can’t believe it,” says the deep voice. “I remember saying to Bill, seven years back, how could something like this happen to a girl we
“And you had such faith.”
“Who could have imagined—?”
“Any more tea for anyone?” That’s Grandma.
“Well, I don’t know. I spent a week in a monastery in Scotland once,” says another voice, “it was so peaceful.” My cakes are gone except the coconut. I leave the plate on the step and go up to the bedroom and look at my treasures. I put Tooth back in my mouth for a suck. He doesn’t taste like Ma.
• • •
Grandma’s finded a big box of LEGOs in the basement that belongs to Paul and Ma. “What would you like to make?” she asks me. “A house? A skyscraper? Maybe a town?”
“Might want to lower your sights a little,” says Steppa behind his newspaper.
There’s so many tiny pieces all colors, it’s like a soup. “Well,” says Grandma, “go wild. I’ve got ironing to do.” I look at the LEGOs but I don’t touch in case I break them.
After a minute Steppa puts his paper down. “I haven’t done this in too long.” He starts grabbing pieces just anyhow and squishing them together so they stick.
“Why you haven’t—?”
“Good question, Jack.”
“Did you play LEGO with your kids?”
“I don’t have any kids.”
“How come?”
Steppa shrugs. “Just never happened.”
I watch his hands, they’re lumpy but clever. “Is there a word for adults when they aren’t parents?”
Steppa laughs. “Folks with other things to do?”
“Like what things?”
“Jobs, I guess. Friends. Trips. Hobbies.”
“What’s hobbies?”
“Ways of spending the weekend. Like, I used to collect coins, old ones from all over the world, I stored them in velvet cases.” “Why?”
“Well, they were easier than kids, no stinky diapers.”
That makes me laugh.
He holds out the LEGO bits, they’ve magically turned into a car. It’s got one two three four wheels that turn and a roof and a driver and all.
“How you did that?”
“One piece at a time. You pick one now,” he says.
“Which?”
“Anything at all.”
I choose a big red square.
Steppa gives me a small bit with a wheel. “Stick that on.”
I put it so the bump is under the other bump’s hole and I press hard.
He hands me another wheel bit, I push that on.
“Nice bike.
He says it so loud I drop the LEGO on the floor and a wheel comes off. “Sorry.”
“No need for sorry. Let me show you something.” He puts his car on the floor and steps on it,
• • •
Grandma says I smell.
“I wash with the cloth.”
“Yeah, but dirt hides in the cracks. So I’m going to run a bath, and you’re going to get in it.”
She makes the water very high and steamy and she pours in bubble stuff for sparkly hills. The green of the bath is nearly hidden but I know it’s still there. “Clothes off, sweetie.” She stands with her hands on her hips. “You don’t want me to see? You’d rather I was outside the door?” “No!”
“What’s the matter?” She waits. “Do you think without your ma in the bath you’ll drown or something?” I didn’t know persons could drown in baths.
“I’ll sit right here all the time,” she says, patting the lid of the toilet.
I shake my head. “You be in the bath too.”
“Me? Oh, Jack, I have my shower every morning. What if I sit right on the edge of the bath like this?” “In it.”
Grandma stares at me. Then she groans, she says, “OK, if that’s what it takes, just this once. . But I’m wearing my swimsuit.” “I don’t know to swim.”
“No, we won’t actually be swimming, I just, I’d rather not be naked if that’s all right with you.”
“Does it make you scared?”
“No,” she says, “I just — I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”
“Can I be naked?”
“Of course, you’re a kid.”
In Room we were sometimes naked and sometimes dressed, we never minded.
“Jack, can we just get in this bath before it’s cold?”
It’s not nearly cold, there’s still steam flying off it. I start taking off my clothes. Grandma says she’ll be back in a sec.
Statues can be naked even if they’re adults, or maybe they have to be. Steppa says that’s because they’re trying to look like old statues that were always naked because the old Romans thought bodies are the most beautiful thing. I lean against the bath but the hard outside is cold on my tummy. There’s that bit in
They told me you had been to her
And mentioned me to him,
She gave me a good character
But said I could not swim.
My fingers are scuba divers. The soap falls in the water and I play it’s a shark. Grandma comes in with a stripey thing on like underwear and T-shirt stuck together with beads, also a plastic bag on her head she says is called a shower cap even though we’re having a bath. I don’t laugh at her, only inside.
When she climbs in the bath the water gets higher, I get in too and it’s nearly spilling. She’s at the smooth end, Ma always sat at the faucet end. I make sure I don’t touch Grandma’s legs with my legs. I bang my head on a faucet.
“Careful.”
Why do persons only say that after the hurt?
Grandma doesn’t remember any bath games except “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” when we try that it makes a slosh on the floor.
She doesn’t have any toys. I play the nailbrush is a submarine that brushes the seabed, it finds the soap that’s a gooey jellyfish.
After we dry ourselves, I’m scratching my nose and a bit comes off in my nail. In the mirror there’s little scaly circles where some of me is peeling off.
Steppa’s come in for his slippers. “I used to love this. .” He touches my shoulder and suddenly there’s a strip of all thin and white, I didn’t feel it go. He holds it out for me to take. “That’s a goody.”
“Stop that,” says Grandma.
I rub the white thing and it rolls up, a tiny dried ball of me. “Again,” I say.
“Hang on, let me find a long bit on your back. .”
“Men,” says Grandma, making a face.
• • •
