Room: A Novel

When Ma and me go back in the parking lot the light’s all banging my head. The driver’s there again reading a paper, he gets out and opens the doors for us. “Hank oo,” says Ma. I wonder if she’ll always talk wrong now. I’d rather sore teeth than talk like that.

All the way back to the Clinic I watch the street whizzing by, I sing the song about the ribbon of highway and the endless skyway.

• • •

Tooth’s still under our pillow, I give him a kiss. I should have brung him and maybe Dr. Lopez could have fixed him too.

We have our dinner on a tray, it’s called beef Stroganoff with bits that’s meat and bits that look like meat but they’re mushrooms, all lying on fluffy rice. Ma can’t have the meats yet, just little slurps of the rice, but she’s nearly talking properly again. Noreen knocks to say she has a surprise for us, Ma’s Dad from Australia.

Ma’s crying, she jumps up.

I ask, “Can I take my Stroganoff?”

“Why don’t I bring Jack down in a few minutes, when he’s finished?” asks Noreen.

Ma doesn’t even say anything, she just runs off.

“He had a funeral for us,” I tell Noreen, “but we weren’t in the coffin.”

“Glad to hear it.”

I chase the little rices.

“This must be the most tiring week of your life,” she says, sitting down beside me.

I blink at her. “Why?”

“Well, everything’s strange, because you’re like a visitor from another planet, aren’t you?”

I shake my head. “We’re not visitors, Ma says we have to stay forever till we’re dead.”

“Ah, I suppose I mean. . a new arrival.”

When I’m all done, Noreen finds the room where Ma’s sitting holding hands with a person that has a cap on. He jumps up and says to Ma, “I told your mother I didn’t want—”

Ma butts in. “Dad, this is Jack.”

He shakes his head.

But I am Jack, was he expecting a different one?

He’s looking at the table, he’s all sweaty on his face. “No offense.”

“What do you mean, ‘no offense’?” Ma’s talking nearly in a shout.

“I can’t be in the same room. It makes me shudder.”

“There’s no it. He’s a boy. He’s five years old,” she roars.

“I’m saying it wrong, I’m — it’s the jet lag. I’ll call you later from the hotel, OK?” The man who’s Grandpa is gone past me without looking, he’s nearly at the door.

There’s a crash, Ma’s banged the table with her hand. “It’s not OK.”

“OK, OK.”

“Sit down, Dad.”

He doesn’t move.

“He’s the world to me,” she says.

Her Dad? No, I think the he

is me.

“Of course, it’s only natural.” The Grandpa man wipes the skin under his eyes. “But all I can think of is that beast and what he —” “Oh, so you’d rather think of me dead and buried?”

He shakes his head again.

“Then live with it,” says Ma. “I’m back—”

“It’s a miracle,” he says.

“I’m back, with Jack. That’s two miracles.”

He puts his hand on the door handle. “Right now, I just can’t —”

“Last chance,” says Ma. “Take a seat.”

Nobody does anything.

Then the grandpa comes back to the table and sits down. Ma points to the chair beside him so I go on it even though I don’t want to be here. I’m looking at my shoes, they’re all crinkly at the edges.

Grandpa takes off his cap, he looks at me. “Pleased to meet you, Jack.”

I don’t know which manners so I say, “You’re welcome.”

Later on Ma and me are in Bed, I’m having some in the dark.

I ask, “Why he didn’t want to see me? Was it another mistake, like the coffin?”

“Kind of.” Ma puffs her breath. “He thinks — he thought I’d be better off without you.”

“Somewhere else?”

“No, if you’d never been born. Imagine.”

I try but I can’t. “Then would you still be Ma?”

“Well, no, I wouldn’t. So it’s a really dumb idea.”

“Is he the real Grandpa?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Why you’re afraid—”

“I mean, yeah, he’s it.”

“Your Dad from when you were a little girl in the hammock?”

“Ever since I was a baby, six weeks old,” she says. “That’s when they brought me home from the hospital.”

“Why she left you there, the tummy mommy? Was that a mistake?”

“I think she was tired,” says Ma. “She was young.” She sits up to blow her nose very noisy. “Dad will get his act together in a while,” she says.

“What’s his act?”

She sort of laughs. “I mean he’ll behave better. More like a real grandpa.”

Like Steppa, only he’s not a real one.

I go asleep really easy, but I wake up crying.

“It’s OK, it’s OK.” That’s Ma, kissing my head.

“Why they don’t cuddle the monkeys?”

“Who?”

“The scientists, why don’t they cuddle the baby monkeys?”

“Oh.” After a second she says, “Maybe they do. Maybe the baby monkeys learn to like the human cuddles.”

“No, but you said they’re weird and biting themselves.”

Ma doesn’t say anything.

“Why don’t the scientists bring the mother monkeys back and say sorry?”

“I don’t know why I told you that old story, it all happened ages ago, before I was born.”

I’m coughing and there’s nothing to blow my nose on.

“Don’t think about the baby monkeys anymore, OK? They’re OK now.”

“I don’t think they’re OK.”

Ma holds me so tight my neck hurts.

“Ow.”

She moves. “Jack, there’s a lot of things in the world.”

“Zillions?”

“Zillions and zillions. If you try to fit them all in your head, it’ll just burst.”

“But the baby monkeys?”