The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B

by Teresa Toten

  And that’s how it was.

  Until it wasn’t.

  Within seconds, it seemed, the house was filled with people. Radios crackled, men in steel-toed boots and uniforms sporting glow-in-the-dark strips of tape were followed by ambulance people pushing a gurney on wheels and carrying what seemed to be coolers full of stuff. All of them stepping on the stray junk, cursing quietly under their breath.

  The truth came barging in with them.

  And then Adam saw, really saw. He looked at his house as if through their eyes. He and his mom might as well have been living in a building in the Bronx with boarded-up windows. They were like squatters who had taken up residence in charred, garbage-filled rooms. When had this happened? How? A box of cutlery narrowly missed one of the firefighters as it fell from its perch atop a mountain of clothes and shoes and empty boxes of Glade Automatic Spray Freshener. The first responders stepped on cookbooks, on bags full of other bags, on orphaned bird and hamster cages, and on stacks of National Geographic magazines that had toppled from piles that were taller than they were. That’s why he hadn’t been able to get in, because of the toppling. How had she even got them up that high, and why hadn’t he noticed before?

  The kitchen floor was littered with puzzle pieces of Tupperware containers, aluminum roasting pans and five-pound bags of Uncle Ben’s rice. Carmella herself was tucked between packages of toilet paper, hundreds of wooden stir spoons and what looked to be all of Adam’s baby clothes. CDs and empty spice containers crunched under their feet.

  “I was sorting,” she whispered raggedly to Adam. “Tell them about the garbage bags. I was sorting, organizing it all. Tell them!”

  Adam saw a stack of Sentinels teetering on the counter. There had to be a hundred of them. He pushed it over and watched them slide to the floor of what had once been the dining room. They were all yesterday’s date.

  A voice, calm and in command: “Don’t attempt it, but do you think you are able to stand, ma’am?” Carmella didn’t say anything. Then the firefighter, with all the grace of a guardian angel, knelt beside her and gently took her hand in his. “That’s a nasty bump, ma’am. Do you think you’ve broken anything?”

  Carmella was asked many, many questions, but she retreated, burrowing deeper into Adam, not comprehending—or pretending she couldn’t. And she was asked the same questions again by the paramedics. Stethoscopes appeared, blood-pressure cuffs, an oxygen mask … and all the while the firefighters trampled through the main floor. One of them found the smoke alarm, which Carmella had disembowelled years ago.

  “How many fingers am I waving, Mrs. Ross?”

  The other firefighters started for the upstairs and his mother began wailing in earnest. “No, no, please don’t …”

  Thor stood guard at the door, directing traffic, but Adam could see the crying was getting to him too. And then, thank God, Chuck appeared.

  And then his father.

  And that’s when Adam collapsed inside.

  His mom clung to him even as the paramedics insisted that she let go. They would have to examine ma’am. They would have to take ma’am to the hospital. “Just for x-rays, ma’am, to rule out a concussion.”

  She did not go willingly. She did not want to let go of Adam. She promised and pleaded with him, with the paramedics, with Chuck, with Adam’s dad. “Don’t! Don’t let them, Adam! You know what will happen—they’ll put me in a place. You’re my baby! You don’t want to do this to me. You will never forgive yourself!”

  “I’m doing this for you, Mom,” Adam said, or thought he did.

  Chuck stepped in and extricated mother from son, murmuring official doctor-type words.

  Adam’s father shook with rage as he took in the detritus filling his old home. He stared open-mouthed at the carnage that had once been his kitchen. It was unrecognizable. All of it.

  “Oh, son, I am so sorry. I should have known. I should have. God, I’m sorry.” He grabbed the boy into his arms, smothering him. “I’m sorry.” The son was as tall as the father.

  And then she was gone. They had taken her.

  Chuck got into the ambulance too. Lots and lots more words were spoken, but Adam was too tired to listen. He had to lie down now. Even though the rain had stopped, his dad wanted to drive Thor home. Hell, his dad wanted to give Thor a small country to run. Thor politely refused both.

  Before he got into the car with his father, Adam used the last of his strength to reach up and hug Thor, catching him off guard. “Thank you! Thank you!” He hugged the startled Thor harder. “How did you know?”

  “I’ve been watching her for weeks,” Thor rumbled, and he threw his tree-trunk arms around Adam. “I told you I’d nail the prick. I … I … I’m sorry.”

  Adam shook his head. “No, you’re incredible. If you hadn’t …”

  Thor snorted. “You, kid, are the real goddamned deal.” He turned back to 97 Chatsworth and shook his head. “You’re a superhero. Deal with it.”

  Then Thor smiled.

  What the hell?

  On the ugliest night of his life, Adam had made the mighty Viking smile. If he could have smiled back, he would have.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Adam stayed away from school for the rest of the week. He would have stayed away longer, but track tryouts were in the first week of April and there was no way he was going blow his chance at making the team. He had to have something to show for all that running around the cemetery.

  He saw Chuck twice. They didn’t start in on the exposure and response prevention, not yet, but he was well and truly committed to it. Really. Chuck spent the time trying to unravel what Adam had really been carrying around all these months. It was a killer List.

  Funny thing, but “thresholds” was no longer on it. Of course, Adam didn’t know for sure about the big biology lab at school or the south doors, or even Robyn’s front door, but all the others were cool, including 97 Chatsworth. He knew because he had been back. The house reeked of burnt soup and plastic, even on the outside stoop, but he had no issues walking through the door.

  “Trial by fire,” he told Chuck. “They should put that in the manual.”

  On Thursday, Adam met up with Father Rick and a social worker who was supposedly on his mother’s “care” team. They met at the house at three o’clock sharp. The social worker was attached to a clipboard, a BlackBerry and a camera. She tried to behave as if she had seen a thousand houses like 97 Chatsworth, but it was clear from her pursed lips and googly eyes that she had never seen anything remotely like it. This was especially so since the first responders had left new layers of scarring and chaos in their wake.

  Father Rick held himself in the middle of the hallway surveying the slaughter. “Shit,” he muttered, not quite under his breath. The social worker took pictures, drew plans and generally ignored Adam. She deigned to answer a question from Father Rick, however, about what she was doing. “This process will aid in formulating a coherently comprehensible plan of action for supported sorting and purging, when and if Mrs. Ross is ready to participate in her recovery.”

  What did that mean?

  Everything that woman said sounded like she’d recited it from a manual. Adam knew from manuals; he’d actually cracked the book open that week. The social worker moved through the rubble, taking notes and speaking into her phone importantly.

  Adam left Father Rick to deal with her and went up to his room to feed his fish. Was Steven pregnant again? He also wanted to call Stones to fill him in as best he could without Sweetie glued to him as he always was at Brenda’s. He picked up and put down the phone eleven times.

  “Dude, that is such major sucking suckage. I don’t even know what to say! It’s a soul-sucking tragedy! What can I do, dude?”

  While they talked, Adam started filling up one of the four boxes he had brought along. He told Ben that his Orcs and all his warriors were coming to live at the Stones’ garage forever.

  “No way!”

  “Way!”

&nb
sp; “Way?”

  “Way.”

  “Are you thinking of offing yourself?” asked Ben.

  “What? No! What the hell?”

  “It’s one of the seven signs or ten tips or some crap like that of when you might be thinking of jumping off a cliff.”

  “How the hell would you know?”

  After a pause that threatened to break their record for “awkward long Ben–Adam phone pauses,” Ben said, “Okay, dude, thing is, I been googling OCD crap and, like, depression is a real morbid possibility.”

  “Co-morbidity,” said Adam.

  “Yeah, that too.”

  “How long? How long have you been googling it?”

  “Years, dude. Are ya pissed?”

  “No, man, you’re probably more up on it than me. I just opened up my OCD manual on Wednesday.”

  “So you still nuts?”

  “Nutser. You still fat?”

  “F-a-t-t-e-r! But I’m firming! Hey, what do you want for the collection?”

  “Nothing, man. Well, maybe, could we have a friend of mine from Group come and chill with us a couple times when we’re playing? The guy I was telling you about? You’ll like him. He’s fierce but quiet.” One box was full. Adam reached for another.

  “Anything, dude! You can bring him and the all-girls choir from My Lady of the Perpetual Virgin or whatever your damn school is called. Wait, that’s not a bad idea. We should definitely get some dudettes interested in the game. And you’re free now, so it’s a new world.”

  Adam groaned. “Stones, I want to be very clear: I am so not trolling for girls.” He was charged by a lightning strike of feelings. He had to sit down. Robyn, Robyn, Robyn… “OCD is a walk in the park compared to girls.”

  “Bad, eh?

  “Brutal bad.”

  “Yeah, but now you’ve got the taste, you’ve lifted the lid! You’re gone. I’ll give you a minute for grieving time, but hell, I need you, dude! You’re so pretty, they’ll go for you and I’ll swoop in for the leftovers!”

  There could never be anyone but Robyn. Adam held his head with one hand. “That’s a helluva plan, Stan.”

  “But we’ll stay away from the older ones for a bit.”

  “Yeah, yeah, for sure.”

  The boys rambled on for another few minutes, thereby smashing another record, this one for prolonged phone banter. Adam promised to spend Saturday over at Ben’s, when his dad would drive him over with the figurines. It was such a normal conversation in the midst of such, such … Adam couldn’t even find the words to describe the last few days. Thing was, after the hurricane, life went on. You had to buy milk, fix the broken windows, play some Warhammer, discuss some girls. Wow!

  “Adam, you okay?” It was Father Rick. He leaned into the door jamb.

  “Yes, Father. That was Ben I was talking to.”

  “Ah.” He nodded. “Good kid, good friend.”

  “Yeah, he really is. Is the, uh, social worker …?”

  Father Rick rolled his eyes heavenward. “Yes, she and her mighty clipboard are ready to leave the building. I’m driving her back to the clinic—but can I take you home first?” He shook his head. “I’m going to pray that they’ve got better than that at the hospital. Have you seen your mother yet?”

  “Mom? No. It’s no family for a month.”

  “Makes sense, I guess. Are you okay with that?”

  “I’m kind of relieved, actually.” Adam felt his face redden. “Sorry, Father, that’s lame.”

  “Adam Ross, I grant you official holy dispensation regarding any feelings of guilt or lameness. Of all the people I come across in my flock, young man, you probably have the least reason to regret your actions about anything.”

  Adam mentally whipped through his most recent checklist of lies, tics, betrayals, cowardice and wants—there was Robyn, and all those driving, overwhelming wants. “Oh, Father, you have no idea.”

  “Oh, Adam”—Father Rick shook his head, smiling—“I think even I remember being fifteen.” He extended his arm. “Come on, let’s grab what you need and get out of here. I spoke to your Mrs. Polanski—she’ll feed your fish until we figure out how to bring them over.”

  “Sure, Father. Could we drive through the cemetery, though? I want to pay my respects—it’ll just take a second.”

  “Are you gentlemen ready up there?” called the social worker. “I have an enormous paperwork burden to sort through and a 4:47 meeting. Chop, chop.”

  “You bet, son.” Father Rick put his arm around him. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go, and you take as long as you need.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Adam could barely drag himself out of Father Rick’s car and into the house. Lately he slept like the dead and still he was so tired he sometimes shook with exhaustion. Brenda said it was because he was catching up on months of sleep deprivation.

  Clearly, Brenda and Dad had read the riot act to Sweetie about a great many things, but mainly about not heaving himself into Adam as soon as he opened the door. Mr. and Mrs. Ross were measured and achingly thoughtful. Sweetie’s version of thoughtful was that he didn’t pepper his brother with non-stop demands for attention. But he still shadowed Adam from the moment he came into the house until they both went to bed, terrified that his big brother would disappear again into the bad place.

  “Hello, Adam.” Brenda brushed his forehead with a kiss. “How did it go? Was it bearable?”

  Adam nodded, not sure whether it was or not. He wasn’t sure how he felt about a lot of things. It seemed to take him days to sort out whatever thing had just happened, let alone the whole … well, everything. “It’s a protective shock,” Chuck had explained.

  Whatever it was, you’d think it would protect him from the rest of his compulsions, but no. Although he’d broken through the threshold thing, Adam was still counting in an endless series of patterns. That didn’t seem to rattle Chuck. “It’s just the leftover, Adam. No biggie. The ERP will nail it. You have tremendous resources. You, Adam, are going to be fine!”

  “Were Father Rick and that woman from the hospital there too?” asked Brenda.

  “Yeah, they both dropped me off. She’s a piece of work. I hope she doesn’t get anywhere near my mom.” Adam grabbed a biscotti from the cooling rack and saluted Brenda with it before heading to his room, Sweetie hot on his heels.

  Their room was lit up like a Christmas tree. Sweetie had decided that his brother would be much comforted by an extremely bright room. All the lights were on—the table lamps, all four night lights, the overhead. Sweetie had snagged their father’s desk lamp, which now illuminated the floor beside the garbage can. And to add to the festive holiday air, Brenda’s Christmas candlestick lights twinkled merrily from the windowsill. You could have shot a movie in there. Sweetie trotted over to the far side of his bed and pretended to be absorbed in his latest Tonka truck acquisitions.

  With a shaking hand, Adam reached into his pocket for the handmade card that he had found peeking from under a flat white stone in front of Marnie Wetherall, 1935–1939. He hadn’t trusted himself to open it while the priest and social worker were waiting. He knew it was from her, of course. They loved Marnie best and Marnie loved them. Adam had taken the folded creamy paper and replaced it with the $6.99 Batman ring that Snooki and Wonder Woman had given him.

  Now, on his bed, Adam stared at her perfect rendering of the Batman insignia. His heart beat in his throat as he opened the note.

  I heard about your mom. About all of it. You were right, though, and that song you always sing for Sweetie was also right:

  “A dragon lives forever but not so little boys.”

  You, Adam Spencer Ross, are a man, and will forever and always be my Batman.

  I miss you. And I will love you,

  Until…

  Robyn

  He sat on the edge of his bed for a long time, blinking in the brightness. Finally, with his hand still shaking, he put the card back in his pocket.

  “You can talk t
o me, you know. I won’t fall apart or anything.”

  Sweetie shot over like a bullet almost before Adam could finish the sentence, and clambered into his lap.

  “Batman?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do I still have to take care of you?”

  And Adam wondered for the hundred millionth time, Just how does this kid’s mind work?

  “No, Sweetie.”

  “Good! I like it better when you have to take care of me all the time.”

  He turfed his brother off his lap. “You’re too big for lap-sitting, goof!”

  “No!” Sweetie’s lip quivered. “They said I was too little, a shrimp. On the monkey bars, the big boys said … they said …”

  “If they say it again, point ’em out and I’ll nail ’em for you. Besides, you’re not too, too little.” He messed up Sweetie’s hair. “We, you and me, are what they call late bloomers.”

  “Late bloomers,” Sweetie said, repeating and storing. He hopped back onto his brother’s lap. “And you’re going to stay here with us forever, right, Batman?”

  “Geez, little guy, things like that are mucho-hyper-complicated.”

  “No, they’re not,” said Sweetie. “Our dad and Mrs. Brenda Ross love you more than Mrs. Carmella Ross does. And I love you more than all of them, so we win and get to keep you!” He looked delighted with himself.

  “Sweetie, that’s not fair. My mom … well, she does love me. She loves me a lot.”

  “Okay,” Sweetie conceded. “But she’s very, very crazy, so she can’t do a good job.”

  Adam turfed him off again. “Hey, any of us Ross men calling anybody else crazy is just the pot calling the kettle black.”

  Sweetie frowned, trying to wrestle some meaning out of talking pots and black kettles. “Is Daddy crazy?” That seemed to be his takeaway.

  “No! Dad’s a bit of a workaholic is all. Chuck—that’s the doctor guy I go see—says that’s how Dad deals with his anxiety.”

  “Anxiety,” Sweetie repeated, waiting semi-patiently for more.

  “Anxiety is like being afraid.”