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“Other worlds?” John Faa said. “Pardon me, sir, but what worlds would those be? Do you mean the stars?”
“Indeed no.”
“Perhaps the world of spirits?” said Farder Coram.
“Nor that.”
“Is it the city in the lights?” said Lyra. “It is, en't it?”
The goose turned his stately head toward her. His eyes were black, surrounded by a thin line of pure sky-blue, and their gaze was intense. “Yes,” he said. “Witches have known of the other worlds for thousands of years. You can see them sometimes in the Northern Lights. They aren't part of this universe at all; even the furthest stars are part of this universe, but the lights show us a different universe entirely. Not further away, but interpenetrating with this one. Here, on this deck, millions of other universes exist, unaware of one another....”
He raised his wings and spread them wide before folding them again.
“There,” he said, “I have just brushed ten million other worlds, and they knew nothing of it. We are as close as a heartbeat, but we can never touch or see or hear these other worlds except in the Northern Lights.”
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 (Henry is 38, Clare is 40)
HENRY: “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.
11:54 p.m. Friday, August 24, 2001 (Clare is 30, Henry is 38)
HENRY: Clare sleeps beside me, peaceful, but I have given up on trying to join her tonight. Alba’s words from earlier today—from ten years in the future—rattle in my mind, twist and turn and keep me from my own sleep.
Five years. A death sentence.
And Clare. I roll on my side, wrap my arms around her waist, her stomach stretched out before her. Feel the faintest hints of movement. Clare sighs, and Alba rolls in her belly, a ripple of motion beneath my hand. It will not be long now. Days, maybe.
Clare will be sad. I will be gone, and Clare will be sad, and alone, and our daughter, our beautiful, brilliant daughter, will grow up without me.
Alba’s happy words from the museum float to the front of my thoughts. I am a prodigy, she says, proudly. She is pleased with herself. Sometimes I can go when and where I want.
Outside our window, a car drives by, bass thumping through its windows. It pauses at a stop sign, then moves on, slowly, and silence fills the room again. The neon lights from the clock next to the bed tell me that it is almost midnight, but it is Friday night and the city is still wide awake. If I strain, I can hear sirens, police responding to calls, ambulances rushing patients to the hospital.
As though she can sense my thoughts, Clare shifts until her back presses against my chest. I kiss the back of her neck, and she murmurs something, a whisper that I only barely hear. “Henry,” she says.
“I’m here,” I whisper back, and she calms. Under my fingers, Alba stirs once more, then stills.
Sometimes I can go when and where I want, Alba says in my head.
There is nothing in this world that I want more than to be with Clare and Alba, here and now.
Saturday, September 6, 2003 (Clare is 32, Henry is 40)
CLARE: It is Alba’s second birthday, and we throw her a party. Charisse and Gomez show up, children trailing behind them. At four and a half, Rosa has taken it upon herself to be Alba’s best friend, and this means they are joined at the hands from the moment Rosa spots her. Alba walks next to her, eyes wide, stumbles every so often on unsteady legs. I watch her, feeling something inside of me bloom; this is my child, my creation, my magnum opus.
I look to Henry and find him watching me, a strange smile on his face. He has been different lately. He is not sleeping, and he spends much of his free time with Dr. Kendrick, or reading philosophy texts. He talks about free will a lot, mumbles about it when he think I’m not listening.
The children flock to the table when Charisse appears, a cake in her hands. There are three candles on the top, lit up: two for Alba, and one to grow on. Henry takes picture after picture. Alba’s eyes are wide, following the bright lights as they are set in front of her.
Charisse begins to sing, “Happy birthday to you,” and the kids pick it up quickly, joining in to create a cacophony of sound. Alba claps her hands, delighted.
It is up to Rosa to blow out the candles, self-appointed Guardian of Alba that she is. She leans forward, cheeks puffed up, and Alba imitates her. Together, they blow out each candle, one at a time, and everyone cheers.
HENRY: I linger back, watching, while Charisse and Clare attempt to serve the cake and feed the ravenous hoards. Clare has tied her hair back to keep it out of the icing, and she looks beautiful in the early afternoon sunlight, the red in her hair glowing like a halo where it escapes her tie and frames her face. Alba has her hands buried in a piece of cake, oblivious or uncaring of the fact that it is meant to be eaten, not played in.
“Ho, Library Boy.” I turn, and Gomez is standing beside me. I didn’t notice him approaching.
“Gomez,” I say.
He stands next to me and follows my gaze back to the table. “Charisse wanted to cook the birthday cake,” he says.
We both shudder at the same time. Charisse, like Clare, is useless in the kitchen, except to boil water.
Silence falls between us, strained but not entirely uncomfortable. I am aware, not for the first time, that Gomez and I are no friends, but acquaintances who must, frequently, act friendly. And yet, “I never thanked you,” I say out loud.
Gomez doesn’t look away from the birthday celebrations, but he does raise an eyebrow, pull out a cigarette. “For what, dear Comrade?” he asks.
“For telling us about Dr. Montague.” It seems so obvious, but Gomez just blinks, confused, before recalling the conversation. To him it was simply a helpful tip, a way to make Clare happy, but it is something I can never thank him enough for.
“You’re welcome.” Gomez takes another drag off of the cigarette.
And like that, simply, the matter is over, and silence once again descends. We watch as Alba toddles off, covered in cake, her laughter filling the backyard. Rosa chases after her. Joseph and Max are much slower to leave the cake, but eventually the thrill of a game of chase overwhelms them.
Gomez sighs, puts his cigarette out on the grass and crushes it with his shoe, and then heads across the yard to help wrangle the screaming children back to the table.
Friday, February 18, 2005 (Henry is 41, Clare is 33)
HENRY: I sit in the back of the cab with Charisse home after our opera date. We are both silent, thinking about our conversation at Don’s, coffee forgotten on the table before us. Charisse is more concerned with Gomez, who she loves but who loves Clare more. I am concerned solely with Clare.
I glance over at Charisse, but she just stares out the window as they cab drives back to her neighborhood.
Clare, I think. I don’t want to leave you.
I don’t want to leave her alone. I don’t want to leave her with Alba. I don’t want to leave her to Gomez.
I don’t want to leave.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005 (Henry is 41, Clare is 34)
HENRY: Clare won’t look at me. She spends her days in the studio out back, dipping into vats of paper under her hands crack and bleed. When she comes to bed at night, her eyes are red, puffy, and I know that she’s been crying, but I don’t know what to do to make this better.
It has been two days since we met our daughter at age seven, time traveling into our back yard. Two days since she wrapped her arms around my neck, called my name, and burst into tears, trembling in my arms.
Two days since comprehension dawned on Clare’s face, since she remembered that moment in 1984, that moment when everything is going to change.
The death sentence hangs even further over me.
CLARE: When I was in eleventh grade, the nuns at my Catholic school gave us Paradise Lost to read. I remember the debate that followed, predestination versus free will. Does God plan every step of our lives, or do we have the control to do what we want and change our futures?
But by then I knew that free will was only an illusion. I knew that Henry had no control over his life, and that I was simply caught up in the wake of his journey.
At the time it was comforting. To know that someday I would have Henry, that my future was planned out and waiting for me.
Now, though, I dye an entire vat a shade of dark red, and the pulp runs through my fingers, staining them. I feel like I am sifting through the innards of a great beast, and I want to pull sheet after sheet of it, shape the paper into a huge monstrosity, looming over me in the confined space of the studio.
How long do we have? How long until Henry’s fate takes him from me?
Wednesday, November 23, 2005 (Clare is 34, Henry is 42)
CLARE: I wake up in the early morning pre-dawn and the bed is cold beside me. Henry is gone, and has been for a few hours. His boxers lay flat on the bed, the faded Violent Femmes t-shirt wrinkled beside it.
I make coffee, check in on Alba who is still sleeping soundly. I read the newspaper, attempt the crossword before leaving it for Henry to finish and start on the Sudoku instead.
Alba wakes and requests pancakes for breakfast. I follow the directions on the side of the box, smother the finished product in butter and maple syrup, and she doesn’t even complain that they are burnt on one side and a bit raw on the other.
Henry still doesn’t come back.
HENRY: I am in a field somewhere in the Midwest, and it is late summer. There is corn as high as my shoulders, and the sun is shining. I stole a pair of jeans from an old-fashioned scarecrow, but they are too small and dig into my sides.
Three hours ago, I was lying awake, watching Clare sleep. I was brushing hair out of her eyes, smoothing it down, and my vision began to blur. There was a familiar pressure behind my eyes, and then my ears popped and I was lying on sun-warmed soil, alone.
I miss Clare. Perhaps she is still sleeping soundly in the bed, unaware of my absence. Or maybe she is worried. Maybe she wonders if this time will be it, if I will not return to her this time.
Alba’s words from the future come back to me as I sit there, corn stalks swaying serenely around me: Sometimes I can go when and where I want.
I want to be with Clare. I say the words aloud quietly, then louder, shouting them to the birds and the empty sky.
“Clare!” I call, and then I am back in my bed, on top of the blanket, and it is like I never left.
This is, I think, the first time. I resolve that it will not be the last.
Monday, January 7, 2006 (Clare is 34, Henry is 42)
CLARE: There is a knock at the door shortly after ten. Alba is with Kimy this morning, and Henry has called in to work. Six inches of snow fell the night before, and the city is gleaming white, deceptively gorgeous. It is below zero outside, and the car wouldn’t start this morning when I tried it.
When the door opens, there is a police officer standing there. My heart races, but I can hear Henry washing our coffee mugs in the kitchen, humming something off-tune, so I know he is safe.
“Mrs. DeTamble?” the officer asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“Is your husband home?” I frown, but call Henry’s name. The water in the kitchen turns off, and Henry appears in the front hallway a moment later, wiping his hands on a dish towel.
“Mr. DeTamble,” the officer says. “Can you tell us where you were at around four o’clock this morning?”
Henry blinks in surprise. He is thinking the same thing I am, that somewhere, somehow, he has gotten in trouble. “In bed,” he says. “Asleep.”
The officer doesn’t seem to like this answer. “So there’s no reason that museum security at the Art Institute would have caught you on camera, running through the North Lawn with no clothes on?”
“In this cold?” Henry asks. It’s a non-answer, and I catch his eye. We’re both thinking, What happened last night? Why didn’t he call us?
This is not Henry’s first brush with the law. He is something of a legend with the CPD, caught on camera in places he can’t possibly be, put in handcuffs only to escape. He has had countless Indecent Exposure charges filed against him, but nothing ever sticks.
The officer is clearly not content with Henry’s response, but it is too cold for him to stand on the doorstep, and he has no actual evidence to make an arrest. He finally leaves.
“Shit,” Henry says when the door closes. “Where would I go?”
“Maybe you got back to the present?” I ask.
“But maybe not…” Henry is confused, and so am I.
Thursday, April 6, 2026 (Henry is 42, Clare is 54)
HENRY: One second I am at work, at my desk. I am working on arranging for an exhibition of rare Sherlock Holmes novels to travel down from Milwaukee. And then a light bulb above my head flickers, beginning to go out, and suddenly I am feeling dizzy, wishing I hadn’t eaten those dumplings for lunch.
I think, Clare and no, this is not the time, and then I am gone.
It takes me a second to realize that I am at home. The house has changed, the rug in the front hallway is green instead of blue, there are brown leather boots sitting in the rack next to the door, where pink rain boots sat that morning.
I walk further into the house. A floorboard creaks.
There are pictures on the wall. I recognize Clare, hair going gray, faint lines around her eyes, and a young woman. At first I think I am seeing my mother, from the photos of her when she was first starting out as a singer. Then I realize that I am staring at Alba, in her early twenties. She has a black gown on in the picture, and she is grinning widely at the camera.
“Henry?” I hear, and I turn. There is Clare. Not my Clare, not the woman that I left in bed this morning, asleep, skin warm and glowing. But she is still Clare, and her eyes are wide, surprised.
I take a step forward, but the world crumbles around me before I can take another, and I am back in my office a split-second later.
“Dammit,” I say. I hurry to dress again, before anyone can come in. The clock on my wall says that I have been gone for twenty minutes.
I realize that I didn’t see myself in the picture of Clare and Alba.
I realize that Clare didn’t seem sad.
I don’t know what to think anymore.
Monday, January 7, 2006 (Henry is 43)
HENRY: It’s cold. It’s very, very cold, and I am lying on the ground in snow.
I stumble to my feet, shivering. The Art Institute stands dark and closed before me. My breath comes out in puffs.
It is so, so very cold. I manage to walk a few yards, then stop. My limbs are too heavy to move any further.
I close my eyes and see Clare’s face. I see her white teeth, dimples in her cheeks, as she smiles. I see her red hair hanging loose around her face, the faintest constellation of freckles across the bridge of her nose. I see Clare in my mind and feel warm.
And then I am warm. I am on the beach, and it is the middle of the night, and the air is muggy and warm. The beach is empty. I collapse on the sand and let the warm water of Lake Michigan lap at my feet.
Once my lungs have greedily sucked in the warm air, I wriggle my toes, roll on my back and look up at the moon and the few stars that shine through the city lights.
And I laugh.
Thursday, November 30, 2006 (Clare is 35, Henry is 43)
CLARE: Something is drawing closer. There’s a pressure, like a clock ticking down somewhere, but I can’t pin it down.
Henry is time traveling more and more often, sometimes three or four times a week. Sometimes he returns and he is frustrated, upset. He ends up in the kitchen and makes a meal that Nell would be proud of, or scrubs the entire bathroom until it shines, or goes for a run and doesn’t return until he is sweating and on the verge of collapsing.
But sometimes he comes home and he is elated. He will pick Alba up and swing her around, much to her delight. He will take us out for ice cream or put on a record and sing horribly and loudly as he moves from room to room.
I can’t work the pattern out. But I know that, somehow, it’s important.
And the clock is ticking ever-closer to the end.
Monday, December 4, 2006 (Henry is 43, Clare is 35)
HENRY: We have decided to throw a New Years Party. What this means for me is that I must sit and watch as Clare and Charisse plot and plan, as they make lists and buy decorations.
I read a lot. It passes the time between one headache and the next. I don’t call Kendrick; at this point, there is nothing he can do. It is up to me now.
I read Palahniuk and his theories about the inevitability of mankind’s actions, of fate and determinism. I read Ayn Rand and dream of free-will. I read Borges and think about forking paths and alternate universes. I think about the obituary I looked up once, morbid curiosity, and wonder if I can change that, if I can get an eleventh-hour mercy plea on this death sentence.
I think about birthdays and deathdays and the days in between and hold my breath and wait.
Sunday, December 31, 2006 / Sunday, October 27, 1984 / Monday, January 1, 2007 (Henry is 43, Clare is 35 and 13 and 35)
HENRY: I wander through the party in a daze, tense, waiting. I know that the tension won’t help to keep me in the present, but even that knowledge doesn’t help my shoulders move down from my ears.
There is a duty that I should be performing. It is what anyone would do, in my shoes: a chance to say goodbye to loved ones, to the friends and family who have gathered with me to ring in the New Year, because there is a chance that I will not live through the night.
But instead I will be selfish. I cling to Alba until she gets antsy and takes off to her room with Nadia Kendrick, apparently an adequate replacement with Rosa at her grandmother’s for the night. I move through the house but never out of Clare’s sight, always able to catch a glimpse of her hair or dress out of the corner of my eye.
Finally I can’t take it anymore. I move to her side, and she notices the tension immediately and pulls me into our bedroom.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
How can I tell her? But she sees it on my face, and goes pale. “Tonight?” she asks. I nod. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
We lay down on the bed, not worried about wrinkles or entertaining our guests. I have Clare in my arms, and that is all that matters.
“You’re sure?” she asks.
I hesitate. “No,” I say, finally. It’s cruel, to give her this hope, but I know that it is the right thing to say when she is able to inhale, when the slightest bit of color returns to her face.
“Why did you let me invite all these people?” she asks. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t want you to be alone… after.” I pause. “Just in case.”
“Why can’t we do something?” Clare asks? Her words are harsh whispers against my neck, and I can feel the heat of her tears soaking into my skin.
“Clare,” I begin.
“Stop it,” she says. “Refuse to let it happen. Change it.”
Her words are enough. I lean forward and kiss her, and the people in the house around us begin to count, “Ten, nine, eight!” and Clare is crying, and I whisper, “I love you,” and then I am gone.
It happens in an instant.
I am thrown to the ground, and manage to stumble to my feet just in time to hear a crack, a rifle being reloaded, cocked, aimed. I am a pale, tan thing in the early morning light.
Clare, I think. And then, like an order, Change it.
I scream Clare’s name into the open air, and then I am gone from that place, a pain tearing into my stomach as I am ripped away.
There are voices, frantic. There is music and then it stops, sudden, jarring. I am aware that people are standing around me, but I am in pain, and it hurts.
And Clare is leaning over me, and she is crying, and saying my name.
“Love you…” I say.
She says my name again.
Someone calls for an ambulance.
Everything goes black.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007 (Clare is 35)
I sit in the waiting room. There is blood on my dress, on my hands. I think about the red pulp in the vat from all those months ago, the monster that I wanted to shape from it. This red stain looks nothing like that.
Charisse and Gomez sit beside me. Alba has been taken home by Kimy, hysterical until she fell unconscious from exhaustion.
I see Henry in my eyes, lying on the living room floor. There is blood everywhere. His shirt is stained with it. His stomach gapes open. His eyes are hazy, pained, but I can tell that he sees me.
I don’t know what to do. I can’t live without him.
A nurse comes out and calls for the family of Henry DeTamble. She is somber, tired. I stand, and Gomez’s arm around my waist is the only thing that keeps me from collapsing.
The nurse speaks softly, and I struggle to keep up. “We lost him on the operating table,” she says. My heart stops in my chest. I cannot breathe. “But the doctor was able to bring him back. He’s… well, frankly, it’s a miracle. The doctor said he’s never seen anything like this. It was like your husband had been shot, but the bullet stopped a fraction of a centimeter short of hitting anything vital.”
Somewhere in her words, I remember how to breathe again. I open my mouth to talk, but no words come out. It is Charisse who asks, “When can we see him?”, and the nurse smiles gently and leads us back.
And there is Henry. He is frail and white, surrounded by tubes and machines. But he is there. His chest rises and falls and rises again.
I match my breathing to his and let our chests rise and fall in time.