A List of Cages

by Robin Roe

  “You report that?”

  “No.”

  There’s no obvious censure in his face—it’s the same exact glare he’s had all along—but I feel the criticism anyway. I should have reported it. I know that.

  Then he asks: “Where are his parents?”

  “Dead.”

  “Any other family?”

  “No.”

  There’s something painfully bleak about saying that out loud. He has no family. None.

  Then Clark starts asking me questions I don’t know the answer to:

  “Where does Russell work?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. I really need to go back in there—”

  “No, you need to answer my questions.”

  I squeeze my head with both hands, resisting the compulsion to rip out my hair. “I don’t know.”

  He frowns even more severely—something I didn’t know was possible. “Wait here against the wall.” He and the other officers huddle like a trio of football players, voices too low for me to catch.

  I see Julian in my head, limbs twisted inside the trunk like he was pushed from the top of a skyscraper. The trunk was tipped over onto its side. The air holes were covered, but for how long?

  What if I never thought to lift it? What if I never came at all?

  One of the cops, this one a little younger and leaner, looks up from the huddle. “Did you take something tonight?” he asks me.

  “What?”

  He crowds in just like Clark did, looks deep into my eyes, and sniffs me. “Why are you tapping your foot like that?”

  “I’m nervous! And I have ADHD.”

  “Lower your voice. Right now.”

  “I’m sorry. This has been an insanely stressful night, and I just want to see my friend.”

  His dark eyes go semi-sympathetic. “Wait one more minute.”

  Clark struts over and slaps my license into my palm. “We’ll be back later to talk to the boy.”

  Awesome.

  I head back into the little room just as Julian’s being rolled out. A nurse says they’re taking him to Radiology and it’ll be a while.

  I stand in the now-quiet room, staring dumbly at the empty spot where his bed was a second ago. My legs are shaking and I remember freshman year, the time I passed out running cross-country in August. I remember the pounding head, the sick shaking body, the way the sky seemed to merge into a thousand black dots.

  My legs go rubbery-weak, and I find myself sliding against the wall to land on the floor. Up close, the tile’s grimier than a hospital floor should be. I should tell someone about this.

  I’m not sure how long I have to sit before I’m able to get back onto my feet and ask a nurse if I can use their phone. There’s only one number I know by heart.

  It didn’t occur to me that after I hung up with Emerald, she’d call everyone we know. Julian would freakin hate it, but seeing my closest friends rush into the emergency-room lobby wearing pajamas or hastily-thrown-on, wrinkled clothes sends an unexpected burn to the back of my throat.

  Emerald, Charlie, Allison, Jesse, Camila, and Matt stand in a semicircle around me with wide-worried eyes, and again I have to explain what happened. This time I get through it like a professional, calmly bullet-pointing all the pertinent facts.

  They seem to take my pausing for a breath as the signal to start crying. Emerald and Allison tear up, and—Jesus—even Charlie’s eyes become suspiciously watery before he turns around with a furious scowl. My cheeks stretch up into what I hope is a reassuring smile as I tell them really, everything’s fine. They should go home and get some sleep. I’m met with stunned glares, and then, in almost synchronized fashion, they take deliberate seats. That esophageal burn magnifies while I spastically nod.

  I tell them I’ll be back as soon as I check on Julian, and I return a few minutes later knowing no more than I did before. My friends all have the sick and grieving look of mourners at a wake. Emerald’s still quietly crying, her face red and blotchy as she sits on one of the gray vinyl-upholstered ER benches. Jesse’s slumped over nearby, his earbuds notably missing, tapping a steady, solemn beat on a tabletop with his fingertips.

  Camila and Matt are actually holding hands as they sit together on another bench. They’re both wearing red plaid pajama pants and T-shirts, and I wonder if this is a thing they do—dress alike when they’re at home.

  Charlie’s on the other side of the giant room, turning around in circles like an angry dog. Allison’s a pale shadow behind him. Everyone looks traumatized, while I move from person to person like the host at the world’s most depressing slumber party. I kiss Emerald’s hair and hug Jesse and stuff vending machine snacks into Charlie’s fists, but I’m not sure if anything I’m doing actually helps.

  At four in the morning I head back to Julian’s room for the thousandth time, and the doctor tells me his results are ready.

  Mostly normal. No brain trauma. No organ failure. But he’s depleted, dehydrated, not breathing well on his own, and his blood pressure’s still too low. He’s being admitted into the hospital and moved to a room where he’ll stay till he’s stronger.

  When I report this to my friends, it seems like one of those moments where we’re all supposed to leap into the air with overjoyed relief. Instead, everyone just looks exhausted and depressed, like we’re all depleted now.

  Emerald takes my hand and pulls like she expects me to leave with my mobilizing friends.

  “I’m staying,” I tell her.

  “You need to get some sleep.”

  “I can sleep here.”

  “Adam…” She looks like she wants to say something, but she just kisses me before she joins the others.

  I watch while everyone disappears through the automatic doors.

  Julian’s new room is totally dark except for a panel of fluorescent lights behind his bed, making him look like a strange museum exhibit, every cut and bruise perfectly lit. His right index and ring fingers are wrapped in bandages. He’s wearing an oxygen mask and is connected to just as many machines as before. He has an antiseptic smell, like maybe they washed him before dressing him in the hospital gown.

  I get a sudden rush of apprehension. Russell must’ve gone home by now, must’ve seen Julian isn’t in the trunk. What if he tries to find him? What if he comes here?

  I jump when a round nurse touches my shoulder and says she’ll be taking care of Julian till her shift ends at seven A.M.

  “What happened to his fingers?” I whisper, even though he’s shown no sign of stirring.

  “They’re broken.” I must look as sick as I feel, because she adds, “He’s not in any pain. The doctor gave him morphine.” Overhead, there’s a noise, like a couple of bars of music from a creepy ice-cream truck. “A new baby.”

  “What?”

  “That little lullaby plays all over the hospital whenever a baby is born.” She smiles like it’s sweet, but there’s something twisted about it to me. I mean, everyone, everywhere in this hospital can hear it, but why? So when you’re dying you can contemplate your own mortality and the circle of life?

  The nurse points to an orange-and-yellow-striped recliner in front of the window. “That’ll pull out into a bed,” she says. “I’ll get you some covers.”

  “Thanks.” It’s freezing in here, like even colder than school, which can’t be good for sick people.

  Soon I’m under a thin blanket on the hard twin fold-out bed. Lying in the same room like this reminds me of when Julian and I were younger, only now each of his inhales and exhales are mechanical and amplified like he’s breathing through a microphone.

  I’m exhausted, but too keyed up to sleep. When Julian lived with me, sometimes he had trouble sleeping. I remember one time, being almost asleep and hearing him whisper my name.

  “Adam?”

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “Can you see me?”

  There was just enough light filteri
ng through the mini blinds in my room. “Yes, I can see you.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “What are you scared of?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Try and go back to sleep.”

  “I can’t. I’m too scared.”

  “Just think good thoughts. Mom used to tell me to do that when I was little.”

  “You used to get scared?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What did you think about?”

  I rolled over and looked at him. A vertical stripe of light from the blinds fell right across his eyes like a mask. “Spider-Man.”

  He squinted at me skeptically. “You’d pretend Spider-Man was with you?”

  “Well, no, I’d pretend I was Spider-Man.”

  “And that made you not scared?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. I’d think about the movies, sort of playing them in my head. Then I’d just fall asleep.”

  “But Spider-Man is scary.”

  “No, he’s not. He’s awesome.”

  “I don’t like that one guy with all those metal arms.”

  “Doc Ock? Yeah, I guess he is pretty scary. Okay, so don’t think about that. Think about something you like.”

  “I don’t know what I like.”

  “Yes, you do. Think.”

  “Elian Mariner?”

  “Okay, so think of your favorite Elian Mariner book, and go through the whole thing in your head and don’t let yourself think about anything else.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Are you doing it?”

  He nodded.

  “Where are you?”

  “In Elian’s ship. I’m flying.”

  Now the machine version of Julian’s breath echoes in the room. The burn in my throat intensifies. Something hot and wet streaks down my cheeks. I’m crying, hard but without sound, into the stiff hospital blanket. I want to stop, but all I can picture is nine-year-old Julian’s face when I gave him my brilliant piece of advice—fearful and doubtful, because he must’ve already known the truth. Superheroes aren’t real, and even if they are, they come too late.

  I WAKE TO the sound of whimpering. A nurse built like a wrestler is jamming a needle into Julian’s skinny arm. How could they possibly need more blood?

  A quick glance at the digital clock on his bedside table reveals it’s only seven thirty. I must’ve fallen asleep, though I’m not sure how. I’d always figured hospitals were quiet, restful places. Instead they’re full of medical machinery going off like car alarms, nurses coming in and out every few minutes, and the pitiful screams of sick people in pain.

  I stand, my back aching. “Hey, Julian, are you okay?” He doesn’t open his eyes, but he whimpers again when the nurse retracts her needle and jabs it back in.

  “Do you have to be so rough?” I ask her.

  The lady gives me a dirty look. “He has small veins.” She grabs his other arm, ties a rubbery rope around it, then slaps it with the back of her gloved hand. Again, she digs in the needle. A couple of tears escape his eyes, rolling toward his ears.

  “Julian?”

  He’s still out of it—groggy with meds, I guess—but obviously he can feel what she’s doing. It must be so scary to be in pain but too incapacitated to do anything about it.

  I rest my palm on his forehead like I’m trying to take his temperature. “She’s getting it,” I tell him when I finally see his blood being sucked into the tube. After gathering five vials, she rolls her cart from the room. Julian’s cheeks are still wet, but his mechanical breath evens out. I drop back onto my fold-out bed, which is only slightly softer than the floor, and glance around the room.

  I guess I couldn’t see it last night, but now that it’s daylight, I realize this is the pediatrics ward. The main wall’s covered in a mural of jungle and farm animals all living together in perfect harmony under an enormous rainbow. It’s a motif more appropriate for a four-year-old than a fourteen-year-old, and the cheeriness of it just makes me sadder.

  “Adam?”

  Mom’s standing in the doorway.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  She doesn’t answer, just stares at Julian in shock and horror. I can see him through her eyes. The skeletal limbs. The cuts. The wires.

  “I always check in on you before I go to work.” She’s talking to me, but looking at him. “It was hard for me when you started driving and I wasn’t taking you to school anymore. Hard not seeing you off in the mornings.” Her lips quirk up. “When you weren’t in your bed today, I got so worried. I know it’s silly, but my first thought was you’d been kidnapped. I used to worry about that all the time when you were a little boy. We’d go in the grocery store and you’d shout hello from the cart and try to talk to everyone we passed. You had no concept of stranger. I was worried, and since I couldn’t call you, I called Charlie.”

  When tears start streaking down her face, I pull her into a hug. “He’s going to be okay,” I say.

  She straightens, suddenly fierce. “Yes. He will.”

  Julian drifts in and out all morning. A nurse gives him more painkillers through his IV whenever he cries, and I fidget in a metal chair near the bed.

  I’m picking at the lunch tray sent from the cafeteria when a tall, broad lady with smooth dark skin breezes into the room. She’s wearing a purple blazer with shoulder pads, a matching purple skirt, and a floral scarf that flutters around her neck. She looks like she escaped the set of an ’80s sitcom about women in the workplace. Somehow she’s both regal and ridiculous.

  “Adam Blake?” she asks, thrusting out a manicured hand.

  “Yes?” I shake it cautiously.

  “I’ve been appointed as Julian’s guardian.”

  THE LADY HANDS me a business card as if this makes it more official, and there it is: DELORES CARTER, LICENSED CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER. “His guardian ad litem,” she adds. “I’ve been appointed by the court. In a situation like this, someone has to make decisions until a permanent guardian can be named.” She looks around the room, zooming in on the blanket on the fold-out bed. “Are you here by yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “I’m eighteen.” She sniffs, obviously not impressed. “Julian doesn’t need a guardian. I just talked to my mom, and she’s going to contact the judge. She used to be his foster mom, and I’m eighteen, so we can make decisions about—”

  “Hold on, hold on, take a breath.”

  I do, preparing my rebuttal if she tries to kick me out.

  “I haven’t met Julian, but I have no intention of keeping him away from his friends. That wouldn’t do him any good.”

  I mumble, “Thank you,” then sit back down, feeling oddly weak.

  Delores finds another metal chair. “They used to do that.” Her voice is gentle but filled with deep strength, like someone who’s seen it all.

  “Hmmm?” I’m trying to pay attention. I know I need to seem responsible in front of this lady, but I’m jittery and tired.

  “They kept people out. Banned fathers from delivery rooms, family from hospital rooms. They don’t do that so much anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because people heal a whole lot faster when they’re with someone who loves them.”

  My eyes start to water, and I feel a brief twinge of panic. Jesus, am I about to—? Yes, I’m crying again. And this time a woman I’ve just met is pressing my face into one of her purple padded shoulders.

  I don’t pull away.

  Around five, Emerald arrives carrying a jade planter with a tall exotic flower I don’t recognize. She looks perfect, of course, her hair twisted and coiled like she just stopped by on her way to prom.

  She halts at the sight of Julian exactly the way my mom did this morning, staring at him without moving or speaking. I pry the plant from her trembling hands and set it on the dresser in the corner. I nod toward the hallway and she follows me. Out here is another mural, this one of an elaborat
e underwater sea party with smiling mermaids, sharks, dolphins, and fish.

  “I didn’t think he would look like that,” she whispers. I nod. She doesn’t have to explain what she means. “Matt drove me. He’s with Camila downstairs. They wanted to come up, but they didn’t know if it was okay.”

  I cross my arms and lean against the wall, next to the happiest octopus I’ve ever seen. “It’s not. Not yet.”

  “You look tired,” she says. “You should probably get some sleep.”

  “Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”

  She flinches, her blue eyes looking confused and hurt, but I don’t apologize. Her hair is perfect, and something about that bothers me.

  “Adam…”

  “I should get back inside.”

  She squeezes my hand. I don’t squeeze back.

  THE SECOND DAY in the hospital passes a lot like the first. Julian sleeps. I pace, sit, and eat crappy companion meals sent from the cafeteria. There are long stretches of nothing, interrupted by visits from Delores and Mom, plus friends who venture no farther than the hall. Now the room’s scattered with flowers, floating balloons, and stuffed animals.

  I’m sitting in the metal chair by Julian’s bed when he wakes up so suddenly, I jump. He claws the air, then tries to yank the tubes from his nose.

  “No, leave them,” I say, pulling down his hands.

  He goes still and blinks like he’s awoken from a nightmare. “Adam?” This is the first time I’ve heard him speak since I carried him into the hospital…was that only a day and a half ago?

  “Yeah?” I hold him till I’m sure he’s done flailing, and I hook my foot into my chair to drag it forward. “Are you okay?”

  It’s a stupid question. The bones in his wrists are grotesque knobs. Liquid sugar runs through a bag and down a tube into his hand, spreading out into his veins. Machines pump oxygen into his lungs and measure his pulse and blood pressure.

  Instead of answering, he whispers, “Is school out?” His tone’s dull, voice scratchy like he has a throat infection.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t go today.” I glance over at the clock.