Room: A Novel

Living Inventing something Making new friends Living in another country not America Having a playdate at another kid’s house like Baby Jesus and John the Baptist Taking swimming lessons Ma going out dancing in the night and me staying at Steppa and Grandma’s on the blow-up. Having jobs Going to the moon

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.”