The time traveler's wife Read Online Free Page B

do, too. He turns his head toward me, looks
at me. "It was almost over, anyway."
    "Almost?"
    "I was about to break up with her. It's
just bad timing. Or good timing, I don't know." He's trying to read my
face, for what? Forgiveness? It's not his fault. How could he know? "We've
sort of been torturing each other for a long time—" He's talking faster
and faster and then he stops. "Do you want to know?" No.
    "Thank you." Henry passes his hands
over his face. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you were coming or I'd have
cleaned up a little more. My life, I mean, not just the apartment."
There's a lipstick smear under Henry's ear, and I reach up and rub it out. He
takes my hand, and holds it. "Am I very different? Than you expected?"
he asks apprehensively.
    "Yes...you're more..." selfish, I
think, but I say, "...younger."
    He considers it. "Is that good or
bad?"
    "Different." I run both hands over
Henry's shoulders and across his back, massaging muscles, exploring
indentations. "Have you seen yourself, in your forties?"
    "Yes. I look like I've been spindled and
mutilated."
    "Yeah. But you're less—I mean you are sort
of—more. I mean, you know me, so            "
    "So right now you're telling me that I'm
somewhat gauche."
    I shake my head, although that is exactly what
I mean. "It's just that I've had all these experiences, and you...I'm not
used to being with you when you don't remember anything that happened."
    Henry is somber. "I'm sorry. But the
person you know doesn't exist yet. Stick with me, and sooner or later, he's
bound to appear. That's the best I can do, though."
    "That's fair," I say. "But in
the meantime..."
    He turns to meet my gaze. "In the
meantime?"
    "I want... "
    "You want?"
    I'm blushing. Henry smiles, and pushes me
backward gently onto the pillows. "You know." "I don't know
much, but I can guess a thing or two."
    Later, we're dozing warm covered with
midmorning October pale sun, skin to skin and Henry says something into the
back of my neck that I don't catch.
    "What?"
    "I was thinking; it's very peaceful, here
with you. It's nice to just lie here and know that the future is sort of taken
care of."
    "Henry?" "Hmm?"
    "How come you never told yourself about
me?" "Oh. I don't do that." "Do what?"
    "I don't usually tell myself stuff ahead
of time unless it's huge, life-threatening, you know? I'm trying to live like a
normal person. I don't even like having myself around, so I try not to drop in
on myself unless there's no choice."
    I ponder this for a while. "I would tell
myself everything."
    "No, you wouldn't. It makes a lot of
trouble."
    "I was always trying to get you to tell me
things." I roll over onto my back and Henry props his head on his hand and
looks down at me. Our faces are about six inches apart. It's so strange to be
talking, almost like we always did, but the physical proximity makes it hard
for me to concentrate.
    "Did I tell you things?" he asks.
    "Sometimes. When you felt like it, or had
to."
    "Like what?"
    "See? You do want to know. But I'm not
telling."
    Henry laughs. "Serves me right. Hey, I'm
hungry. Let's go get breakfast."
    Outside it's chilly. Cars and cyclists cruise
along Dearborn while couples stroll down the sidewalks and there we are with
them, in the morning sunlight, hand in hand, finally together for anyone to
see. I feel a tiny pang of regret, as though I've lost a secret, and then a
rush of exaltation: now everything begins.
     

 
     
     
    A FIRST TIME
FOR EVERYTHING
     
    Sunday, June 16, 1968
     
    Henry: The first time was magical. How could I
have known what it meant? It was my fifth birthday, and we went to the Field
Museum of Natural History. I don't think I had ever been to the Field Museum
before. My parents had been telling me all week about the wonders to be seen
there, the stuffed elephants in the great hall, the dinosaur skeletons, the
caveman dioramas. Mom had just gotten back from Sydney, and she had brought