The Dead Room

36

Jamie placed the electric clippers on top of the newspapers with which she’d covered the bathroom vanity. She’d shave her hair down after she saw Michael. He had come out of his room earlier to use the bathroom. She hoped he hadn’t locked his bedroom door again.

He hadn’t.

She slid the door open and saw him lying on his side, fast asleep.

The right side of his face was swollen.

Michael didn’t stir when she pulled back the sheets and climbed into his bed. She wrapped an arm around his waist.

This is the only way I can touch my child: by sneaking into his bed while he’s asleep. This is the only way I can feel close to him.

Her eyes stung. Blinking back tears, she kissed his cheek and then lay close next to him, wide awake. Underneath his T-shirt she could feel the thick, rubbery scar on his chest from where the doctors had operated on him to save his life.

I’m so sorry for everything you’ve gone through, Michael – for everything you’re still going through. If there were a way I could fix it, I would. I swear to God I would.

Michael stirred awake. His head popped up, his voice groggy, thick with sleep. He expected to see Carter – sometimes his younger brother crawled into bed. When Michael saw her, he looked alarmed.

‘What’s wrong? Are you sick?’

‘I’m… ah… okay.’

His glare was as cold and unforgiving as an X-ray.

‘What’s that… You smell like the way the air does after fireworks have gone off.’

He smells the cordite, she thought. No amount of scrubbing with soap and water could remove the gunpowder odour. She had tried using the recipe given to her by her firearms instructor – scrubbing hands with lemons. Apparently, it hadn’t worked.

‘Your… your, ah… face, what… ah… ah…’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ His head slumped back against the pillow.

‘Fight?’

He didn’t answer. He had turned back towards the window.

‘Direct… ah… camp director… ah… she… called.’

He sighed. ‘I got in a fight with Tommy Gerrad today.’

‘Why?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I had to go to Miss French’s office. While I was there, I told her I didn’t want to be there any more, so I guess you’re stuck with me.’

Jamie kissed the back of his head and hugged him. She felt his body stiffen.

He didn’t push her away, though. He didn’t remove her arm.

‘Sorry,’ she said, and hugged him again. ‘Sorry for… way Tommy… ah… ah… how he… hurt you.’

Michael didn’t answer.

‘Love,’ she said. ‘Love… ah… you.’

‘You went to him first.’

Jamie froze.

‘You thought you could save only one of us,’ he said, ‘and you chose Carter.’

‘No,’ she said, clutching him. ‘I –’

‘I was there, remember? I saw you.’ His voice, barely above a whisper, was stripped of emotion. ‘You went to him first.’

He was right. She had gone to Carter first. After she managed to free herself from the chair, after she had called 911, she had used the kitchen knife to cut the tape binding his eighteen-month-old brother to the chair and started doing CPR on Carter while Michael, still tied to the chair, bled out. Her focus was on saving Carter first: he was so small, had been shot twice and was losing blood fast. By the time the EMTs arrived, Michael had passed out. Michael remembered what had happened, and this knowledge had lain between them for years, lengthening the already considerable distance between them. But this was the first time he had ever spoken the words out loud and it pierced her.

Jamie’s breath came out sharp and fast. The words she needed to speak were stuck somewhere on the broken road between her brain and tongue. She kissed Michael’s neck, feeling her son’s body shudder again, and then, unable to hold it any longer, started to cry. She kissed the top of his head, tears streaming down her face, and said, ‘Sorry, Michael. Sorry.’ She whispered the word over and over again, wishing she could travel far away from this bedroom – this house. Pack up and move them some place where their memories would be stripped clean, their scars erased. Where they’d wake up and greet each day without dread, without worry.