The time traveler's wife Read Online Free PDF

time and death brought to a halt inside
its walls. We saw crystals and cougars, muskrats and mummies, fossils and more
fossils. We ate our picnic lunch on the lawn of the museum, and then plunged in
again for birds and alligators and Neanderthals. Toward the end I was so tired
I could hardly stand, but I couldn't bear to leave. The guards came and gently
herded us all to the doors; I struggled not to cry, but began to anyway, out of
exhaustion and desire. Dad picked me up, and we walked back to the car. I fell
asleep in the backseat, and when I awoke We were home, and it was time for
dinner. We ate downstairs in Mr. and Mrs. Kim's apartment. They were our
landlords. Mr. Kim was a gruff, compact man who seemed to like me but never
said much, and Mrs. Kim (Kimy, my nickname for her) was my buddy, my crazy
Korean card-playing babysitter. I spent most of my waking hours with Kimy. My
mom was never much of a cook, and Kimy could produce anything from a souffle to
bi him bop with panache. Tonight, for my birthday, she had made pizza and
chocolate cake. We ate. Everyone sang Happy Birthday and I blew out the
candles. I don't remember what I wished for. I was allowed to stay up later
than usual, because I was still excited by all the things we'd seen, and
because I had slept so late in the afternoon. I sat on the back porch in my
pajamas with Mom and Dad and Mrs. and Mr. Kim, drinking lemonade and watching
the blueness of the evening sky, listening to the cicadas and the TV noises
from other apartments. Eventually Dad said, "Bedtime, Henry." I
brushed my teeth and said prayers and got into bed. I was exhausted but wide
awake. Dad read to me for a while, and then, seeing that I still couldn't
sleep, he and Mom turned out the lights, propped open my bedroom door, and went
into the living room. The deal was: they would play for me as long as I wanted,
but I had to stay in bed to listen. So Mom sat at the piano, and Dad got out
his violin, and they played and sang for a long time. Lullabies, lieder,
nocturnes; sleepy music to soothe the savage boy in the bedroom. Finally Mom
came in to see if I was asleep. I must have looked small and wary in my little
bed, a nocturnal animal in pajamas.
    "Oh, baby. Still awake?"
    I nodded.
    "Dad and I are going to bed. Are you
okay?"
    I said Yes and she gave me a hug. "It was
pretty exciting today at the museum, huh?" "Can we go back
tomorrow?"
    "Not tomorrow, but we'll go back real
soon, okay?" Okay.
    "G'night." She left the door open and
flipped off the hall light. "Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs
bite."
    I could hear little noises, water running,
toilet flushing. Then all was quiet. I got out of bed and knelt in front of my
window. I could see lights in the house next door, and somewhere a car drove by
with its radio blaring. I stayed there for a while, trying to feel sleepy, and
then I stood up and everything changed.
    Saturday, January 2, 1988, 4:03 a.m. /Sunday,
June 16, 1968, 10:46 p.m. (Henry is 24, and 5)
    Henry: It's 4:03 a.m. on a supremely cold
January morning and I'm just getting home. I've been out dancing and I'm only
half drunk but utterly exhausted. As I fumble with my keys in the bright foyer
I fall to my knees, dizzy and nauseated, and then I am in the dark, vomiting on
a tile floor. I raise my head and see a red illuminated exit sign and as my
eyes adjust I see tigers, cavemen with long spears, cavewomen wearing
strategically modest skins, wolfish dogs. My heart is racing and for a long
liquor-addled moment I think Holy shit, I've gone all the way back to the Stone
Age until I realize that exit signs tend to congregate in the twentieth
century. I get up, shaking, and venture toward the doorway, tile icy under my
bare feet, gooseflesh and all my hairs standing up. It's absolutely silent. The
air is clammy with air conditioning. I reach the entrance and look into the
next room. It's full of glass cases; the white streetlight glow