Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon van Booy Page A

almost dark. There was nothing on television and so Henry had his toys everywhere. The house was now a place of shadows and Henry was too afraid to leave the glow of the television to reach the light switch.
    “What a big boy,” Mammy said.
    “C’mon, young man,” Dad said. “Time for bed.”
    Henry yawned.
    “Did your brother wake up?”
    “Yes,” Henry said, “but went back to sleep after I went in and checked on him.”
    “You’re such a good boy,” his mam said. “I knew I could trust you to be the man of the house.”
    “Even though we were only at the neighbors,” added his father.
    As Henry zipped into his own pajamas, watched dutifully by his father, there was suddenly a piercing scream that seemed to go on for a long time. His father bolted.
    Then shouting from his brother’s room.
    Henry watched through the crack in the door.
    They had to use scissors to cut it off. Henry peed his pants but no one noticed.
    Then the police came with an ambulance.
    Neighbors appeared at the door in dressing gowns.
    Henry was allowed to stay up and talk to the policeman.

Chapter Ten
    For most of Henry’s childhood, his brother’s room was used for storage. They never talked about it as a family. Sometimes his mother cried in her bathroom. Sometimes Henry found his father in the garage staring at nothing.
    As a teenager, he woke up gasping. Everybody knew his brother had died. In the supermarket, people would approach his mother.
    “How are you coping?”
    Even years later, the same question, the same grimace of sympathy. An arm placed gently upon her arm all helped to keep it fresh.
    It was blamed on the toy; nobody knew anything beyond that.
    By his final year at university, Henry realized that something wasn’t right. The mechanism that allowed other students to form long friendships over rowdy nights at the student bar had broken in him, or had never worked.
    The few relationships he’d had were quiet disasters. What began as genuine intent ended quickly with indifference.
    And now Rebecca. It had begun like the others. Attraction, conversation, a night together. But there was something about her that was deeper and braver—something about her that compelled Henry beyond the details and feelings of the moment, as though they were both tethered to the same point in the future.
    And so he told her some things, but not everything. Of course she blamed the toy, and Henry was safe to continue impersonating the man he should have been.
    After a long silence, Henry awkwardly asked Rebecca about where she grew up. “In some French country house with shutters and garden hoses and beds of lavender and a vintage Citroën?”
    “Not exactly,” she said, still visibly shaken by his story.
    “Where are you from in France exactly?” Henry asked.
    “Guess.”
    “Well, not Paris, I know that. How about Champagne?”
    “ Non. ”
    “Bordeaux?”
    “No, not Bordeaux.”
    “Dijon?”
    “Is your geographical knowledge of France limited to what you can eat and drink?”
    “Lascaux?”
    “Good answer—being that I’ve made only sketches and not paintings yet, but no.”
    Rebecca reached for the orange juice on her bedside table, but then changed her mind and set it back down.
    Henry went to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water.
    “Thanks,” she said.
    She stretched out her body in the sheets.
    They were both tired. As they lay down, Henry said, “I find proof of life, and you explain the significance of it.”
    “ Non, Henry, I don’t think that’s it—I think you search for proof of your own life.”
    Henry thought for a moment. “And what do you do?” he said.
    “I simply draw.” She smiled. “For now.”
    “What’s your boyfriend’s name?” Henry said.
    “He’s not my boyfriend, I told you—he was just a friend, really.”
    “Greek?
    “American. You’d like him,” she said.
    “Would I?” Henry puffed. “Why do you say that?”
    “Because he listens to opera, drinks sherry in