Page 86 of Life Out of Order

I inventory the things I can and cannot tell him. “Alba’s making a lot of progress with the violin. Your dad has been considerably less shouty lately.”

“That’s exciting. Poor Alba. I keep wondering if we should have let him teach her. Maybe we should have sent her to someone less brilliant but more gentle? Or not gentle, exactly, but just a better teacher?”

“I know, I think about that, too,” I say. “And we do have someone, in addition to Richard, who’s a terrific teacher, so that’s buffering the shoutiness. You can’t mention this to your dad, though. Older Albas have said that Richard made her a very good player but also made her not want to play. So, not a perfect success.”

“No. I want her to love music.”

“She does,” I tell him. “Has she played you anything she’s written?”

“Yeah. It was a fugue for solo violin. It sounded amazing and looked sort of—strenuous. I gathered it was something she’d written in her late twenties. She said she was spending a lot of time alone and was able to work it all out without anyone talking to her for weeks. She seems to enjoy music in ways that I don’t understand. She’s hearing ideas I can’t even formulate.”

“It’s funny when our kid gets way beyond us.”

“And then she’s a kindergartener again the next time I see her.” Henry emits a few little effortful grunts. “Sorry, I’m trying to get comfortable. I never spent any time contemplating the carpeting in my office; it’s not as cushy as I thought and I’m bonier than I used to be. Also it’s kind of filthy. I’m going to lie flat, hang on.”

While I wait I put the electric kettle on, select a mug and a tea bag, and sit down at the kitchen table facing the door.

Henry says, “Okay, I’m back.”

“Hey,” I say. I’m struck by the way no time has passed since we last spoke, for him; for me it’s been more than a year. And yet we fall easily into our cadences; we will never be awkward with each other. “So, you tell me something. Tell me about your day?”

“We spent the day in bed. Kimy came over, and Alba was feeling upset because I haven’t been much of a dad lately. So we made a virtue of necessity and all four of us spent the day playing board games and eating snacks on our bed. The rule was, no one could touch the floor except to go to the bathroom or to get food. It worked out pretty well. Kimy and Alba took a nap in the afternoon. You were drawing us in your sketchbook.”

“I remember. It was a good day, despite your poor feet.” I remember waking up alone that night, wondering where Henry was. He was gone for so long that I fell asleep again and found him beside me in the morning. Now I am repaid for my worry with this gift of conversation.

“Yeah. Yeah, it was a good day.” Henry sighs. “I’m having a hard time seeing the bright side of all this.”

“I don’t think there was a bright side. It was just hard. Hard to see you in pain.”

Henry says, “I hate being a burden. I’m sorry.”

I say, “I would give almost anything to have you back again.”

We are both quiet. Then he says, “Oh, Clare.”

The kettle has boiled and I pour water into my mug. I concentrate on the darkening tea, until I can speak steadily. “I don’t regret anything.”

“I do,” Henry replies. “I wish I’d been able to be at home with you, not out there in other time, randomly. Time travel feels like a terrible job now, doing something useless and waiting to clock out.”

This is a conversation we’ve had again and again. “But if not for time travel—”

“We wouldn’t have met,” Henry says. “I know.” I can hear him shifting position. In those last months he was always uncomfortable, restless, always cajoling for an extra Vicodin. “I’m sure it all balances, somehow.”

“Alba seems happy with it, so far,” I say. “She manages to find you, or you find her, I’m not sure how that works?”

“Need, I think,” Henry says. “We need each other, so we find each other. We’re cramming a lifetime of father-daughter togetherness into these last couple of years of my life. It’s more spread out, for her, thank goodness.”

“Yes. I don’t know if she always tells me when she’s seen you, though. It’s like she’s embarrassed to have time with you if I don’t. I remember when we were trying to teach her to share, and she took it so much to heart that she used to cry if she had a cookie and Nadia and Rosa didn’t.”

Henry laughs. “She’s barely over that, in my present. How old is she, for you? Eight?”

“Yeah. Nine, in a couple of months.”

“I don’t suppose you could wake her up? Just to say hello?”

I try to sound casual. “Alba is staying over at Richard’s tonight.”

“Huh.” Henry seems surprised. “I thought you only left her with Dad when you go up to South Haven?”