Page 12 of Time for You

“He’s from the past—he’s not a dog,” Ellie said. “We can just explain to him where stuff is.”

“He’s literally never done anything for himself, ever.”

“He’s standing right here, you know,” Henry interjected mildly.

“Have you ever made a meal for yourself? With your own two hands?” Daphne asked.

“When the cook has her afternoon off, I have assembled a sandwich, yes.”

“See?” Ellie said. “He can handle a sandwich. We’ll put everything out for him, even. Literally all of us are on call today, so it’s not like we have another choice.”

“I have even been known to open a cupboard, if the situation calls for it.”

“Then what’s he going to do all day?”

“Again, he’s a human, not a corgi. He won’t pee on the carpets if we’re gone for twelve hours. We’ve got books.”

“I repeat, I am right here, part of this conversation.” Henry crossed his arms, now in a white T-shirt Vibol had given him. Daphne looked away, mostly on account of those goddamn biceps. She’d seen Vibol in that shirt before, but that hadn’t made her stomach flip.

Ellie gestured at him. “See? We could even set him up with like, YouTube or something. Let him learn about modern life.”

Daphne kept her gaze on her roommate. “You want to leave a white man from the nineteenth century alone with the white-nationalist radicalization machine?”

“Okay yeah, good point,” Ellie said, making a face. “We can make a Netflix list for him, let him learn about life through our algorithm, not theirs.”

“Can’t I just read?” Henry asked. “I don’t much fancy working with logarithms.”

“That’s not what we meant,” Daphne said. “And no, we can’t explain what we did mean. And you could read, yeah, but if you’re going to be here for a while, you might as well immerse yourself in our culture.”

Ellie went to their TV to pick what she felt would be the “most helpful” movies for him, while Daphne walked him through where he could find bread, sliced turkey, and cheese for a sandwich.

“Henry, have you ever read Jane Austen?” Ellie called from her perch on the couch.

“My sisters made sure of it,” he replied.

“Aren’t your sisters younger than you?” Daphne asked.

“They are. Both are blessed with quite forceful personalities,” he said. “You’d like them.”

A flash of sadness crossed his face and Daphne averted her eyes, feeling like she was suddenly intruding. She wanted to say something, maybe something gentle like you must miss them , but then Ellie called him over to explain how remotes worked and the moment passed.

Ellie looked positively invigorated when they left the hospital just over twelve hours later, but Daphne felt, as usual, almost dead on her feet.

Nothing had gone wrong, other than the usual ER chaos, but she felt drained and like she wanted to cry, while Ellie excitedly listed all her accomplishments.

Daphne leaned against the window of the light-rail as they rode home, watching the lights of the city flicker past.

“I’ll make the pizza if you want to shower,” Ellie offered as they approached their door. “And I’ll deal with him, since you look like you need a break.”

Daphne did need a break. Possibly a weeklong one where she was unconscious, just to feel like she’d recovered from the exhaustion of doing her dream job.

She pushed their door open and stopped, leaving Ellie to smack right into her back, because—had she fallen asleep?

Was she so unbelievably tired that she was hallucinating?

Had she actually hit her head when she crashed into Henry, and now she was experiencing the delayed results of that TBI?

Because Henry was standing in their kitchen, wearing an apron . Daphne hadn’t even known they owned an apron, but there he was, wearing one and looking positively delighted.

“What’s the 411, ladies?” he asked.

“Um, what?” Daphne said, tossing her keys to the side.

“What’s happening?”

“Henry, are you—okay?” Ellie asked.

“Totally awesome,” he replied. “I made you dinner.”

“You made dinner?” Daphne asked. “Do you know how?”

“As if,” he said, and something clicked into place.

“Did Ellie have you watch Clueless ?”

“She did. And I figured out how to make those pizzas you love.”

“You did? How?” Daphne looked at the oven, but there wasn’t any smoke coming out of it, at least.

Henry sent her an annoyed look that was rapidly becoming familiar. “The instructions are on the packaging. Quite ingenious, that wrapping is. What sort of paper is it made from that it’s so transparent?”

“It’s plastic.”

“What Regina is made of?”

Daphne stared at him blankly, while Ellie cracked up. “You made it all the way up to Mean Girls ? Dang, you watched a lot .”

“I confess I have some questions about, ah, let’s say, contemporary femininity. But I understand that Cher and Tai’s movie is considered old now?”

“Yeah, it’s more of a classic. Mean Girls , too,” Daphne said. “What else did you have him watch, El?”

“Mostly stuff he might recognize the plot in. So Clueless, Ten Things I Hate About You —”

“Absolutely delightful interpretation of Shakespeare, that one,” Henry interrupted.

“My friend George loves Shakespeare, which I never really understood until seeing Patrick and Kat argue on-screen. But Clueless was brilliant. Peerless. My sister Anne would adore it, along with the lack of petticoats. Maggie too, for that matter.”

“What was Mean Girls for, then? That’s not an adaptation of a novel.”

“That was for feminism, baby,” Ellie said.

Henry nodded. “I did not realize whore was considered offensive here. I shall try to remember that.”

“To be fair, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t at least a little pejorative in your time,” Daphne said, but she lost her battle with a smile as he grinned back at her.

“As if,” he repeated.

“We’re going to have to work on your use of that. How long has the pizza been in?” Ellie asked.

Henry looked at the clock above the stove. “Ten minutes.”

The thought of getting to eat as soon as she got home from work, without having to do anything or even order it, made her go all melty inside, even if it was just yet another frozen pizza. “I’ll make a salad,” she offered, suddenly feeling more energized than she had all day.

Having a third roommate from the nineteenth century was weird, to say the least. For one thing, he didn’t pay rent—although to be fair, he was sleeping in Helen’s apartment—and while he did try to make them food when they were at work, his efforts were pretty hit or miss.

Nearly a week after his arrival, Daphne found herself with a day off while Ellie had to work a whole shift, plus stay on-call for the next twelve hours.

Brittany was out training for her marathon, Michelle had something to do at her uncle’s place, and Vibol was—somewhere.

Daphne wasn’t sure where, but he wasn’t home.

Usually, there was at least one more person around to hang out with Henry, which helped keep him from under Daphne’s skin.

But that day, after she grabbed her finally fixed bike from the shop, she was out of excuses and reasons to avoid him.

They were in the Central Library, tucked into a table set back near the Occult Nonfiction section, desperately trying to find something that might give them a clue how to get him home.

Which meant Daphne was spending her day off reading a bunch of vaguely scientific-sounding nonsense about the “metaphysical energy of specific rock formations.”

Granted, the man sitting across from her had time-traveled from almost 150 years ago, so perhaps she should be less skeptical of the supernatural.

But they had also been reading for two straight hours without any real luck, aside from a footnote Henry found that claimed specific moon phases could “influence the flow of time, as with the tides.”

The man himself sighed and slammed the book he was reading ( Astrology and You: The Basics ) shut. “This is horseshit,” he snapped.

Daphne blinked. She hadn’t ever seen him quite this angry before—he’d been haughty, and irritating, and irritated, but never furious.

Frustrated, perhaps, but never angry. “I can’t—fuck this, I need to get out of here,” he growled, and shoved back from the desk.

He stalked to the front, and Daphne hurried to follow him.

Henry had stopped being quite so freaked out by cars, but she still didn’t think he could handle a city street unaccompanied.

“Henry,” she hissed, sending an apologetic wave to the librarian at the reference desk as she followed him outside. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t fucking know,” he spat, and she reeled back.

“Okay, good luck then. Hope you know how to get home,” she said coolly.

“Wait, Miss—Dr. Griffin,” he said, and grabbed her wrist. Not hard, but enough to stop her from returning to the library. “Please. Forgive me.”

Daphne looked from his hand on her arm to his face, taking in the sudden desperation. As always, she was a sucker for a wounded bird. “What happened?”

He took a deep breath. “I was reading about moon phases and constellations, and I just—I have a family. A family who needs me, no matter what you might think of my treatment of them. I have friends, and a business, and a life, and I don’t—I might not—”

“You’re worried you’re stuck here forever.”

“Yes,” he said, and it was as if the word had been wrenched from him against his will.

Her heart softened a little more. “Let’s take a break, then. I’ll go put our books back, and then we can take a walk.”

He nodded, and when she came back outside, she found him leaning up against the wall of the library, face to the sun, eyes shut.

“Henry? Are you okay?”

He chuckled, eyes still closed. “No, I’m not all right. But thank you for asking nevertheless.”