A List of Cages

by Robin Roe

  I’ve just finished pulling on my sneakers when Russell appears in my doorway. “I’m taking you today.” He has never, not once, driven me to school.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  As we zip through the streets in silence, my stomach lurches. I’m afraid I’m going to be carsick, and I can’t imagine how furious he’d be if I threw up on his leather seats. I wrap my arms around myself and think good thoughts.

  The parking lot is full of kids when we get there, but instead of dropping me off, he pulls into a space. “We’re going into the office, and you’re withdrawing.”

  “Withdrawing? I…I’m not going to school anymore?”

  “Nora’s agreed to let you stay with her.”

  I don’t want to live with Russell’s sister. I don’t want to move far away now that I’ve made friends. But it’s finally happened. I pushed him that far.

  “I’ve tried with you for almost five years, but you’re still spoiled.”

  While Russell signs forms and waits for my school records in the main office, I close my eyes. If I concentrate, I can bend time and spoons.

  But somehow we’re back in his car and I haven’t changed anything at all.

  As Russell is turning the key in the ignition, I ask, “Can I say good-bye to Adam?” I’m afraid he’s going to hit me right here, he looks that angry.

  Suddenly he laughs. “You really think he’s your friend, don’t you?”

  I don’t answer.

  “Adam’s the same boy, isn’t he? The one you lived with?”

  I nod.

  “This is the boy who didn’t think enough of you to call you in, how many years? The same boy who begged his mother to make you leave so he could have his room to himself again? He’s not your friend. You need to remember who’s actually been there for you all these years.”

  I gaze out the window. The bell has rung and now the parking lot is empty.

  “Do you know his number?” Russell asks.

  I nod, warily.

  He pulls his cell phone from his pocket and hands it to me. “Make it quick.”

  That wasn’t what I meant; I want to go inside and say good-bye in person. But wanting isn’t the same as having.

  I find the notebook in my backpack with Adam’s number written in it, and I dial. I don’t expect him to pick up at this time of day, and he doesn’t. It goes straight to voice mail and a robot voice tells me to leave a message.

  “Hi, Adam,” I say while Russell watches. “I just wanted to let you know I’m moving in with Russell’s sister and…I just wanted to say good-bye.”

  “Wait here,” Russell says when we pull into the driveway. I stay in my seat, looking forward, but not really seeing. After a while I count the minutes as they pass. Ten, twenty, thirty.

  Russell knocks on the passenger window and aims his long, skinny thumb backward, indicating that I should get out of the car.

  Does this mean he’s letting me stay?

  I follow him into the house, into my bedroom. My trunk is open and empty, all its contents stuffed into two cardboard boxes. He points to a suitcase and says, “Pack.”

  Numb, I take the clothes from the closet.

  I’m zipping the suitcase closed when he returns and leans against my doorway. “You’ve lived here for a long time. You had no one, and I took you in.”

  I nod.

  “I wanted to do the right thing for you after your parents died. I was only a little older than you when my father died.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “When you were younger, sometimes your parents brought you into this house.”

  “I…I remember.”

  “They didn’t care how you behaved, how many messes you made, how loud you were. They’d smile when you interrupted them.” Russell’s eyes glow with fury. “And they expected me to be subject to the whims of a child. To stop everything because you wanted to sing.” He’s getting angrier and his body is getting bigger. “None of you was satisfied unless everyone’s eyes were on you.” The vein in his throat starts to pulse. “You were spoiled.”

  He takes a breath.

  “But with me…” His voice is softer now. “…you began growing into something better. I’m not sure what happened this year.” He pulls something from his pocket. “But I don’t think it’s too late.” A lock, heavy, shining silver. “I think I can still teach you.”

  “Teach me what?”

  He looks at me the way you’d look at a painting or a statue or anything that can’t look back. “Get in the trunk.”

  “What?”

  “Get in the trunk.”

  “But…I…I’m going to Nora’s.”

  “No, Julian. You’re not.”

  I LOOK FROM Russell, to the trunk, to the door. He seems to know what I’m thinking, because his face twists into something terrible. “Stop. Fighting. Me.”

  I try to think of anything to say that will make that expression disappear, but instead a memory from Miss West’s science class flashes in my mind. A diseased brain. Something blocking the space between neurons so no messages could pass.

  “I’m trying to give you a chance here.” Russell’s voice is so close to gentle that it shocks me into really looking at him. “Would you rather I sent you away?”

  “You…you don’t want me to leave?”

  “No,” he answers. “I don’t want you to leave.” My eyes flood with tears, a collision of relief and reliving rejections. “Do you want another chance?”

  I nod quickly.

  “One more chance. That’s all I’m willing to give.”

  “Thank you.”

  I kneel until my face is pressed into the cold metal floor of the trunk, then I angle my knees to the side in an awkward contortion. I think wildly for a second that I need to turn over, find a better position, but too quickly the lid has closed over me. I hear metal scraping against metal as the lock slides into place. It sounds very far away.

  I shift, try to pull my hands from where they’re pinned beneath my chest, but there’s not enough room. It’s too dark. I can’t move. Already I’m sweating, from the heat, from the fear. The sound of my breath is louder in the trunk and coming too fast. There won’t be enough air.

  I try to free my arms again, but I smack my elbows against the walls. The awkward angle of my hips is already hurting, but there’s no way to straighten.

  It’s too dark.

  I can hear my heart pounding in my ears, so fast and loud that I wonder if I’m dying. Then a muscle in my shoulder rips and somehow I’m moving, turning over just enough to see it. Light.

  When I was nine years old, only a few hours before I left for camp, I found my package of glow-in-the-dark stars, and I stuck them all to the roof of this trunk. Why did I do that? It wasn’t as if I’d ever see them.

  My stuttering laughter echoes inside the trunk. My breath comes easier now. I look up, watching the lid expand higher and higher until it isn’t there at all. I’m lying beneath an infinite star-filled sky.

  I get tired of pacing outside Julian’s classroom after about two minutes and just knock. His teacher peeks her head out. “He’s absent,” she says, then shuts the door. Awesome. That means a boring hour of sitting in Dr. Whitlock’s office.

  My phone buzzes—a pissed-off text from Charlie. His Chemistry teacher’s out to get him again. While I’m messaging him back, I stumble into a trash can and fall on my ass. As I’m getting back onto my feet, I notice I have a voice mail.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I say to Dr. Whitlock for the third time. “Julian would’ve told me if he was moving.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Adam.” She’s sitting at her yellow desk, flipping through a thick file folder. “His uncle signed the paperwork this morning.”

  “So he decides to have Julian move when we’ve got, what, a month left of school? Does that make sense to you?”

  “No,” she agrees, “it doesn’t.”

  I awake to throbbing pain. My elbows and
shoulders and knees ache, worse even than the stinging cuts on my skin. I’m thirsty. I’m hot. I don’t know how much time has passed. My breathing is still ragged and heavy, the way it is when I have a cold. The stars look dimmer, or maybe my eyes are just blurring.

  No, definitely dimmer.

  And then I remember. They have to absorb light to glow. I stare up, neck bent at a painful angle, as they fade, slowly, terrifyingly, into nothing.

  It’s too dark. I can’t breathe.

  I want to scream, but Russell might hear. I claw at the metal. I need out!

  Then my fingers find it. A small round hole.

  Instead of feeling relieved that I’ll be able to breathe, I imagine Russell drilling holes into the trunk my parents gave me, and I feel sick.

  I pull my knees to my chest a little tighter. I need to pee. Soon that’s worse even than all the cuts and sore joints.

  Just when I think I won’t be able to hold it anymore, there’s the unmistakable sound of the lock being opened. The lid lifts and I launch upright, taking gulping breaths. A cold glass of water is pushed toward me. I grip it with two shaking hands and drink, then I say, “Bathroom.”

  Russell is watching me with a sort of detached curiosity. When he nods, I move in a stumbling jog that reminds me of Adam.

  After I use the toilet, I sink to the floor to rest my face against the cold tile. The walls and floors and lights are brilliant white. I can stretch my arms and legs, and it’s cool, so cool.

  Russell’s tall shadow falls over me. “Get up.”

  I don’t ever want to leave this room, but I lever up with my palms and stumble toward my bed.

  “Where are you going?” he asks.

  I cough. My throat is dry. I wish I drank more water. “To sleep?”

  He shakes his head, and points to the trunk.

  “I’m sorry.” I start to cry.

  “You’re fighting me.” He turns and leaves the room. I fall onto my bed, but moments later there’s stinging pain across my shoulders and back.

  “Stop! Please!” I try to lift my arms, but the muscles won’t work, so it hits my face. It keeps falling. “I’ll go to Nora’s!”

  The switch stops abruptly, and the expression on Russell’s face is the scariest I’ve ever seen. “You want to leave?”

  “No.” I shake my head. “No.”

  He’s still holding the switch with a frozen shattered expression. “After everything? You want to leave?”

  “No.” I shake my head again, but he doesn’t seem to hear me. Suddenly the switch descends with dizzying speed. “I’m sorry.” I rise and stagger to the trunk.

  He’s still hitting me as I lower myself inside.

  THERE WAS LIGHT before, two pencil-thin rays through two air holes, but now it’s completely dark. I’m hot. I’m thirsty. I’m hungry. I feel a sudden jolt of panic and the urge to scream.

  Think good thoughts.

  If I think good thoughts, I can breathe. I imagine Elian Mariner. I’m standing on his ship, and his ship can go anywhere.

  My breathing gets easier and soon I’m so calm I’m half-asleep. More thoughts drift in and out of my head. My mother…my father…Emerald…Adam.

  How much time has passed?

  I don’t know.

  After a while, I can only think of one thing: I need to pee. I count to sixty, and then I do it ten more times. Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. It’s not a decision. There’s no choice. I can’t hold it anymore.

  You can’t always control what you remember. Like the look on Mom’s face when I got angry and said I loved Dad more. Or the look on his face when I got angry and said I loved her more. It’s as if those kinds of memories are all tied together on a single string. You look at one and you can’t stop seeing them all. Every bad thing you ever did.

  Like the time we went for a walk and I found the baby frogs. Mom wouldn’t let me bring them into the house, so I hid them in my pocket. And the time I found the robin’s nest with three eggs still in it. Dad told me not to touch it, but I snuck it to school for show-and-tell.

  When I took the frogs out of my pocket, they were dead.

  When I got to school, my teacher said the mother bird wouldn’t come back to the nest, even if I returned it to the tree. The birds would never be born.

  I didn’t mean to kill the frogs. I didn’t mean to kill the birds.

  Mom and Dad told me not to cry. He picked me up, saying, “You’ll give yourself a headache.” But I already had a headache. He rubbed my head with his rainbow-colored fingers while my mom said, “It was an accident, just an accident.” But accident wasn’t a word for when something died—for when you made something die.

  The memories for accident are on the same string too. The accident I had at school in second grade when Mom had to bring me clean pants. Accidentally spilling red paint on the couch. And the social worker who told me about my parents. An accident, just an accident.

  I think I hear the lock. Sometimes I think I hear it and it turns out to be nothing, but this time it’s real. The lid opens. Russell must be standing right above me, but all I can see is light so bright my eyes start to tear. But bright light is good. It will activate the stars. The longer the trunk stays open, the better.

  When a cool glass of water is thrust into my hand, I gulp it down. My vision clears, and I see Russell’s lips curl. He sniffs the air, disgusted, and I cringe in shame. All he says is, “Shower.”

  My arms and legs hurt even worse than before, but the water feels nice. I pick up the soap, scrubbing my stinking body and hair. The water is running cold by the time I climb out.

  My mouth tastes stale and fuzzy. The bathroom door is wide open, and I don’t see Russell. Hurrying now, I don’t waste time putting the toothpaste on the brush; I squirt some directly into my mouth. It’s so sugary and solid, so close to food, that before really thinking, I’ve swallowed it.

  I’m coughing when Russell’s shadow falls over the floor.

  I turn away, but I can feel his eyes on my back. He tosses a pair of sweatpants onto the ground. I pull them on, then stumble straight to the trunk and climb inside. I look up at him to say, See? I’m doing it. I am. But there’s nothing to read on his face. Cold, blank, he shuts the trunk again. When I look up, the stars are glowing bright.

  HOW MANY DAYS have passed?

  I don’t know.

  There’s a pattern. Waking up to the beams of light. Being hungry, getting water, then using the toilet. Sometimes I make it before he comes.

  Sometimes I don’t.

  The trunk opens, and my eyes blur at the brightness.

  “Good,” Russell says. Today I’ve made it.

  After I use the bathroom, I slide to the floor. I’m still kneeling when he sets a plate on the floor beside me. A ham and cheese sandwich. My eyes blur, this time with emotion. I can’t remember him ever making food for me before.

  I try to say thank you, but the words won’t come out, so I just nod, hoping he’ll understand. It tastes good, but suddenly my stomach seizes up and I gag.

  The approval on his face vanishes. “Slow down.”

  When I take another bite, I gag again. He moves to take the sandwich, and without thinking, I’ve pulled it to my chest. The vein pulses in his neck as he rips the sandwich from my hands and throws it in the trash.

  I’ve done it again. Fighting. Fighting. Stop fighting.

  I get up, shaking, and crawl to the trunk, only to find it closed. With two hands, I lift the heavy lid and climb inside. Soon I hear the lock. Looking up into the darkness, I start to cry.

  A memory, so clear. Me, lying on my mat during nap time at preschool, missing my parents in the deep, painful way you miss someone who’s died. I began crying and calling for them. I must have been only three or four years old, and I remember believing that when I said their names, they could hear me wherever they were. I could see my thoughts rushing through clouds and outer space like magic to find them. They could hear me calling and would come
for me.

  I know it’s pointless, but I find myself doing it now. Projecting thoughts and whispering names. Trying to send out a message that will never be received.

  “What’s going on with you?” Emerald asks. We’re lying in her bed under her butterfly blanket. Her head rests on my chest, and I run my fingers through her long loose hair, down her bare shoulder. “Did you take your drops today?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “You’re acting, I don’t know, antsy.”

  “I’m always antsy.” But I know what she means. It’s definitely more intense than usual, but it doesn’t feel ADHD-fidgety, it’s like—

  “Are you nervous?”

  “No.” She knows I don’t get nervous.

  “You seem nervous.”

  I kiss her, wanting to distract both of us from whatever this is.

  “Oh yeah,” she says a few minutes later. “Why didn’t you answer me today? I texted you a hundred times.”

  I groan and cover my face with my hands.

  “Not again, Adam. Tell me not again.”

  “Okay, so I was in the van. I plugged in my phone, and I forgot I had a glass of water in the cup holder. I mean, I never do that. It’s always bottled!”

  “So you dropped it in the water.”

  “My mom said she’s done. She’s not replacing this one.”

  “Can you blame her?” She laughs. “This is what, the tenth phone this year?”

  “Fourth,” I correct.

  “Try rice.”

  “What?”

  “Stick your phone in a bowl of rice. It’s supposed to absorb the moisture.” She kisses my chest and lays her head back down. “You memorized my number, right?” She keeps insisting it’s vital since I lose and break so many phones, but I suspect she really just thinks it romantic—me knowing her number by heart.

  “Yeah.”

  She kisses me again and for a few minutes neither of us talks. Then she asks, “You still haven’t heard from Julian?”

  “No. It’s so weird. It’s been over a week, and nothing.”