The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B

by Teresa Toten

  Robyn answered while Adam agonized.

  What was this about? He needed to go to the cemetery with Robyn. He needed to be with her, to see if … In the week since the church field trip, Adam had been replaying Wolverine smarming her, opening the door, brandishing his ten-dollar bill, being all smooth and tall. So he needed time alone with Robyn at their spot to see if she … well, to see if they still were … What were they exactly? What if she’d already gone out with Wolverine? There’d been a whole weekend in there. He was developing an ulcer as they stood there.

  But then again.

  Wolverine didn’t have that smug, I’ve-been-with-her-already look. Not that Adam was airtight sure that he’d recognize that look, but he was pretty sure that Wolverine wasn’t sporting it. Did she like Wolverine? Of course she did. Even Adam liked Wolverine. The guy was older, cooler and, as of late, slightly less crazy. Speaking of which, Adam’s anxiety was erupting like silent farts all around him. His father snapped him back to the crisis at hand.

  “Sorry, kid, you’re needed at home. Uh, I mean my home.”

  Well, that was awkward.

  “Which is your home too, of course.” His father cleared his throat. “Wendell”—his father would chew tinfoil before he called his younger son Sweetie—“Wendell’s a bit sick with strep and is inconsolable and that means no one will do but you, champ.”

  Robyn stepped over to Adam. “It’s okay, we can walk over next week.”

  Yes! This meant that she had intended to walk with him in the first place. They were good, they were tight, they were a they. Practically. Relief bubbled over him. “Yeah, next week for sure! Yeah. You bet, Robyn!” He’d tripped back into SpongeBob mode.

  “Well, then, Robyn, how about the two of us walk together as far as the subway station?” Wolverine asked, all casual-like.

  Before she could answer, Adam’s dad threw his arm around his son. “Yup, you would not believe how much this guy’s baby brother adores him. Worships him, in fact. And Adam steps up every single time, no matter what the inconvenience.” He slapped his son on the back. “Helluva thing!”

  “That is so, so sweet, Batman!”

  “Hey, that’s what Wendell calls him too! It’s a thing you guys do, right? Cool.”

  This was crazy. It was as if his father knew exactly what to say and how to say it. His father. “Yup, as soon as I come in with old Batman here, Wendell will be right as rain! Happens every time!”

  Robyn looked at Adam like he was a piece of chocolate.

  “Well, it’s been a pleasure, Wolfman.” Adam’s dad turned back to Robyn. “Robyn, a real pleasure. But now we gotta go. A superhero’s gotta do what he’s gotta do, right?”

  “Later, man.” Wolverine punched Adam in the arm.

  Adam did not wince. “Yeah, man.”

  “Bye, Adam,” said Robyn.

  “Bye, Robyn. Catch you next week, okay?”

  She turned. Wolverine turned. Adam and his dad got in the car. The blisters in his stomach came back.

  “I’m sure she nodded,” said his dad.

  “Huh?”

  His father turned the ignition key. “When you said that about catching her later. I’m sure she nodded. You’ll definitely have to watch that wolf guy, though. Hey, she’s older, eh? Real cute too. Quite a find, I have to say—yes, sir! Now that’s my boy!”

  “Daaad, you’re, like, creeping me out here.”

  “Oh. Sorry, kid.” His father stared straight ahead as he drove.

  Adam felt shorter.

  “But … well, thanks for back there, for what you said about Sweetie needing me.”

  “Hell, it’s true.”

  “Yeah, but the way you said it, you made me look real good, I think. Don’t you think? I think you did.”

  His father contemplated the stop sign. “She likes you.”

  Adam thought of the prayers and the rosary and the holy water and all the Catholic trappings. “No, she needs me.”

  “That, you will soon come to realize, is pretty much the same thing, my son.”

  Sweetie needed him and loved him. Adam was knocked flat as soon as he got in the door.

  “Batman, you came! I knew you’d come, they promised you’d come! I’m sick, Batman. My troat is stripped. Do you want some of my banana medicine? It’s delicious. I’ll give you some. We can have it with dinner. Our mom, Mrs. Brenda Ross, is making us lamb stew. Thank you, thank you for coming home, Batman!” Adam was slobber-hugged some more.

  The kid still felt hot. Adam forgot about killing him.

  “Mrs. Carmella Ross called and wants you to call her back.”

  “Let the poor boy breathe, Sweetie!” Brenda came into the hall, took Adam’s backpack and kissed his head at the same time. “You’re growing like crazy! You are! Speaking of growing, I got you two new pairs of grey flannels. They’re on your bed, in your real bedroom. You’ll be taller than your father by next week!” She smiled at him like she was proud of every inch.

  “Let’s go, Batman!” Sweetie put his hot plump hand into Adam’s.

  “No, Sweetie, give Adam a minute to wash up and call his mom, okay?”

  “Okay.” Sweetie sighed, and then sighed once more just in case they had missed the first one.

  Adam took the stairs three at a time. No anxiety blisters at all, not here, not now. He had a major mojo going for him. He should do his List right now. Robyn needed him. He was growing. Dad tried real hard to do a cool thing for him. He had new pants and there was lamb stew for dinner! He punched in his phone number.

  She finally picked up after six rings.

  “Mom? Hi, it’s me.”

  Nothing. The temperature in the room changed.

  “Mom, are you there? I can hear you breathing.”

  Still nothing.

  “Are you okay, Mom?”

  “Adam? Adam, I can’t stand it. There’s been another one. Another letter. Adam, who could hate me that much? Who, Adam? Who?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “I’ll come right home. I think I should come home.”

  “No.” Her voice was strangled. “I shouldn’t have called. No, Adam.”

  “I’m going to come home now.”

  “No, baby, don’t. I’m fine.”

  “Mom, I’m coming,” he said. He said it many times and his mom refused each of those times.

  “No, it’ll make them all suspicious … make it worse.”

  They argued.

  She won. And she was calmer, stronger in the winning.

  Adam stayed with a feverish Sweetie and worried just as feverishly. He should have gone home.

  No wonder he was nuts.

  After he had “smooshed” Sweetie in good and tight, Adam went in search of his jeans to retrieve those bits of paper from his pocket. He had conveniently forgotten all about the letter when he’d gone off with Ben that night and then he’d kept on forgetting. The letter fragments were shoved into the overflowing junk drawer of his mind. Adam had many such drawers. Unfortunately, neat freak that Brenda was, she had washed the jeans. The papers had rolled themselves into tight little worms.

  It took him over an hour using Brenda’s tweezers. There was some photocopy-type paper, but there were magazine and newsprint worms as well. He unrolled them on his bed one at a time.

  It was like on TV. The guy was cutting up magazines and newspapers and pasting his crap onto the most common paper there was. So they were dealing with your garden-variety psychopath who had watched too many CSI reruns.

  The words were bone-marrow ugly. Adam retrieved bitch, die, slut, cow, diseased, two whores and three shoulds, and a word that was so disgusting he re-balled it as he read it. The rest of the worms were unreadable. Thank God. He couldn’t stop shaking. Adam shut the junk drawer again.

  Douchebag.

  He tried a few breathing exercises, but since he didn’t really know what he was doing, they didn’t work. He thought about Robyn. He thought about how her hair smelled like ginger but she some
how smelled like peaches. He stopped shaking. He thought about how she crossed her legs at the ankles and had that one deep dimple on her left cheek, about how her freckles moved around when she laughed and about how all that made him dizzy. And yet even with all that Robyn immersion, the letter with all its filth would sneak in like a sprinter and take off again. And his fear would bloom all over again.

  When he got back home the next day, his mom pretended that everything was okay. It was as if she had never even called him. There was no call, no letters. And Adam, because he was such a gutless douchebag, pretended right along with her.

  Chuck was on him at next Group. Adam could feel the therapist tracking him during the session.

  “Batman?” Chuck leaned in. “Do you have any further thoughts on Iron Man’s condition or on Wolverine’s suggestions?”

  Wolverine had offered suggestions? When? Damn. Adam crossed his legs, the manly right-foot-over-left-knee way. “No.” He shrugged. “No, I’m with the Wolf on this one.” He shrugged again for good measure.

  “Okay, superheroes, that’s about it.” Chuck shut his file folder. “Good session.” He took off his glasses and smiled. “Class dismissed, go out and play. Adam, a quick word?”

  Noooo! She’d leave without him.

  The others evaporated. Chuck turned to him.

  “So it’s just you and me. You’re clear that Group is your safe place, right? You still down with that?”

  He had to tap. He hadn’t needed to tap in so long. “Yeah, sure.” Just counting wouldn’t do. But Chuck would see, would know where to look. Thirteen, fifteen, seventeen … He tapped his tongue on the roof of his mouth.

  “I’ve noticed the past couple of weeks that you’re not really here. That’s not like you. You cycling up again?”

  Thirty-one, thirty-three…

  “Adam, you were doing so well.”

  “I’m on it,” Adam said. “No worries. It’s nothing I can’t get a grip on. Same old, same old, you know?” Except for the new stuff. “Group has been amazing for me.” As he said it, Adam realized that it was sort of true. When did it become true? “If it ratchets up any more, I’ll reach out. For sure.”

  They nodded at each other.

  “Cool. Just try to remember I’m here and they’re here for you. Talk, Adam. Got it? Talk.”

  “Got it.”

  If he ran he could catch up to her. If nothing else, Adam was getting to be a fair runner. He’d taken to running back to his house once he parted with Robyn at the cemetery gates. Then, for no good reason, Adam had started running another couple of times a week. In the middle of all that buzzing anxiety, running made him feel … well, if not like a Batman at least a bit more normal. He was definitely toying with the idea of trying out for the St. Mary’s track team in the spring. Yeah, he could catch her. He raced down the stairwell at lightning speed and into the lobby.

  “Hey! Where’s the fire?”

  Robyn.

  “Hey, wow! You’re … you waited.”

  “Of course I did.” She smiled, looking like a goddess in a red puffy ski jacket. Adam got liquidy again, except for the part that didn’t. Thank God he had on a big coat.

  He should kiss her now. She’d waited. She had waited for him. He moved towards her.

  “Wolverine would’ve waited too,” Robyn said brightly, “but he had another specialist appointment right after Group.”

  Talk about your mood killer.

  They set off.

  But he should have kissed her.

  “Oh, and before I forget.” She gave him a folded piece of paper. “I know you don’t have a cell, at least one that you’d be seen with, but that’s my cell and my home phone number. Like, you could call me from home and we could talk, you know? So call, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She wanted him to call her! He had her number. They might as well be engaged! Maybe he should kiss her now.

  No, they were walking too fast.

  The cemetery was like a different country in early December. The headstones, grass and trees had all slipped into comfy grey and brown pyjamas. When they got to the old willow they stopped without a word.

  Robyn turned to her mother’s grave and made the sign of the cross with a careless grace that would have made Father Rick proud. She pulled out the rosary. When she prayed, so did Adam. He prayed for God and the stone angels surrounding them to keep her safe and sane even if he couldn’t.

  “I told you I was the one who found her, right?”

  Adam nodded. The hairs on the back of his arms bristled. He was alert, sensing if not danger exactly, something—some dark thing. But he did not tap or even count. He stayed with her. She shivered. He shivered.

  “A plastic bag.” Robyn frowned as if still surprised by the choice. “Chuck knows, and my shrink, of course. Yeah”—she looked up at the willow—“Mummy put a plastic bag over her head. Like, how do you not yank it off, you know? How? I tried it once.”

  “Jesus, Robyn!” Adam swallowed a sick panic but did not count or tap. He held his ground.

  “It’s okay.” She squeezed his arm. “It was for less than a second, honest, just to see.” She pulled him back onto the path. “Hey, brighten up. I have great news. It’s official, I’m off meds!” She squeezed harder. “As of last Friday. My shrink feels I’m making unbelievable progress. I just have the clonazepam for emergencies.”

  Unbelievable. “Hey, unbelievable! Congratulations!”

  “Well, I may have to go on a little something for some other thing, but we’re monitoring that. But yeah, I am getting better, Adam.”

  And he wanted that for her. It was everything. For sure.

  His mouth felt like it was full of dirt.

  He’d be better too, maybe. If it weren’t for the letters…

  He should kiss her. A congratulatory kiss would be entirely in order. It would be righteous! Yes! Instead Adam threw his arms around her. Coat on coat, mittens on mittens, wool scarf against wool scarf. Lame. How much did he suck? He was king of the sucks. But he hugged hard.

  And she hugged back, nestling right into him.

  Adam buried his face in her neck, her hair, inhaling peaches and ginger and Robyn.

  When he finally let go, Adam was taller and older, basking in her smile.

  It would all be brilliant—he’d be brilliant—if it weren’t for the letters. The letters were torpedoing everything. Who the hell was doing it? It could be anyone, from anywhere, even someone they knew. He knew. Like Wolverine. Yeah, to get at him? No, that was too whack, even for him. But the timing sort of fit.

  No, Wolverine wasn’t that sick.

  But someone was.

  “What’s up, Dark Knight?” She put her arm through his. Proof positive that they were a they.

  “Nothing.”

  She stopped, turned to him.

  “No, really. I am so righteously stoked right now.”

  And she laughed. He had made her laugh.

  But even with all that superior excellence, two singular thoughts snaked their way into his brain and nested.

  The first was about the letters, always the letters. He couldn’t shake the memory of his mom’s anguish when she’d got the last one.

  And the second was that Robyn was getting better while he was getting worse. His mom was losing it and Adam would lose it right along with her if he wasn’t careful. He needed to be more vigilant.

  When they got to the gates, he risked all and hugged Robyn again. “Congratulations on the meds thing. You are amazing, I mean it!” He risked even more by grazing her cheek with his lips, an almost kiss.

  “You make me feel amazing, Adam. You do every single time.” She hugged him right back even after the kiss, even with people walking by and seeing and everything. “Call me, Adam—I mean it!”

  He watched her walk away with his protection, his armour. And then he was left without any, alone with his racing thoughts. The damn letters. Whoever wrote them was possessed by a sickness so putrid that i
t felt like a hot, smothering wind. And still he was cold. Seven sets. One, three, five, seven, nine…

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, may I please speak to—”

  “Batman? Adam? It’s me, Robyn! It comes up as ‘private caller.’ Hey, you called! And only four days after I thought you would, but hey!”

  Was she mad? No, she was teasing. Wasn’t she? Should he tell her that he had picked up the phone exactly one thousand and thirty-five times in the intervening four days?

  Probably not. But maybe. No. Stop! He had to stop his mind from jumping hurdles that weren’t there.

  “Hey, yeah, I’ve been real busy practising my casual but cool phone conversation.”

  Robyn laughed.

  She thought he was kidding.

  God he loved the sound of her voice. “So yeah, how are you?”

  Her pillowy lips were on the other end, right near his. In some alternate-world way it was almost like kissing. Okay it wasn’t, but Adam was getting desperate, so yeah, it was.

  She would taste like peaches, for sure.

  “I’m good. Just about to start in on chem, but I’m glad you called. Really glad.”

  They both breathed into the receiver for seconds that seemed to grind on for hours.

  “So, uh, is there … why did you call?”

  Yes. Why?

  “Just wanted to hear your friendly voice, I guess and …”

  “And?”

  “Well, we sort of didn’t finish our conversation back at the cemetery the other day. Not really, or at least I didn’t. Okay, I didn’t even start it and, like, you were so open talking about your mom and how you’re getting so much better and everything.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know why I blabber so much to you. Maybe because at Group, with the others, you’re so solid, you know.”

  Solid? Him?

  “Definitely not just another pretty boy.”

  “Wait, are you saying I’m not pretty?”

  “Stop fishing, Adam.”

  He could hear the smile in her voice.

  “And hey, maybe I’m kind of hoping that you’ll talk too. Talk to me, Adam. It helps. Whenever I tell you something, you’re just so … well, it helps. You help.”