Room: A Novel полностью

Then I do a huge burp.

Then we go back to sleep.

• • •

When the door knocks, Ma lets Dr. Clay in, she puts her mask back on and mine. He’s not very scary now. “How’re you doing, Jack?” “OK.”

“Gimme five?”

His plastic hand is up and he’s waggling his fingers, I pretend I don’t see. I’m not going to give him my fingers, I need them for me.

He and Ma talk about stuff like why she can’t get to sleep, tachycardia and re-experiencing. “Try these, just one before bed,” he says, writing something on his pad. “And anti-inflammatories might work better for your toothache. .”

“Can I please hold on to my medications instead of the nurses doling them out like I’m a sick person?”

“Ah, that shouldn’t be a problem, as long as you don’t leave them lying around your room.”

“Jack knows not to mess with pills.”

“Actually I was thinking of a few of our patients who’ve got histories of substance abuse. Now, for you, I’ve got a magic patch.” “Jack, Dr. Clay’s talking to you,” says Ma.

The patch is to put on my arm that makes a bit of it feel not there. Also he’s brought cool shades to wear when it’s too bright in the windows, mine are red and Ma’s are black. “Like rap stars,” I tell her. They go darker if we’ll be in the outside of Outside and lighter if we’ll be in the inside of Outside. Dr. Clay says my eyes are super sharp but they’re not used to looking far away yet, I need to stretch them out the window. I never knowed there were muscles inside my eyes, I put my fingers to press but I can’t feel them.

“How’s that patch,” says Dr. Clay, “are you numb yet?” He peels it off and touches me under, I see his finger on me but I can’t feel it. Then the bad thing, he’s got needles and he says he’s sorry but I need six shots to stop me to get horrible sicknesses, that’s what the patch is for, for making the needles not hurt. Six is not possible, I run in the toilet bit of the room.

“They could kill you,” says Ma, pulling me back to Dr. Clay.

“No!”

“The germs, I mean, not the shots.”

It’s still no.

Dr. Clay says I’m really brave but I’m not, I used my brave all up doing Plan B. I scream and scream. Ma holds me on her lap while he sticks his needles in over and over and they do hurt because he took the patch off, I cry for it and in the end Ma puts it back on me.

“All done for now, I promise.” Dr. Clay puts the needles in a box on the wall called Sharps. He has a lollipop for me in his pocket, an orange, but I’m too full. He says I can keep it for another time.

“. . like a newborn in many ways, despite his remarkably accelerated literacy and numeracy,” he’s saying to Ma. I’m listening hard because it’s me that’s the he. “As well as immune issues, there are likely to be challenges in the areas of, let’s see, social adjustment, obviously, sensory modulation — filtering and sorting all the stimuli barraging him — plus difficulties with spatial perception. .”

Ma asks, “Is that why he keeps banging into things?”

“Exactly. He’s been so familiar with his confined environment that he hasn’t needed to learn to gauge distance.”

Ma’s got her head in her hands. “I thought he was OK. More or less.”

Am I not OK?

“Another way to look at this—”

But he stops because there’s a knock, when he opens it’s Noreen with another tray.

I do a burp, my tummy’s still crammed from breakfast.

“Ideally a mental health OT with qualifications in play and art therapy,” Dr. Clay is saying, “but at our meeting this morning it was agreed that the immediate priority is to help him feel safe. Both of you, rather. It’s a matter of slowly, slowly enlarging the circle of trust.” His hands are in the air moving wider. “As I was lucky enough to be the admitting psychiatrist on duty last night—”

“Lucky?” she says.

“Poor word choice.” He does a sort of grin. “I’m going to be working with you both for the moment—”

What working? I didn’t know kids had to work.

“—with input of course from my colleagues in child and adolescent psychiatry, our neurologist, our psychotherapists, we’re going to bring in a nutritionist, a physio—”

Another knock. It’s Noreen again with a police, a he but not the yellow-hair one from last night.

That’s three persons in the room now and two of us, that equals five, it’s nearly full of arms and legs and chests. They’re all saying till I hurt. “Stop all saying at the same time.” I say it only on mute. I squish my fingers in my ears.

“You want a surprise?”

It was me Ma was saying, I didn’t know. Noreen’s gone and the police too. I shake my head.

Dr. Clay says, “I’m not sure this is the most advisable—”

“Jack, it’s the best news,” Ma butts in. She holds up pictures. I see who it is without even going close, it’s Old Nick. The same face as when I peeked at him in Bed in the night that time, but he has a sign around his neck and he’s against numbers like we marked my tall on birthdays, he’s nearly at the six but not quite. There’s a picture where he’s looking sideways and another where he’s looking at me.