Everything You Came to See

by Elizabeth Schulte Martin

  As Henry walks through the kitchen door frame, he can see into the laundry room. There is a man-shaped creature standing by the washing machine. The light from the porch outside outlines his lanky suit-clad figure.

  Henry stands motionless. The suit makes Henry think that this man is a special agent. He knows what Andre has told Henry, about the extraterrestrial ships that hover just above the tree line at night. Why is he doing their laundry?

  Henry tries to steady his breathing as the man moves toward him. No, he isn’t doing their laundry. The fluttering light from the television in the other room begins to illuminate him and Henry sees that the man’s suit is ugly, pink, not what he would expect from a special agent. But this is part of the illusion. His face is long and slender. He has coarse brown hair and a beard.

  Henry is hyperventilating. He knows this word from school, from when Cassie did it on purpose until she passed out. The man reaches for him, putting his hand on Henry’s shoulder. He feels the weight of this hand all the way down in his knee joints. The man says something: “Be still.” Or, “Be quiet,” maybe.

  The kitchen suddenly fills with sound, like one of the Chicago-bound trains jumped its tracks and ran right into the house (as Henry always expected it one day might). Henry’s knees nearly buckle beneath him at this sound. The agent staggers back, toward the laundry room. Henry can’t slow his breathing. All he can think is to get away, get away. He hears his father say, “Don’t move.”

  Henry wants to run. But he doesn’t know if his father’s directive is meant for him. His voice sounds like it is meant for everyone. He wants the whole world to stop moving, every last person had better listen and be still, or else. Henry’s body tells him otherwise. It tells him to run, to hide. He stays frozen in place, unable to decide. He turns his head enough to see his father, who has a gun leveled in their direction, a rifle that Henry has seen only once or twice before. His father isn’t much of a hunter. Slowly it dawns on him that the sound that filled the kitchen moments earlier came from this gun.

  Footsteps down the stairs, into the living room. Mom. She will tell him what to do.

  The agent is standing still in front of him. Henry smells something coppery and knows it is blood. He checks himself and the agent for holes and doesn’t see any. He waits for his mother to give him an order, to explain what is happening, say something soft to their father to calm him down. But she is just standing there in the living room, white as chalk, one hand over her mouth and the other twisting the fabric of her nightgown. Like someone has flipped a switch, he feels the pain now, a burning sensation on the top of his head. Something oozes down into his eyebrows.

  From upstairs, Frankie begins to call for someone to get him. He’s two, but he’s still afraid to walk down the steep stairs himself. “Mommy? Mom?”

  When his mother finally says something, it doesn’t sound like her. “What the hell is going on? You put down that gun, Andre!” Her words are so muddled by fury and panic that they sound like animal noises. Henry was ready to run to her, but he’s confused again. She seems as dangerous as his father with his gun, as dangerous as the agent.

  “Who are you?” his father is saying.

  “Please,” the agent says in a raspy voice, “please, don’t shoot again. I’m not here to rob anybody. She knows me. Tell him, Rylan.”

  Now his older brother’s voice comes from the living room. “Dad, stop.” His voice is even. It seems only Andre understands what this is all about. He touches their father’s arm. “Let me get Henry.”

  Their father knocks Andre back with his elbow before he pulls the trigger on his gun again. This time the agent runs, stumbling over the mound of laundry toward the back door and out of the house. Their father chases him.

  “You never listen! You never listen to anyone!” his mother is screaming in that animal voice, calling out after their father, who is long gone. And then it seems she can’t sustain it, and her words drop into a breathless sort of moan, and Henry can’t understand what she is saying.

  Andre, who is still on the ground, rubbing his chest with the fleshy edge of his hand, glances up at their mother, then lowers his head again, trying to catch his breath. Frankie is wailing upstairs: “Get me up. Get me up. Get me up.”

  Purple shadows are growing at the edges of Henry’s vision. He sees his father’s legs move past him. His mother is on the floor, and Andre is beside her. The purple shadows turn into a bright wave of sunshine. He sees Andre shaking his mother’s shoulders as the wave crushes him in light.

  When he wakes up, he doesn’t know what he’s doing on the kitchen floor, and the top of his head feels like it’s on fire, and his hair is sticky and wet. He sees his mother is still flat on her back, breathing shallowly in the living room, and when he remembers what happened, he is not sure if he was passed out for an hour or only a few seconds. His father is not there. Andre is on the telephone. He says their address, two-two-two West Linden Drive, Edgefield, Indiana.

  “My mom is having a heart attack,” he says.

  Henry moves to her on his hands and knees. She is frightening to him, breathing like she is. Some of her breaths do not sound like breaths. Some of them sound like moans, like she is possessed. Frankie is still sobbing upstairs, quietly, now, like he is singing a sad, repetitive song.

  Henry doesn’t want to touch her. Her skin is blue under the lamplight, her eyes glazed over, staring like a doll’s. He wants to put a blanket over her, hide her skin and her eyes. “Mom,” he says, trying to get her to blink or to move in a way that he will recognize.

  She hears him. He can tell. Her head moves just slightly to one side. But he still can’t bring himself to touch her. So he pictures another version of her, the version of her sunbathing, with her painted toes, a smirk on her face. He imagines this mother and is able to put his hand on top of hers.

  Her eyes fix on something above Henry’s head. Andre is no longer on the phone, but still holding it in his hand as he stands behind Henry. Then, she looks back and forth between the two of them, her breath coming in gasps. In this instant, Henry can see awareness in her face. She stares at him hard, and he watches her throat flutter.

  “They sent the ambulance,” says Andre.

  “You have to hang up the phone.”

  “What?”

  “You have to hang up the phone,” Henry says again, “in case they call back.”

  “Oh,” he says.

  The receiver clicks into place.

  They watch their mother jerk once, like someone yanked an invisible cord that was tied to her sternum. She sucks at the air and looks at Henry as if pleading for him to keep this from happening.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Henry says.

  Then she’s still, her throat stops fluttering. And Henry can feel the absence of her. She is empty and limp.

  He pulls his hand away and clutches it close to his chest. His heart is racing. He can’t imagine what will happen next. Nothing, he thinks. This is where it ends.

  Andre sinks down beside them. “What happened?’

  “I don’t know,” says Henry.

  Andre shakes their mother, and shakes her, and Henry has to look away.

  BEFORE THEIR MOTHER’S MEMORIAL, HENRY’S father burns her clothes in a barrel outside their house where they normally burn trash. He puts only a few things, including her flower box full of cosmetics, in a drawer, to keep them safe. His father tells him and his brothers this only because he wants them to know they are not allowed in the drawer—it is in his bedroom, where they are also not allowed.

  Eventually, Henry’s curiosity will overcome him and he will look in the drawer. He will find nothing there but socks and shoeshine and think his father has thrown away the last of her.

  At the funeral home, Henry kicks his feet in his seat until his father lays his hand on one of his knees and tells him to stop. Frankie sits beside him, and Andre sits next to Frankie. Relatives and friends of his mother, some of whom Henry has never seen, take tur
ns looking into her casket. Henry watches as their Aunt Jenny peers in, her hands clasped in front of her as if she is being careful not to get anything dirty.

  Watching his aunt stare into the coffin, he wonders if it is strange for her to see her dead sister, if she feels like she is looking at her own body. They looked alike, Jenny and his mother, both with dark, reddish-brown hair and skin that always blushed and only tanned below the neck. They had the same nose and the same lines extending from the corners of their brown eyes.

  Aunt Jenny comes and touches their father’s shoulder but she doesn’t look at him. She kneels down and kisses Henry and Frankie on the cheek. Frankie is doing his coloring books and doesn’t look up, but Henry appreciates the kiss and almost asks if he can sit with her, before he remembers this would hurt his father’s feelings. Jenny moves over to Andre and takes his hand. “I’m sorry,” she says. “This shouldn’t happen to children.”

  Henry thinks this is true enough, but Andre squirms. “She’s the one that’s dead. Nothing’s happened to us,” Andre says.

  “I know. I just mean that this is all so unfair. To everyone, including you,” she says. When Andre doesn’t respond, she begins stroking his hair. “You call me if you need me. For anything, okay?”

  Henry hangs on to these words—“This shouldn’t happen to children”—for the next several weeks and compulsively thinks of all the stories he knows where exactly this happens. He will make a list at school one day and then commit the list to memory and toss the paper in the trash before anyone finds it and asks him about it. He will recite it in his mind sometimes: mother of Cinderella, mother of the Skywalkers, mother of Snow White, mother of Batman, mother of James-and-the-giant-peach. It will become a chant that calls forth a parade of beautiful young dead mothers in his imagination. Mother of Henry always brings up the rear. He has to watch all the others go by before he can picture her face.

  Aunt Jenny leaves and joins a cluster of old people that Henry doesn’t know. He thinks they might be his mother’s aunts and uncles, but he doesn’t know what that makes them to him, and he doesn’t care enough to try and figure it out. These people don’t know about the gun, or the man who had run from their house as their father shot at him. They only know Rylan Bell is dead from a heart attack (so young!). Only Jenny does not seem shocked, does not say “so young!” When an old woman in black, with a neck like a dinosaur, says this to Aunt Jenny, Jenny only nods. Then the old woman shakes her head and says, “Those boys have only got Andre now.” Their aunt looks away.

  Henry isn’t sure what happened to the man their father chased, but he was working up the courage to ask Andre, who probably knew because he had spent the last few days talking with their father, in dark rooms, in quiet tones.

  Their father told them before the memorial that they would bury their mother tomorrow. And where will she stay until then? Are there catacombs of coffins beneath this place? Will they keep her somewhere comfortable? The room they’re in is cozy enough, with dark-green carpet and floral wallpaper. There are bouquets everywhere and a flowing fountain in the lobby. It’s nice with all the people around, chatting quietly. But at night, there are no people and probably no sound. They will probably keep her in the catacombs below.

  And then the horrible thought occurs to him that she might be afraid in the basement, in the dark. He tells himself, no, she won’t be afraid, her body is empty. Her spirit is in heaven. But if her spirit is in heaven, where is her mind? Is it still in her skull, thrashing around, fearful, trying to get her mouth to say, “Help me, I’m still inside”?

  Andre leans over Frankie and whispers to Henry, “I’m going to look at her now. Come with me.”

  Henry shakes his head. “No, I don’t want to right now.”

  “Come on, just come with me,” he says.

  Henry doesn’t answer. He stares straight ahead and hopes Andre won’t make it a big deal. He doesn’t want to feel her mind trying to claw its way out of her head, or look at her blank face and see nothing trying to claw its way out. Thankfully, Andre just shrugs and walks to her casket by himself. His brother puts his hands on the shiny white sides of it and leans in. He stays in this pose for a long time, and the warm chatter in the room cools as people turn to see what he’s doing.

  Andre leans closer and kisses her on the mouth. When he stands up straight the spectacle is ruined by how casually he points to the door, indicating to their father that he wants to go outside. Their father nods his permission and Andre leaves. The talking starts again.

  His father is getting agitated. He pinches the bridge of his nose, then rubs his forehead. Today, his hair is pulled back into a short ponytail, and his hands are cleaner than Henry has ever seen them. All scrubbed, except the shadow of dirt in the creases of his knuckles. Henry tries to see his mouth to know if he should keep quiet or if he can ask for something. He’s not sure yet what he wants to ask for, but he suspects he might need something soon, and there is no mom to ask now. Before, she did everything for him.

  But before Henry can think of what he might ask for, his father asks something instead: “You want me to walk up with you, Henry?” His voice is low. Quiet, but not exactly kind. Henry sits up straight in his chair and meets his father’s eyes. To Henry, he looks old. The lines around his eyes, which, on his mother, looked sort of nice, make his father appear tired. Henry wants to give him the right answer but can’t.

  “I don’t think so,” he says.

  And here he finds another problem—not only did his mother do everything for him, but Henry did everything for his mother. He performed for her, did chores for her, brushed her hair, helped her with Frankie. He is not used to doing things for his father—he cannot even bring himself to walk up to his mother’s casket for him.

  “No? Are you sure?” he says. He lowers his eyes and seems to be counting the buttons on the front of his shirt. “It’s the last time you’ll get to see her.”

  When his father touches his back, Henry feels a little sorry for him, because it seems like he is trying. So he tries, too.

  “Do you want me to walk up with you?” Henry asks. His father doesn’t answer. Henry pokes him with one finger.

  His father faces him. The poke is obviously a surprise. “No. You do what you want,” he says. He puts his hands on his knees and somehow uses them as leverage to stand. “You should … I don’t know. Do whatever you need to do.” He says something else as he walks to the casket, but Henry can’t quite hear him.

  Frankie has colored a hole into the page he’s been working on. Usually this would send him into a fit, but now he is just working around it. Henry flips the page for him.

  “I’ll be right back,” he tells his brother.

  Frankie looks up. “Where you going?”

  “Bathroom.”

  “Can I come?”

  “Sure.”

  He takes Frankie’s hand and leads him into the foyer, where a man in a chocolate-colored suit points him up the stairs to the restroom. They open the door on the right, as the man told them, and enter the cleanest bathroom in the world. It’s all white and gold and there are fake flowers on the back of the toilet. It’s cold, though, because someone has left the window open. A lace curtain trembles from the pulse of brisk air coming in.

  Frankie fumbles with the button on his small corduroys. Henry helps him with his pants, picks him up, situates him on the toilet. Frankie sighs as Henry pulls himself up on the sink and balances himself, one foot on the sink, the other on the back of the toilet, to shut the window. As he pulls it closed, he sees Andre out between a pair of fir trees on the far side of the yard.

  Frankie sighs again.

  “What’s wrong?” Henry asks him, jumping down. Soft landing. No thuds to alert adults of climbing.

  “It isn’t going,” he says.

  Henry turns the water on for him. “Better?” he asks.

  Frankie studies his crotch. “No.”

  “Well, hurry up. I have to go, too.”

&nb
sp; “I can’t!’

  “Think about going swimming in the lake,” says Henry.

  Frankie squeezes his eyes shut, presses his belly. “It’s not going,” he says. He sniffles and presses his belly again.

  “Crap, Frankie, don’t freak out. You probably don’t have to go. Just get up and try later.”

  “I’ll have an accident.”

  “No, you won’t. We’ll just come back later.”

  “I don’t want to have an accident,” he says.

  Henry pulls off a piece of toilet paper and wipes Frankie’s nose. He considers the perfectly white sink, then decides against it. “Okay. Just. Stay here, then. I’ll go to the bathroom outside. When I’m done, I’ll come get you. That’ll give you plenty of time.”

  Frankie stops crying and blows his nose. Henry leaves the restroom, running down the stairs and out the door of the funeral home. No one notices him. He runs through the snow, which is clear up past his ankles to the trees where he saw Andre. He’s still there, smoking a cigarette under the cover of the low-hanging branches. He’s squatting, hunched over, his light-brown hair parted down the middle. His shoulders conceal most of him—he’s only twelve, but as big as a few fourteen-year-olds they know. The smoke from his cigarette rises in big clouds, like he doesn’t quite inhale it all.

  “Hey,” Henry says, turning to face one of the trees.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “Pissin’. Frankie got nervous in the bathroom. He’s still on the toilet.”

  Henry unzips, opens himself to the cold air. It smells crisp out here, like water. He thinks the ground must be frozen. How will they get her in?

  “Why didn’t you make him get up?”

  “Because you know how he is.”

  “You could have just picked him up and moved him.”

  Henry re-zips his fly and makes sure his pockets aren’t hanging out. “So. What did that feel like?”