The time traveler's wife Read Online Free PDF Page B

through the
high windows shows me thousands of beetles. I'm in the Field Museum, praise the
Lord. I stand still and breathe deeply, trying to clear my head. Something
about this rings a bell in my fettered brain and I try to dredge it up. I'm
supposed to do something. Yes. My fifth birthday... someone was there, and I'm
about to be that someone...I need clothes. Yes. Indeed. I sprint through beetle
mania into the long hallway that bisects the second floor, down the west
staircase to the first floor, grateful to be in the pre-motion-detector era.
The great elephants loom menacingly over me in the moonlight and I wave to them
on my way to the little gift shop to the right of the main entrance. I circle
the wares and find a few promising items: an ornamental letter opener, a metal
bookmark with the Field's insignia, and two T-shirts that feature dinosaurs.
The locks on the cases are a joke; I pop them with a bobby pin I find next to
the cash register, and help myself. Okay. Back up the stairs, to the third
floor. This is the Field's "attic," where the labs are; the staff have
their offices up here. I scan the names on the doors, but none of them suggests
anything to me; finally I select at random and slide my bookmark along the lock
until the catch pushes back and I'm in. The occupant of this office is one V.
M. Williamson, and he's a very untidy guy. The room is dense with papers, and
coffee cups and cigarettes overflow from ashtrays; there's a partially
articulated snake skeleton on his desk. I quickly case the joint for clothes
and come up with nothing. The next office belongs to a woman, J. F. Bettley. On
the third try I get lucky. D. W. Fitch has an entire suit hung neatly on his
coat rack, and it pretty much fits me, though it's a bit short in the arms and
legs and wide in the lapels. I wear one of the dinosaur T-shirts under the jacket.
No shoes, but I'm decent. D. W. also keeps an unopened package of Oreo cookies
in his desk, bless him. I appropriate them and leave, closing the door
carefully behind me. Where was I, when I saw me? I close my eyes and fatigue
takes me bodily, caressing me with her sleepy fingers. I am almost out on my
feet, but I catch myself and it comes to me: a man in silhouette walking toward
me backlit by the museum's front doors. I need to get back to the Great Hall.
When I get there all is quiet and still. I walk across the middle of the floor,
trying to replicate the view of the doors, and then I seat myself near the coat
room, so as to enter stage left. I can hear blood rushing in my head, the air
conditioning system humming, cars whooshing by on Lake Shore Drive. I eat ten
Oreos, slowly, gently prying each one apart, scraping the filling out with my
front teeth, nibbling the chocolate halves to make them last. I have no idea
what time it is, or how long I have to wait. I'm mostly sober now, and
reasonably alert. Time passes, nothing happens. At last: I hear a soft thud, a
gasp. Silence. I wait. I stand up, silently, and pad into the Hall, walking
slowly through the light that slants across the marble floor. I stand in the
center of the doors and call out, not loud: "Henry."
    Nothing. Good boy, wary and silent. I try
again. "It's okay, Henry. I'm your guide, I'm here to show you around.
It's a special tour. Don't be afraid, Henry."
    I hear a slight, oh-so-faint noise. "I
brought you a T-shirt, Henry. So you won't get cold while we look at the
exhibits." I can make him out now, standing at the edge of the darkness.
"Here. Catch." I throw it to him, and the shirt disappears, and then
he steps into the light. The T-shirt comes down to his knees. Me at five, dark
spiky hair, moon pale with brown almost Slavic eyes, wiry, coltish. At five I
am happy, cushioned in normality and the arms of my parents. Everything
changed, starting now. I walk forward slowly, bend toward him, and speak
softly. "Hello. I'm glad to see you, Henry. Thank you for coming