Room_ A Novel - Emma Donoghue [82]
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?”
I can hear her breathing funny. “Yeah, some of the things are bad things.”
“Like the monkeys.”
“And worse than that,” says Ma.
“What worse?” I try to think of a thing worse.
“Not tonight.”
“Maybe when I’m six?”
“Maybe.”
She spoons me.
I listen to her breaths, I count them to ten, then ten of mine. “Ma?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think about the worse things?”
“Sometimes,” she says. “Sometimes I have to.”
“Me too.”
“But then I put them out of my head and I go to sleep.”
I count our breaths again. I try biting myself, my shoulder, it hurts. Instead of thinking about the monkeys I think about all the kids in the world, how they’re not TV they’re real, they