Everything You Came to See by Elizabeth Schulte Martin

Author:Elizabeth Schulte Martin [Martin, Elizabeth Schulte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781510724051
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2018-01-08T05:00:00+00:00

HENRY ARRANGES TO GO TO the Hoosier Youth Circus twice a week. Whenever he uses the car, he brings something home for his father that he knows he needs: a roll of tape, a bottle of windshield washer fluid, a loaf of bread. Sometimes his father gives him money if he wants something specific, but usually Henry uses his own. There aren’t many regular jobs around, but Henry mows lawns, bales hay, moves furniture—whatever people will pay him to do. His father continues to give the car up without much questioning. He is more grateful for this small contribution of money and time from Henry than Henry ever expected.

Henry doesn’t have to worry about tuition for the circus class or keeping his grades up for it, because he isn’t officially enrolled. He can’t pay for it, and Christiakov says he would be bored by the regular classes, anyway. When he asks Christiakov what he wants for private lessons, he says this is about art and scholarship, not money.

Part of Henry thinks he could just tell his father what he is doing. As long as he doesn’t ask for money and keeps running errands, Henry suspects he couldn’t care less if his son wants to be in a circus—and why should he care? It doesn’t hurt anyone. He wants to tell him, in fact, but something keeps him from saying anything. Later, after he moves out, Henry will realize that he didn’t tell him because he didn’t want to take the risk. He didn’t want to give his father the opportunity to try to take something Henry needed as badly as he needed this. Because, if he said no, what else could he want but to hurt Henry? Everything else could be chalked up to accident. Even his father’s fury was a kind of accident, a force that had nothing to do with his father’s real feelings or desires. But to say no to this, what else could it mean but that his father did not care about him, did not want him to be happy?

For now, the only person who knows where he goes in his father’s car twice a week is Cassie, who keeps all his secrets, as he keeps hers. He’s been thinking lately that they either know too many of each other’s secrets, or too few. They can’t seem to get away from each other. They have broken up more than once, but when something bad happens to Cassie, instead of going to her new boyfriend for comfort, she comes to Henry. It happens every couple months, Cassie showing up to school in tears. He’ll find her standing by his locker like that, and he will not ask questions. To Henry, the reason for her crying seems much less urgent than the crying itself, and the crying itself he understands implicitly. When something bad happens to Henry, he doesn’t cry, but he goes to her, whether they are together or not, whether they are fighting or not.

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