Emma Donoghue - Room - A Novel

“No, I keep telling you. Definitely not.” Grandma rests her head on the wood around the glass.

Sometimes when persons say definitely it sounds actually less true. “Are you just playing she’s alive?” I ask Grandma. “Because if she’s not, I don’t want to be either.”

There’s all tears running all down her face again. “I don’t — I can’t tell you any more than I know, sweetie. They said they’d call as soon as they had an update.”

“What’s an update?”

“How she is, right this minute.”

“How is she?”

“Well, she’s not well because she took too much of the bad medicine, like I told you, but they’ve probably pumped it all out of her stomach by now, or most of it.” “But why she—?”

“Because she’s not well. In her head. She’s being taken care of,” says Grandma, “you don’t need to worry.” “Why?”

“Well, it doesn’t do any good to.”

God’s face is all red and stuck on a chimney. It’s getting darker. Tooth is digging into my gum, he’s a bad hurting tooth.

“You didn’t touch your lasagna,” Grandma says, “would you like a glass of juice or something?”

I shake my head.

“Are you tired? You must be tired, Jack. Lord knows I am. Come downstairs and see the spare room.”

“Why is it spare?”

“That means we don’t use it.”

“Why you have a room you don’t use?”

Grandma shrugs. “You never know when we might need it.” She waits while I do the stairs down on my butt because there’s no banister to hold. I pull my Dora bag behind me bumpity bump. We go through the room that’s called the living room, I don’t know why because Grandma and Steppa are living in all the rooms, except not the spare.

An awful waah waah starts, I cover my ears. “I’d better get that,” says Grandma.

She comes back in a minute and brings me into a room. “Are you ready?”

“For what?”

“To go to bed, honey.”

“Not here.”

She presses around her mouth where the little cracks are. “I know you’re missing your ma, but just for now you need to sleep on your own. You’ll be fine, Steppa and I will be just upstairs. You’re not afraid of monsters, are you?”

It depends on the monster, if it’s a real one or not and if it’s where I am.

“Hmm. Your ma’s old room is beside ours,” says Grandma, “but we’ve converted it into a fitness suite, I don’t know if there’d be space for a blow-up . . .”

I go up the stairs with my feet this time, just pressing onto the walls, Grandma carries my Dora bag. There’s blue squishy mats and dumbbells and abs crunchers like I saw in TV. “Her bed was here, right where her crib was when she was a baby,” says Grandma, pointing to a bicycle but stuck to the ground. “The walls were covered in posters, you know, bands she liked, a giant fan and a dreamcatcher . . .”

“Why it catched her dreams?”

“What’s that?”

“The fan.”

“Oh, no, they were just decorations. I feel just terrible about dropping it all off at the Goodwill, it was a counselor at the grief group that advised it . . .” I do a huge yawn, Tooth nearly slips out but I catch him in my hand.

“What’s that?” says Grandma. “A bead or something? Never suck on something small, didn’t your—?”

She’s trying to bend my fingers open to get him. My hand hits her hard in the tummy.

She stares.

I put Tooth back in under my tongue and lock my teeth.

“Tell you what, why don’t I put a blow-up beside our bed, just for tonight, until you’re settled in?” I pull my Dora bag. The next door is where Grandma and Steppa sleep. The blow-up is a big bag thing, the pump keeps popping out of the hole and she has to shout for Steppa to help. Then it’s all full like a balloon but a rectangle and she puts sheets over it. Who’s the they that pumped Ma’s stomach? Where do they put the pump? Won’t she burst?

“I said, where’s your toothbrush, Jack?”

I find it in my Dora bag that has my everything. Grandma tells me to put on my pj’s that means pajamas. She points at the blow-up and says, “Pop in,” persons are always saying pop or hop when it’s something they want to pretend is fun. Grandma leans down with her mouth out like to kiss but I put my head under the duvet. “Sorry,” she says. “What about a story?”

“No.”

“Too tired for a story, OK, then. Night-night.”

It goes all dark. I sit up. “What about the Bugs?”

“The sheets are perfectly clean.”

I can’t see her but I know her voice. “No, the Bugs .”

“Jack, I’m ready to drop here—”

“The Bugs that don’t let them bite.”

“Oh,” says Grandma. “Night-night, sleep tight . . . That’s right, I used to say that when your ma was—” “Do it all.”

“Night-night, sleep tight, don’t let the bugs bite.”

Some light comes in, it’s the door opening. “Where are you going?”

I can see Grandma’s shape all black in the hole. “Just downstairs.”

I roll off the blow-up, it wobbles. “Me too.”

“No, I’m going to watch my shows, they’re not for children.”

“You said you and Steppa in the bed and me beside on the blow-up.”

“That’s later, we’re not tired yet.”

“You said you were tired.”

“I’m tired of—” Grandma’s nearly shouting. “I’m not sleepy, I just need to watch TV and not think for a while.” “You can not think here.”

“Just try lying down and closing your eyes.”

“I can’t, not all my own.”

“Oh,” says Grandma. “Oh, you poor creature.”

Why am I poor and creature?

She bends down beside the blow-up and touches my face.

I get away.

“I was just closing your eyes for you.”

“You in the bed. Me on the blow-up.”

I hear her puff her breath. “OK. I’ll lie down for just a minute . . .”

I see her shape on top of the duvet. Something drops clomp, it’s her shoe. “Would you like a lullaby?” she whispers.

“Huh?”

“A song?”

Ma sings me songs but there’s no more of them anymore. She smashed my head on the table in Room Number Seven. She took the bad medicine, I think she was too tired to play anymore, she was in a hurry to get to Heaven so she didn’t wait, why she didn’t wait for me?

“Are you crying?”

I don’t say anything.

“Oh, honey. Well, better out than in.”

I want some, I really really want some, I can’t get to sleep without. I suck on Tooth that’s Ma, a bit of her anyway, her cells all brown and rotten and hard. Tooth hurted her or he was hurted but not anymore. Why is it better out than in? Ma said we’d be free but this doesn’t feel like free.

Grandma’s singing very quietly, I know that song but it sounds wrong. “ ‘The wheels on the bus go—’ ” “No, thanks,” I say, and she stops.

Me and Ma in the sea, I’m tangled in her hair, I’m all knotted up and drowning—

Just a bad dream. That’s what Ma would say if she was here but she’s not.

I lie counting five fingers five fingers five toes five toes, I make them wave one by one. I try the talking in my head, Ma? Ma? Ma? I can’t hear her answering.

When it starts being lighter I put the duvet over my face to dark it. I think this must be what Gone feels like.

Persons are walking around whispering. “Jack? ” That’s Grandma near my ear so I curl away. “How are you doing?” I remember manners. “Not a hundred percent today, thank you.” I’m mumbly because Tooth is stuck to my tongue.