Room_ A Novel - Emma Donoghue [77]
“Let’s get you inside,” says Noreen.
Ma grabs me by the hand and yanks.
“Wait—,” I say but I lose all my breath, they pull me along in between them, my nose is running.
When we jump back through the revolving door I’m blurry in my head. That helicopter was full of paparazzi trying to steal pictures of me and Ma.
• • •
After our nap my cold’s still not fixed yet. I’m playing with my treasures, my rock and my injured maple key and my lilac that’s gone floppy. Grandma knocks with more visitors, but she waits outside so it won’t be too much of a crowd. The persons are two, they’re called my Uncle that’s Paul that has floppy hair just to his ears and Deana that’s my Aunt with rectangular glasses and a million black braids like snakes. “We’ve got a little girl called Bronwyn who’s going to be so psyched to meet you,” she tells me. “She didn’t even know she had a cousin—well, none of us knew about you till two days ago, when your grandma called with the news.”
“We would have jumped in the car except the doctors said—” Paul stops talking, he puts his fist at his eyes.
“It’s OK, hon,” says Deana and she rubs his leg.
He clears his throat very noisy. “Just, it keeps hitting me.”
I don’t see anything hitting him.
Ma puts her arm around his shoulder. “All those years, he thought his little sister might be dead,” she tells me.
“Bronwyn?” I say it on mute but she hears.
“No, me, remember? Paul’s my brother.”
“Yeah I know.”
“I couldn’t tell what to—” His voice stops again, he blows his nose. It’s way more louder than I do it, like elephants.
“But where is Bronwyn?” asks Ma.
“Well,” says Deana, “we thought . . .” She looks at Paul.
He says, “You and Jack can meet her another day soon. She goes to Li’l Leapfrogs.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“A building where parents send kids when they’re busy doing other stuff,” says Ma.
“Why the kids are busy—?”
“No, when the parents are busy.”
“Actually Bronwyn’s wild about it,” says Deana.
“She’s learning Sign and hip-hop,” says Paul.
He wants to take some photos to e-mail to Grandpa in Australia who’s going to get on the plane tomorrow. “Don’t worry, he’ll be fine once he meets him,” Paul says to Ma, I don’t know who all the hims are. Also I don’t know to go in photos but Ma says we just look at the camera as if it’s a friend and smile.
Paul shows me on the little screen after, he asks which do I think is best, the first or second or third, but they’re the same.
My ears are tired from all the talking.
When they’re gone I thought we were just us two again but Grandma comes in and gives Ma a long hug and blows me another kiss from just a bit away so I can feel the blowing. “How’s my favorite grandson?”
“That’s you,” Ma tells me. “What do you say when someone asks you how you are?”
Manners again. “Thank you.”
They both laugh, I did another joke by accident. “ ‘Very well,’ then ‘thank you,’ ” says Grandma.
“Very well, then thank you.”
“Unless you’re not, of course, then it’s OK to say, ‘I’m not feeling a hundred percent today.’ ” She turns back to Ma. “Oh, by the way, Sharon, Michael Keelor, Joyce whatshername—they’ve all been calling.”
Ma nods.
“They’re dying to welcome you back.”
“I’m—the doctors say I’m not quite up for visits yet,” says Ma.
“Right, of course.”
The Leo man is in the door.
“Could he come in just for a minute?” Grandma asks.
“I don’t care,” says Ma.
He’s my Stepgrandpa so Grandma says I could maybe call him Steppa, I didn’t know she knowed word salads. He smells funny like smoke, his teeth are crookedy and his eyebrows go all ways.
“How come all his hair is on his face not his head?”
He laughs even though I was whispering to Ma. “Search me,” he says.
“We met on an Indian Head Massage weekend,” says Grandma, “and I picked him as the smoothest surface to work on.” They laugh both, not Ma.
“Can I have some?” I ask.
“In a minute,” says Ma, “when they’re gone.”
Grandma asks, “What does he want?”
“It’s OK.”
“I can call the nurse.”
Ma shakes her head. “He means breastfeeding.”
Grandma stares at her. “You don’t mean to say you’re still