Read Online The time traveler's wife by Audrey Niffenegger - Free Book Online

Henry and he shoves it into his
pants as I walk ahead. I show Henry some other techniques: how to take a wallet
from the inside breast pocket of a suit, how to shield your hand from view
while it's inside a woman's purse, six different ways to distract someone while
you take their wallet, how to take a wallet out of a backpack, and how to get
someone to inadvertently show you where their money is. He's more relaxed now,
he's even starting to enjoy this. Finally, I say, "Okay, now you
try."
    He's instantly petrified. "I can't."
    "Sure you can. Look around. Find
someone." We are standing in the Japanese Print Room. It's full of old
ladies. "Not here." "Okay, where?"
    He thinks for a minute. "The
restaurant?"
    We walk quietly to the restaurant. I remember
this all vividly. I was totally terrified. I look over at my self and sure
enough, his face is white with fear. I'm smiling, because I know what comes
next. We stand at the end of the line for the garden restaurant. Henry looks
around, thinking. In front of us in line is a very tall middle-aged man wearing
a beautifully cut brown lightweight suit; it's impossible to see where the
wallet is. Henry approaches him, with one of the wallets I've lifted earlier
proffered on his outstretched hand.
    "Sir? Is this yours?" says Henry
softly. "It was on the floor."
    "Uh? Oh, hmm, no," the man checks his
right back pants pocket, finds his wallet safe, leans over Henry to hear him
better, takes the wallet from Henry and opens it. "Hmm, my, you should
take this to the security guards, hmm, there's quite a bit of cash in here,
yes," the man wears thick glasses and peers at Henry through them as he
speaks and Henry reaches around under the man's jacket and steals his wallet.
Since Henry is wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt I walk behind him and he passes
the wallet to me. The tall thin brown-suited man points at the stairs,
explaining to Henry how to turn in the wallet. Henry toddles off in the
direction the man has indicated, and I follow, overtake Henry and lead him
right through the museum to the entrance and out, past the guards, onto
Michigan Avenue and south, until we end up, grinning like fiends, at the
Artists Cafe, where we treat ourselves to milkshakes and french fries with some
of our ill-gotten gains. Afterwards we throw all the wallets in a mailbox, sans
cash, and I get us a room at the Palmer House.
    "So?" I ask, sitting on the side of
the bathtub watching Henry brush his teeth.
    " ot?" returns Henry with a mouth
full of toothpaste.
    "What do you think?"
    He spits. "About what?"
    "Pick-pocketing."
    He looks at me in the mirror. "It's
okay." He turns and looks directly at me. "I did it!" He grins,
largely. "You were brilliant!"
    "Yeah!" The grin fades. "Henry,
I don't like to time travel by myself. It's better with you. Can't you always
come with me?"
    He is standing with his back to me, and we look
at each other in the mirror. Poor small self: at this age my back is thin and
my shoulder blades stick out like incipient wings. He turns, waiting for an
answer, and I know what I have to tell him— me. I reach out and gently turn him
and bring him to stand by me, so we are side by side, heads level, facing the
mirror.
    "Look." We study our reflections,
twinned in the ornate gilt Palmer House bathroom splendor. Our hair is the same
brown-black, our eyes slant dark and fatigue-ringed identically, we sport exact
replicas of each other's ears. I'm taller and more muscular and shave. He's
slender and ungainly and is all knees and elbows. I reach up and pull my hair
back from my face, show him the scar from the accident. Unconsciously, he
mimics my gesture, touches the same scar on his own forehead.
    "It's just like mine," says my self,
amazed. "How did you get it?" "The same as you. It is the same.
We are the same."
    A translucent moment. I didn't understand, and
then I did, just like that. I watch it happen. I want to be both of us at