.

We sit in the waiting room with other expectant couples and mothers with strollers and toddlers who run around bumping into things. Dr. Montague’s office always depresses me, because we have spent so much time here being anxious and hearing bad news. But today is different. Today everything will be okay.

A nurse calls our names. We repair to an examining room. Clare gets undressed, and gets on the table, and is greased and scanned. The technician watches the monitor. Amit Montague, who is tall and regal and French Moroccan, watches the monitor. Clare and I hold hands. We watch

the monitor, too. Slowly the image builds itself, bit by bit.

On the screen is a weather map of the world. Or a galaxy, a swirl of stars. Or a baby.

“ Bien joue, une fille,” Dr. Montague says. “She is sucking her thumb. She is very pretty. And very big.”

Clare and I exhale. On the screen a pretty galaxy is sucking her thumb. As we watch she takes her hand away from her mouth. Dr. Montague says, “She smiles.” And so do we.

Monday, August 20, 2001 (Clare is 30, Henry is 38)

Clare: The baby is due in two weeks and we still haven’t settled on a name for her. In fact, we’ve barely discussed it; we’ve been avoiding the whole subject superstitiously, as though naming the baby will cause the Furies to notice her and torment her. Finally Henry brings home a book called Dictionary of Given Names.

We are in bed. It’s only 8:30 p.m. and I’m wiped out. I lie on my side, my belly a peninsula, facing Henry, who lies on his side facing me with his head propped on his arm, the book on the bed between us. We look at each other, smile nervously.

“Any thoughts?” he says, leafing through the book.

“Jane,” I reply.

He makes a face. “Jane?”

“I used to name all my dolls and stuffed animals Jane. Every one of them.”

Henry looks it up. “It means ‘ Gift of God.’”

“That works for me.”

“Let’s have something a little unusual. How about Irette? Or Jodotha?” He s through the pages. “Here’s a good one: Loololuluah. It’s Arabic for pearl.”

“How about Pearl?” I picture the baby as a smooth iridescent white ball.

Henry runs his finger downs the columns. “Okay: ‘ (Latin) A probable variant of perula, in reference to the most valued form of this product of disease.’”

“Ugh. What’s wrong with this book?” I take it from Henry and, for kicks, look up “ ‘Henry (Teutonic) Ruler of the home: chief of the dwelling.’”

He laughs. “Look up Clare.”

“It’s just another form of ‘ Clara (Latin) Illustrious, bright.’”

“That’s good,” he says.

I flip through the book randomly. “Philomele?”

“I like that,” says Henry. “But what of the horrible nickname issue? Philly? Mel?”

“Pyrene (Greek) Red-haired.”

“But what if she isn’t?” Henry reaches over the book and picks up a handful of my hair, and puts the ends in his mouth. I pull it away from him and push all my hair behind me.

“I thought we knew everything there was to know about this kid. Surely Kendrick tested for red hair?” I say.

Henry retrieves the book from me. “Yseult? Zoe? I like Zoe. Zoe has possibilities.”

“What’s it mean?”

“Life.”

“Yeah, that’s very good. Bookmark that.”

“Eliza,” Henry offers.

“Elizabeth.”

Henry looks at me, hesitates. “Annette.”

“Lucy.”

“No ” Henry says firmly.

“No,” I agree.

“What we need” Henry says, “is a fresh start. A blank slate. Let’s call her Tabula Rasa.”

“Let’s call her Titanium White.”

“Blanche, Blanca, Bianca...”

“Alba,” I say.

“ As in Duchess of?”

“Alba DeTamble.” It rolls around in my mouth as I say it.

“That’s nice, all the little iambs, tripping along...” He’s flipping through the book. “ ‘Alba (Latin) White. (Provencal) Dawn of day.’ Hmm.” He laboriously clambers off the bed. I can hear him rummaging around in the living room; he returns after a few minutes with Volume I of the oed, the big Random House dictionary, and my decrepit old Encyclopedia Americana Book I, A to Annuals. ‘“A dawn song of the Provencal poets.. .in honor of their mistresses. Reveilles, a Vaurore, par le cri du guet-teur, deux amants qui viennent de passer la nuit ensemble se separent en maudissant le jour qui vient trop tat; tel est le theme, non moins invariable que celui de la pastourelle, d’un genre dontle nom est emprunte au mot alba, qui figure parfois au debut de la piece. Et regulierement a la fin de chaque couplet, ou il forme refrain.’ How sad. Let’s try Random House. This is better. ‘A white city on a hill. A fortress.’” He jettisons Random House off the bed and opens the encyclopedia. “AEsop, Age of Reason, Alaska...okay, here, Alba.” He scans the entry. “A bunch of now wiped-out towns in ancient Italy. And the Duke of Alba.”

I sigh and turn onto my back. The baby stirs. She must have been sleeping. Henry is back to perusing the bed. “Amour. Amourous. Armadillo. Bazooms. Goodness, the things they print these days in works reference.” He slides his hand under my nightgown, runs it slowly over her taut stomach. The baby kicks, hard, just where his hand is, and he arts, and looks at me, amazed. His hands are roaming, finding their way toss familiar and unfamiliar terrain. “How many DeTambles can you fit in there?”

“Uh, there’s always room for one more.”

“Alba,” he says, softly.

“A white city. An impregnable fortress on a white hill.”

“She’ll like it.” Henry is pulling my underwear down my legs and over my ankles. He tosses it off the bed and looks at me.

“Careful...,” I tell him.

“Very careful,” he agrees, as he strips off his clothes.

I feel immense, like a continent in a sea of pillows and blankets. Henry bends over me from behind, moves over me, an explorer mapping my skin with his tongue. “Slowly, slowly....” I am afraid.

“A song sung by the troubadours at dawn...” he is whispering to me as he enters me.

“...To their mistresses,” I reply. My eyes are closed and I hear Henry as though from the next room:

“Just.. .so.” And then: “Yes. Yes!”