Room (36 page)

But then the persons sitting near us start calling out, “How now spirit,” and “All hail Titania,” I get mad and say shush, then I really shout at them to be quiet. Ma
pulls me by the hand all the way back to the trees bit and tells me that was called audience participation, it’s allowed, it’s a special case.

When we get home to the Independent Living we write everything down that we tried, the list’s getting long. Then there’s things we might try when we’re braver.

Most important there’s
getting a dog called Lucky,
every day I’m ready but Ma says she’s got enough on her plate at the moment, maybe when I’m
six.

“When I’ll have a cake with candles?”

“Six candles,” she says, “I swear.”

In the night in our bed that’s not Bed, I rub the duvet, it’s puffed-upper than Duvet was. When I was four I didn’t know about the world, or I thought it was only stories. Then
Ma told me about it for real and I thought I knowed everything. But now I’m in the world all the time, I actually don’t know much, I’m always confused.

“Ma?”

“Yeah?”

She still smells like her, but not her breasts, they’re just breasts now.

“Do you sometimes wish we didn’t escape?”

I don’t hear anything. Then she says, “No, I never wish that.”

•   •   •

“It’s perverse,” Ma is telling Dr. Clay, “all those years, I was craving company. But now I don’t seem up to it.”

He’s nodding, they’re sipping their steamy coffee, Ma drinks it now like adults do to keep going. I still drink milk but sometimes it’s chocolate milk, it tastes like chocolate
but it’s allowed. I’m on the floor doing a jigsaw with Noreen, it’s super hard with twenty-four pieces of a train.

“Most days . . . Jack’s enough for me.”

“ ‘The Soul selects her own Society—Then—shuts the Door—’ ” That’s his poem voice.

Ma nods. “Yeah, but it’s not how I remember myself.”

“You had to change to survive.”

Noreen looks up. “Don’t forget, you’d have changed anyway. Moving into your twenties, having a child—you wouldn’t have stayed the same.”

Ma just drinks her coffee.

•   •   •

One day I wonder if the windows open. I try the bathroom one, I figure out the handle and push the glass. I’m scared of the air but I’m being scave, I lean out and
put my hands through it. I’m half in half out, it’s the most amazing—

“Jack!” Ma pulls me all in by the back of my T-shirt.

“Ow.”

“It’s a six-story drop, if you fell you’d smash your skull.”

“I wasn’t falling,” I tell her, “I was being in and out at the same time.”

“You were being a nutcase at the same time,” she tells me, but she’s nearly smiling.

I go after her into the kitchen. She’s beating eggs in a bowl for French toast. The shells are smashed, we just throw them in the trash, bye-bye. I wonder if they turn into the new eggs.
“Do we come back after Heaven?”

I think Ma doesn’t hear me.

“Do we grow in tummies again?”

“That’s called reincarnation.” She cutting the bread. “Some people think we might come back as donkeys or snails.”

“No, humans in the same tummies. If I grow in you again—”

Ma lights the flame. “What’s your question?”

“Will you still call me Jack?”

She looks at me. “OK.”

“Promise?”

“I’ll always call you Jack.”

Tomorrow is May Day, that means summer’s coming and there’s going to be a parade. We might go just to look. “Is it only May Day in the world?” I ask.

We’re having granola in our bowls on the sofa not spilling. “What do you mean?” says Ma.

“Is it May Day in Room too?”

“I suppose so, but nobody’s there to celebrate it.”

“We could go there.”

She clangs her spoon into her bowl. “Jack.”

“Can we?”

“Do you really, really want to?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her.

“Don’t you like it outside?”

“Yeah. Not everything.”

“Well, no, but mostly? You like it more than Room?”

“Mostly.” I eat all the rest of my granola and the bit of Ma’s that she left in her bowl. “Can we go back sometime?”

“Not to live.”

I shake my head. “Just to visit for one minute.”

Ma leans her mouth on her hand. “I don’t think I can.”

“Yeah, you can.” I wait. “Is it dangerous?”

“No, but just the idea of it, it makes me feel like . . .”

She doesn’t say like what. “I’d hold your hand.”

Ma stares at me. “What about going on your own, maybe?”

“No.”

“With someone, I mean. With Noreen?”

“No.”

“Or Grandma?”

“With you.”

“I can’t—”

“I’m choosing for both of us,” I tell her.

She gets up, I think she’s mad. She takes the phone in
MA’S ROOM
and talks to somebody.

Later in the morning the doorman buzzes and says there’s a police car here for us.

“Are you still Officer Oh?”

“I sure am,” says Officer Oh. “Long time no see.”

There’s tiny dots on the windows of the police car, I think it’s rain. Ma’s chewing her thumb. “Bad idea,” I tell her, pulling her hand away.

“Yeah.” She takes her thumb back and nibbles it again. “I wish he was dead.” She’s nearly whispering.

I know who she means. “But not in Heaven.”

“No, outside it.”

“Knock knock knock, but he can’t come in.”

“Yeah.”

“Ha ha.”

Two fire trucks go by with sirens. “Grandma says there’s more of him.”

“What?”

“Persons like him, in the world.”

“Ah,” says Ma.

“Is it true?”

“Yeah. But the tricky thing is, there’s far more people in the middle.”

“Where?”

Ma’s staring out the window but I don’t know at what. “Somewhere between good and bad,” she says. “Bits of both stuck together.”

The dots on the window join up into little rivers.

When we stop, I only know we’re there because Officer Oh says “Here we are.” I don’t remember which house Ma came out of, the night of our Great Escape, the houses all
have garages. None of them looks especially like a secret.

Officer Oh says, “I should have brought umbrellas.”

“It’s only sprinkling,” says Ma. She gets out and holds out her hand to me.

I don’t undo my seat belt. “The rain will fall on us—”

“Let’s get this over with, Jack, because I am not coming back again.”

I click it open. I put my head down and squeeze my eyes half shut, Ma leads me along. The rain is on me, my face is wetting, my jacket, my hands a bit. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just
weird.

When we get up close to the door of the house, I know it’s Old Nick’s house because there’s a yellow ribbon that says in black letters
CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS
. A big
sticker with a scary wolf face that says
BEWARE OF THE DOG
. I point to it, but Ma says, “That’s only pretend.”

Oh, yeah, the trick dog that was having the fit the day Ma was nineteen.

A man police I don’t know opens the door inside, Ma and Officer Oh duck under the yellow ribbon, I only have to go a bit sideways.

The house has lots of rooms with all stuff like fat chairs and the hugest TV I ever saw. But we go right through, there’s another door at the back and then it’s grass. The
rain’s still falling but my eyes stay open.

“Fifteen-foot hedge all the way around,” Officer Oh is saying to Ma, “neighbors thought nothing of it. ‘A man’s entitled to his privacy,’ et
cetera.”

There’s bushes and a hole with more yellow tape on sticks all around it. I remember something. “Ma. Is that where—?”

She stands and stares. “I don’t think I can do this.”

But I’m walking over to the hole. There’s brown things in the mud. “Are they worms?” I ask Officer Oh, my chest is
thump thump thumping.

“Just tree roots.”

“Where’s the baby?”

Ma’s beside me, she makes a sound.

“We dug her up,” says Officer Oh.

“I didn’t want her to be here anymore,” Ma says, her voice is all scratchy. She clears her throat and asks Officer Oh, “How did you find where—?”

“We’ve got soil-sensitive probes.”

“We’ll put her somewhere better,” Ma tells me.

“Grandma’s garden?”

“Tell you what, we could—we could turn her bones into ash and sprinkle it under the hammock.”

“Will she grow again then and be my sister?”

Ma shakes her head. Her face is all stripey wet.

There’s more rain on me. It’s not like a shower, softer.

Ma’s turned around, she’s looking at a gray shed in the corner of the yard. “That’s it,” she says.

“What?”

“Room.”

“Nah.”

“It is, Jack, you’ve just never seen it from the outside.”

We follow Officer Oh, we step over more yellow tape. “Notice the central air unit is concealed in these bushes,” she tells Ma. “And the entrance is at the back, out of any
sight lines.”

I see silvery metal, it’s Door I think but the side of him I never saw, he’s halfway open already.

“Will I come in with you?” says Officer Oh.

“No,” I shout.

“OK.”

“Just me and Ma.”

But Ma’s dropped my hand and she’s bending over, she makes a strange noise. There’s stuff on the grass, on her mouth, it’s vomit I can smell. Is she poisoned again?
“Ma, Ma—”

“I’m OK.” She wipes her mouth with a tissue Officer Oh gives her.

“Would you prefer—?” says Officer Oh.

“No,” says Ma and she takes my hand again. “Come on.”

We step in through Door and it’s all wrong. Smaller than Room and emptier and it smells weird. Floor’s bare, that’s because there’s no Rug, she’s in my wardrobe in
our Independent Living, I forgot she couldn’t be here at the same time. Bed’s here but there’s no sheets or Duvet on her. Rocker’s here and Table and Sink and Bath and
Cabinet but no plates and cutlery on top, and Dresser and TV and Bunny with the purple bow on him, and Shelf but nothing on her, and our chairs folded up but they’re all different. Nothing
says anything to me. “I don’t think this is it,” I whisper to Ma.

“Yeah, it is.”

Our voices sound not like us. “Has it got shrunk?”

“No, it was always like this.”

Spaghetti Mobile’s gone, and my octopus picture, and the masterpieces, and all the toys and Fort and Labyrinth. I look under Table but there’s no web. “It’s gone
darker.”

“Well, it’s a rainy day. You could put the light on.” Ma points to Lamp.

But I don’t want to touch. I look closer, I’m trying to see it how it was. I find my birthday numbers marked beside Door, I stand against them and put my hand flat at the top of my
head and I’m taller than the black 5. There’s thin dark on everything. “Is that the dust of our skins?” I ask.

“Fingerprinting powder,” says Officer Oh.

I bend and look in Under Bed for Eggsnake curled up like he’s sleeping. I can’t see his tongue, I reach down all careful till I feel the little prick of the needle.

I straighten up. “Where did Plant be?”

“You’ve forgotten already? Right here,” says Ma, tapping the middle of Dresser and I see a circle that’s more coloredy than the rest.

There’s the mark of Track around Bed. The little hole rubbed in Floor where our feet used to go under Table. I guess this really was Room one time. “But not anymore,” I tell
Ma.

“What?”

“It’s not Room now.”

“You don’t think so?” She sniffs. “It used to smell even staler. The door’s open now, of course.”

Maybe that’s it. “Maybe it’s not Room if Door’s open.”

Ma does a tiny smile. “Do you—?” She clears her throat. “Would you like the door closed for a minute?”

“No.”

“OK. I need to go now.”

I walk to Bed Wall and touch it with one finger, the cork doesn’t feel like anything. “Is good night in the day?”

“Huh?”

“Can we say good night when it’s not night?”

“I think it would be good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Wall.” Then I say it to the three other walls, then “Good-bye, Floor.” I pat Bed, “Good-bye, Bed.” I put my head down in Under Bed to say
“Good-bye, Eggsnake.” In Wardrobe I whisper, “Good-bye, Wardrobe.” In the dark there’s the picture of me Ma did for my birthday, I look very small. I wave her over and
point to it.

I kiss her face where the tears are, that’s how the sea tastes.

I pull the me picture down and zip it into my jacket. Ma’s nearly at Door, I go over. “Lift me up?”

“Jack—”

“Please.”

Ma sits me up on her hip, I reach up.

“Higher.”

She holds me by my ribs and lifts me up up up, I touch the start of Roof. I say, “Good-bye, Roof.”

Ma puts me down
thump.

“Good-bye, Room.” I wave up at Skylight. “Say good-bye,” I tell Ma. “Good-bye, Room.”

Ma says it but on mute.

I look back one more time. It’s like a crater, a hole where something happened. Then we go out the door.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my beloved Chris Roulston and my agent, Caroline Davidson, for their responses to the first draft, as well as Caroline (aided by Victoria X. Kwee and
Laura Macdougall) and my U.S. agent, Kathy Anderson, for their exuberant commitment to this novel from day one. Judy Clain at Little, Brown, Sam Humphreys at Picador, and Iris Tupholme at
HarperCollins Canada for their intelligent editing. Also my friends Debra Westgate, Liz Veecock, Arja Vainio-Mattila, Tamara Sugunasiri, Hélène Roulston, Andrea Plumb, Chantal
Phillips, Ann Patty, Sinéad McBrearty, and Ali Dover for their suggestions about everything from child development to plot development. Above all, my brother-in-law Jeff Miles for his
unnervingly insightful advice on the practicalities of Room.