NATURE MORTE Sunday, July 11, 2004 (Clare is 33, Henry is 41)

NATURE MORTE



Sunday, July 11, 2004 (Clare is 33, Henry is 41)

CLARE: Henry is sleeping, bruised and caked with blood, on the kitchen floor. I don’t
want to move him or wake him. I sit with him on the cool linoleum for a while.
Eventually I get up and make coffee. As the coffee streams into the pot and the
grounds make little exploding puffs, Henry whimpers and puts his hands over his
eyes. It’s obvious that he has been beaten. One eye is swollen shut. The blood seems
to have come from his nose. I don’t see any wounds, just radiant purple fist-sized
bruises all over his body. He is very thin; I can see all his vertebrae and ribs. His
pelvis juts, his cheeks are hollow. His hair has grown down almost to his shoulders,
there is gray shot through it. There are cuts on his hands and feet, and insect bites
everywhere on his body. He is very tanned, and filthy, grime under nails, dirt sweated
into creases of his skin. He smells of grass, blood, and salt. After watching him and
sitting with him for a while, I decide to wake him. “Henry,” I say very softly, “wake
up, now, you’re home...I stroke his face, carefully, and he opens his eye. I can tell
he’s not quite awake. ”Clare,“ he mumbles. ”Clare.“ Tears begin to stream from his
good eye, he is shaking with sobbing, and I pull him into my lap. I am crying. Henry
is curled in my lap, there on the floor, we shake tightly together, rocking, rocking,
crying our relief and our anguish together.

Thursday, December 23, 2004 (Clare is 33, Henry is 41)

CLARE: It’s the day before Christmas Eve. Henry is at Water Tower Place, taking
Alba to see Santa at Marshall Field’s while I finish the shopping. Now I’m sitting in
the cafe at Border’s Bookstore, drinking cappuccino at a table by the front window
and resting my feet with a pile of bulging shopping bags leaning against my chair.
Outside the window the day is fading and tiny white lights describe every tree.
Shoppers hurry up and down Michigan Avenue, and I can hear the muted clang of the
Salvation Army Santa’s bell below me. I turn back to the store, scanning for Henry
and Alba, and someone calls my name. Kendrick is coming toward me with his wife,
Nancy, and Colin and Nadia in tow.

I can see at a glance that they’ve just come from FAO Schwarz; they have the
shell-shocked look of parents freshly escaped from toy-store hell. Nadia comes
running up to me squealing “Aunt Clare, Aunt Clare! Where’s Alba?” Colin smiles
shyly and holds out his hand to show me that he has a tiny yellow tow truck. I
congratulate him and tell Nadia that Alba’s visiting Santa, and Nadia replies that she
already saw Santa last week. “What did you ask for?” I query. “A boyfriend,” says
Nadia. She’s three years old. I grin at Kendrick and Nancy. Kendrick says something,


sotto voce, to Nancy, and she says, “Come on, troops, we have to find a book for
Aunt Silvie,” and the three of them go pelting off to the bargain tables. Kendrick
gestures at the empty chair across from me. “May I?” Sure.

He sits down, sighing deeply. “I hate Christmas.”

“You and Henry both.”

“Does he? I didn’t know that.” Kendrick leans against the window and closes his

eyes. Just as I think that he’s actually asleep he opens them and says, “Is Henry
following his drug regimen?”

“Um, I guess. I mean, as closely as he can, considering that he’s been time
traveling a lot lately.”

Kendrick drums his fingers on the table. “How much is a lot?”

“Every couple days.”

Kendrick looks furious. “Why doesn’t he tell me these things?”

“I think he’s afraid you’ll get upset with him and quit.”

“He’s the only test subject I have who can talk and he never tells me anything!”

I laugh. “Join the club.”

Kendrick says, “I’m trying to do science. I need him to tell me when something
doesn’t work. Otherwise we’re all just spinning our wheels.”

I nod. Outside it has started to snow.

“Clare?”

“Hmm?”

“Why won’t you let me look at Alba’s DNA?”

I’ve had this conversation a hundred times with Henry. “Because first you’d just
want to locate all the markers in her genes, and that would be okay. But then you and
Henry would start to badger me to let you try out drugs on her, and that is not okay.
That’s why.”

“But she’s still very young; she has a better chance of responding positively to the
medication.”

“I said no. When Alba is eighteen she can decide for herself. So far, everything
you’ve given Henry has been a nightmare.” I can’t look at Kendrick. I say this to my
hands, tightly folded on the table.

“But we might be able to develop gene therapy for her—”

“People have died from gene therapy.”

Kendrick is silent. The noise level in the store is overwhelming. Then from the
babble I hear Alba calling, “Mama!” I look up and see her riding on Henry’s
shoulders, clutching his head with her hands. Both of them are wearing coonskin caps.
Henry sees Kendrick and for a brief moment he looks apprehensive and I wonder


what secrets these two men are keeping from me. Then Henry smiles and comes
striding toward us, Alba bobbing happily above the crowd. Kendrick rises to greet
him, and I push the thought away.