Emma Donoghue - Room - A Novel

“I’m sorry,” she says.

I’m against Ma’s tummy, the paper’s in creases. “Germs are going to jump in the hole and I’ll be dead.”

“Don’t worry,” says Dr. Kendrick, “I’ve got a special wipe that takes them all away.”

It stings. She does my bitten finger too, on the left hand where the dog drank my blood. Then she puts something on my knee, it’s like a sticky tape but with faces on it, they’re Dora and Boots waving at me. “Oh, oh—”

“Does that hurt?”

“You’ve made his day,” Ma says to Dr. Kendrick.

“You’re a Dora fan?” says Dr. Clay. “My niece and nephew too.” His teeth are smiling like snow.

Dr. Kendrick puts another Dora and Boots on my finger, it’s tight.

Tooth is still safe down the side of my right sock. When I have my T-shirt and blanket back on, the doctors are talking all quiet, then Dr. Clay asks, “Do you know what a needle is, Jack?”

Ma groans. “Oh, come on.”

“This way the lab can do a full blood count first thing in the morning. Markers of infection, nutritional deficiencies . . . It’s all admissible evidence, and more importantly, it’ll help us figure out what Jack needs right away.”

Ma looks at me. “Can you be a superhero for one more minute and let Dr. Kendrick prick your arm?”

“No.” I hide both under the blanket.

“Please.”

But no, I used all my brave up.

“I just need this much,” says Dr. Kendrick, holding up a tube.

That’s way more than the dog or the mosquito, I won’t have hardly any left.

“And then you’ll get . . . What would he like?” she asks Ma.

“I’d like to go to Bed.”

“She means a treat,” Ma tells me. “Like cake or something.”

“Hmm, I don’t think we’ve got any cake right now, the kitchens are shut,” says Dr. Clay. “What about a sucker?”

Pilar brings in a jar that’s full of lollipops, that’s what suckers are.

Ma says, “Go on, choose one.”

But there’s too many, they’re yellow and green and red and blue and orange. They’re all flat like circles not balls like the one from Old Nick that Ma threw in Trash and I ate anyway. Ma chooses for me, it’s a red but I shake my head because the one from him was red and I think I’m going to cry again. Ma chooses a green. Pilar gets the plastic off. Dr. Clay stabs the needle inside my elbow and I scream and try to get away but Ma’s holding me, she puts the lollipop in my mouth and I suck but it doesn’t stop the hurting at all. “Nearly done,” she says.

“I don’t like it.”

“Look, the needle’s out.”

“Good work,” says Dr. Clay.

“No, the lollipop.”

“You’ve got your lollipop,” says Ma.

“I don’t like it, I don’t like the green.”

“No problem, spit it out.”

Pilar takes it. “Try an orange instead, I like the orange ones best,” she says.

I didn’t know I was allowed two. Pilar opens an orange for me and it’s good.

First it’s warm, then it gets cold. The warm was nice but the cold is a wet cold. Ma and me are in Bed but it’s shrunk and it’s getting chilly, the sheet under us and the sheet on us too and the Duvet’s lost her white, she’s all blue—

This isn’t Room.

Silly Penis is standing up. “We’re in Outside,” I whisper to him.

“Ma—”

She jumps like an electric shock.

“I peed.”

“That’s OK.”

“No, but it’s all wetted. My T-shirt on the tummy bit as well.”

“Forget about it.”

I try forgetting. I’m looking past her head. The floor is like Rug but fuzzy with no pattern and no edges, sort of gray, it goes all the way to the walls, I didn’t know walls are green. There’s a picture of a monster, but when I look it’s actually a huge wave of the sea. A shape like Skylight only in the wall, I know what it is, it’s a sideways window, with hundreds of wooden stripes across it but there’s light coming between. “I’m still remembering,” I tell Ma.

“Of course you are.” She finds my cheek to kiss it.

“I can’t forget it because I’m all still wet.”

“Oh, that,” she says in a different voice. “I didn’t mean you had to forget you wet the bed, just don’t worry about it.” She’s climbing out, she’s still in her paper dress, it’s crunched up. “The nurses will change the sheets.”

I don’t see the nurses.

“But my other T-shirts—” They’re in Dresser, in the lower drawer. They were yesterday so I guess they are now too. But is Room still there when we’re not in it?

“We’ll figure something out,” says Ma. She’s at the window, she’s made the wooden stripes go more apart and there’s lots of light.

“How you did that?” I run over, the table hits my leg bam .

She rubs it better. “With the string, see? It’s the cord of the blind.”

“Why it’s—?”

“It’s the cord that opens and closes the blind,” she says. “This is a window blind, it’s called a blind — I guess because it stops you seeing.” “Why it stops me seeing?”

“I mean you as in anyone.”

Why I am as in anyone?

“It stops people looking in or out,” says Ma.

But I’m looking out, it’s like TV. There’s grass and trees and a bit of a white building and three cars, a blue and a brown and a silver with stripey bits. “On the grass—”

“What?”

“Is that a vulture?”

“It’s just a crow, I think.”

“Another one—”

“That’s a, a what-do-you-call-it, a pigeon. Early Alzheimer’s! OK, let’s get cleaned up.”

“We haven’t had breakfast,” I tell her.

“We can do that after.”

I shake my head. “Breakfast comes before bath.”

“It doesn’t have to, Jack.”

“But—”

“We don’t have to do the same as we used to,” says Ma, “we can do what we like.”

“I like breakfast before bath.”

But she’s gone around a corner and I can’t see her, I run after. I find her in another little room inside this one, the floor’s turned into shiny cold white squares and the walls are gone white too. There’s a toilet that’s not Toilet and a sink that’s twice the big of Sink and a tall invisible box that must be a shower like TV persons splash in. “Where’s the bath hiding?”

“There’s no bath.” Ma bangs the front of the box sideways so it’s open. She takes off her paper dress and crumples it up in a basket that I think is a trash, but it hasn’t got a lid that goes ding. “Let’s get rid of that filthy thing too.” My T-shirt pulls my face coming off. She scrunches it up and throws it in the trash.

“But—”

“It’s a rag.”

“It’s not, it’s my T-shirt.”

“You’ll get another, lots of them.” I can hardly hear her because she’s switched on the shower, all crashy. “Come on in.” “I don’t know how.”

“It’s lovely, I promise.” Ma waits. “OK, then, I won’t be long.” She steps in and starts closing the invisible door.

“No.”

“I’ve got to, or the water will spill out.”

“No.”

“You can watch me through the glass, I’m right here.” She slides it bang, I can’t see her anymore except blurry, not like the real Ma but some ghost that makes weird sounds.

I hit it, I can’t figure out the way, then I do and I slam it open.

“Jack—”

“I don’t like when you’re in and I’m out.”

“Then get on in here.”

I’m crying.

Ma wipes my face with her hand, that spreads the tears. “Sorry,” she says, “sorry. I guess I’m moving too fast.” She gives me a hug that wets me all down me. “There’s nothing to cry about anymore.”