A List of Cages

by Robin Roe

  “Adam?” Of course, Charlie looks panicked. He probably thinks I’m dying. I wipe at the tears streaming down my face, but since there’s an endless supply, more come. I wonder if this is what having a nervous breakdown is.

  Charlie stands and places the baby in a little rolling crib, then he raises his arms like Frankenstein’s monster, or if he were someone else, like he’s about to hug someone. But if Charlie Taylor actually hugged me, it would mean the End of Days. His monster arms get closer.

  It’s the End of Days.

  MOM IS WATCHING Julian, while Julian watches TV, when Emerald stops by with a paper sack. “Your assignments,” she says with a strained smile. I walk her into the hall, and we stand in front of the under-the-sea party.

  “I texted you,” she says.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry.”

  “I know it’s been stressful around here.”

  “Yeah.” There’s tension and a strange disconnect between us, like we’re not the same people we were a week ago. “Well, thanks for bringing these.”

  “Adam?” Her face is pale. Her blue eyes are wide, and I notice her hair is loose and falling around her shoulders. “Never mind,” she says, turning away abruptly. “It’s nothing.”

  It’s not till later, when Julian’s asleep, that my mom asks, “Are you and Emerald okay?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “You’re acting strange. Like you’re mad at her.”

  I sigh deeply, because seriously, there are bigger things to worry about. “And why would I be mad at Emerald?”

  She doesn’t answer, just looks at me, and I wish for once people would say what they’re thinking. Or just tell the truth. If I’d just told the truth…but I didn’t. I listened to Emerald.

  Logically, I know it’s not her fault, but I have this nagging thought that if I’d taken him to my house, I would have called the police. And if I’d called the police, all the things that followed never would have happened. But that’s the kind of horrible thought you can think, but you can never say out loud.

  “YOU HAVE TO go back to school.” It’s Sunday night and Delores is telling me off next to a tap-dancing lobster outside Julian’s room.

  “I can’t.” She knows how panicked he gets when I’m gone.

  “You’ve missed over a week. How’s it going to look to a judge if the woman who wants custody of Julian has a son up next on his docket for truancy?”

  It would be worse than truancy. My finals are this week, and if I don’t take them, I don’t graduate. “Why can’t they just let Julian leave already?”

  “He’ll be released when he starts eating.”

  “He is eating…a little.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard. Protein shakes, but not food. He can’t keep going on like that.”

  I know I should’ve been pushing him to eat, but I also know from eating the companion lunches that the food here tastes like microwaved shit. If you’re already having trouble with your appetite, those won’t spark it.

  “What’ll he do all day? He can’t be alone. He has to—”

  “He won’t be alone. There’s a teen-counseling program downstairs. Could be good for him.”

  “God, he’ll hate that.”

  “But he won’t be alone.”

  Later, after everyone leaves and it’s just Julian and me, I say, “You’ve gotta start eating.”

  He looks startled and a little defensive. “But I’m not hungry.”

  “They won’t let you leave till you eat.”

  “Could you…”

  “What?”

  “Just throw it away? Pretend I ate it?”

  “No.”

  His shoulders sag, defeated. “I’m not hungry,” he says again, eyeing the waxy chicken, limp green beans, and hard dinner roll.

  “At least try the pudding, huh? I got these from the fridge down the hall. We’ve got chocolate and vanilla.” I wave one in each hand. “Which kind do you want?”

  He shakes his head, disgusted. “Neither.”

  “Vanilla it is.” I tear away the plastic lid and plunge in the spoon.

  He crosses his thin arms over his chest with the same sulky expression he used to pull when we were in elementary school and I’d force him to read. If these weren’t such horrible circumstances, I’d laugh.

  “You’re eating this, Julian.”

  He tilts his head to the side like a confused puppy and sinks back against his pillow.

  He takes a small bite, then shudders, and for a second I think he’s going to throw up. Then he takes another.

  “Keep eating and you’ll get out soon. You wanna leave, right?”

  He hesitates, just a little too long. “Right.”

  I’M NOT ALLOWED to walk long distances yet, so Adam pushes me in a wheelchair while Delores strides alongside us. The bright, busy hallway is overwhelming, and I’m still nauseous from the breakfast he made me eat.

  When Delores arrived this morning, she told me she wanted me to join a special group of teenagers. Ones who were originally confined to the psychiatric ward on the sixth floor but have graduated to the outpatient program. Adam didn’t look shocked at all that Delores wanted me to spend the day with mental patients.

  The two of them talk cheerfully above my head as we take the elevator down to the first floor. Adam pushes me through a maze of hallways, then into a large white room with a long row of windows where the sun hurts my eyes.

  At the far end of the room there are about twenty plastic chairs in a circle, and half are filled with older kids. I’m the only person not dressed in real clothes, the only one wearing pajama pants and hospital-issue treaded socks.

  A girl with a shaved head immediately zeroes in on me and aims sympathetic eyes at my hospital bracelet and wheelchair. Two boys, one with more piercings than skin, begin to argue, then they stand and yell into each other’s faces. The other teens try to calm them down while a woman in a white coat wedges herself between them.

  “I don’t want to stay here,” I whisper.

  “You’ll be just fine,” Delores says.

  Adam wheels me across the long room, right into the circle.

  “You’re new,” the bald girl says.

  “No,” I answer quickly. “I’m not staying.” I can’t breathe. “Adam.”

  He reverses me so fast I get dizzy, and then I’m flying to the other end of the room. He stops behind a bookcase full of art supplies.

  Delores bends down. “Take a deep breath with me,” she says, inhaling loud and deep. “Lower. Not from your chest, from your diaphragm.”

  “I can’t. It hurts.”

  She taps my chest. “These are short, panicked breaths. Try to go lower.”

  “I don’t need to breathe. I need to leave!”

  “Julian.” Her voice is stern. “Adam has to go to school today, and you’re going to stay here.”

  “I can’t.” There’s not enough air. “It’s too dark.”

  “Delores, come on,” Adam says. “I can stay with him one more day.” He crouches in front of me and wipes my wet face with his sleeve.

  She tugs him up, then leans into his ear. The only full sentence I can hear is, “Let’s not drag this out.”

  He nods solemnly. “This’ll be fun!” His voice is suddenly loud and filled with false cheer. He grabs a container of Play-Doh off the shelf, holding it up like it’s evidence. “You like art.”

  “I don’t like art.”

  “But you said—”

  “It wasn’t true. I don’t.”

  “Well…you like writing stories. You’ve got a roomful of crazy people over there. You’re gonna have so many great stories for me later.”

  “Adam!” I can’t tell if Delores is playfully scolding or not. “In all seriousness, Julian, everything here will be confidential.”

  Confidential. I hate that word.

  She gives Adam a brusque nod.

  His face is overly bright. “All right, let’s do this.” He pushes me back into the circle. “I
’ll be here as soon as school’s out,” he promises, then he kicks the wheelchair brake into place so I don’t roll away.

  The cafeteria’s like it always was—warm and dangerously crowded—but for some reason the noise irritates me. Exhausted, and fueled on hospital coffee that’s making me edgy, I squeeze into our table between Jesse and Matt, across from Charlie and Allison. A few people I didn’t see this morning hug me and ask about Julian.

  “He’s fine,” I answer, not in the mood to get into it.

  I can’t stop my foot from tapping, but so far no one’s told me to settle down. I’m half-listening to conversations, half-thinking about what about what happened when I got to Dr. Whitlock’s last period. She and Principal Pearce were both there, standing shoulder to shoulder. He was holding on to his cane, looking particularly fierce, as Dr. Whitlock asked:

  Did you know?

  Did I know what was happening? Did I know and not tell her?

  I looked back and forth between them, then admitted, Yes. I knew.

  Her eyes went a scary sort of livid. You should have told me.

  I’m sorry, I said, throat convulsing and eyes suddenly blurry. She turned away and shut her office door.

  “You’re not eating,” Matt says. It takes me a minute to realize he’s talking to me.

  “I guess that means I’m not hungry.” His eyes widen in surprise, because I did kind of snap at him, but I’m too annoyed to apologize.

  “HOLY SHIT!” Jesse’s loud voice grabs the attention of the entire table. “Somebody write this down. May twenty-sixth. Adam Blake is in a bad mood.”

  Charlie shakes his head, shooting secretive glances from Jesse to Emerald to me. Looking abashed now, Jesse aims apologetic eyes back at them. It’s like they’ve all developed some kind of Morse code out of blinks and head shakes.

  I look up and realize everyone is staring at me like I’m a mental patient around whom they need to lightly tread. My arms and legs start to itch like crazy. It’s gotta be the caffeine, but I can’t just sit here anymore. I don’t bother saying anything. I just go.

  All day is like this: a pointless biding of time until each class ends. I feel this growing buzzing tension, too many thoughts crowding my head, and I wonder if this is how Julian feels all the time. And if he does, how does he even freakin function? How does he walk down the hall without it leeching out? It seems like there should be an obvious wound branded across your forehead when you feel like this.

  I’m heading to seventh period when I stumble over some invisible obstacle, right into a guy I sort of recognize. He’s not in my grade—a junior, maybe—but he’s taller and wider than me and he’s got a sharp jaw and mouth that make him look part-velociraptor.

  “Watch it, asshole.” He sneers like I intentionally tripped and fell into him.

  “It was an accident, asshole.”

  Super fast, his hands are fisted in my shirt, and he propels me toward the wall. My hips smack against a water fountain—turning it on—but my back hits air so I end up awkwardly flailing. This immediately grabs the interest of the entire hallway. Bloodthirsty kids encircle us. Their excitement depresses me.

  The guy is really glaring now, over-the-top-WWE-style. He keeps me pinned to the fountain, every sharp tooth showing, but not saying anything.

  “So are you gonna hit me, or can I go?”

  My question seems to catch him off guard, and he unfolds his fingers from my collar.

  I straighten. The back of my hoodie is wet, soaked through to my skin. I can feel the disappointment of the crowd when he steps back just enough to let me pass.

  You got in a fight??

  Sometimes it’s difficult to interpret tone from a text message, but with Charlie you can always assume he’s yelling.

  It wasn’t a fight, I text back while walking down the colorful pediatrics hall.

  WTF happened??

  He’s either worried or he’s impressed. I don’t care which at the moment, so I stuff my phone back into my pocket.

  I find Julian sitting in the chair in front of the window in his room, writing in a spiral notebook. Delores sits next to him, wearing a bright yellow dress and an orange hat like an advertisement for springtime. She says hello to me, then pats Julian’s back and tells him she has to run.

  “So how was it?” I ask, dropping into a metal chair.

  “Do I have to go back?”

  “Was it that bad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “They make us say things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like things about ourselves. All the good things we can name about ourselves. We had to write them down, then read it out loud.”

  That does sound like Julian’s own personal brand of hell. “So what’d you write?” I reach for his spiral, but he pulls it away.

  “It’s confidential,” he says, and I think he’s actually being a smart-ass. Funny.

  “Just a couple more days. Then you can get out of here.”

  “Does Russell…”

  My smile wobbles. “Does Russell what?”

  “Do you think he still wants me to live with him?”

  “It wouldn’t matter if he did. You’re not going back there.” Instead of relieved, he looks like he’s going to throw up. “Do you want to live with Russell?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Then what?” I’m constantly confused these days, like an English speaker air-dropped into Russia.

  “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  Julian’s smart, but in some ways he’s so staggeringly clueless. “You’re coming home with me.” I thought that was obvious. “My mom’s been working on getting permission to be your guardian since you got here.”

  “She is? But…”

  “What?”

  “Well, before…”

  “Before what?”

  He shakes his head, leaving me frustrated and baffled. “Last time.”

  “Last time what?”

  “I…I know I caused problems. And you and Catherine couldn’t handle it anymore. I know.”

  “Who said you caused problems?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Russell?”

  He shrugs, then nods.

  “Jesus, Julian. He was lying. It wasn’t our choice for you to go. That was him. Do you know how freakin devastated my mom was when he wouldn’t let us see you?”

  Julian looks doubtful, and it pisses me off.

  “Hey!” I say sharply, and he flinches. “I don’t lie to you.” Julian’s eyes are like saucers, shocked and a little wary. I’m still frustrated, but it’s dwindling, or maybe it’s splitting. Locking onto Russell. Onto Emerald. Onto me. “I don’t lie.”

  SITTING IN A circle in the room with too many windows, I wait for the day to begin. As I watch the other kids talking and hugging, it reminds me of the concert I went to with Adam last fall, when I saw the intimacy of his friends. All these kids were once confined together, and they all love and hate each other like family.

  Annie, the girl with round red cheeks and no hair, takes the empty seat next to me and asks without warning, “Who put you in the wheelchair?”

  Over the past couple of days, she’s the only person who’s tried to talk to me other than the staff. While the other kids have a hard, almost-scary toughness about them, she’s soft and sweet. Like Shirley Temple, if Shirley was a teenager who fell on hard times.

  “N-no one,” I say. “I’m just…weak. Because I haven’t been eating.” I can tell she doesn’t believe me, and I know what I must look like with all the cuts, bruises, and broken fingers. It’s humiliating.

  When the counselor, a woman with short spiky brown hair and a white coat, takes her seat, we start as usual by setting goals, then checking in. I hate it. It’s worse than school, where the teachers actually prefer it if you never speak.

  After an hour of this we’re allowed to write in our journals. I use my hands to spin the wheels of my chair, propelling myse
lf into a corner of the room.

  At lunchtime, trays of food are delivered from the kitchen. Mine is the only one with a name taped to the lid, since I have a special diet of bland foods. I study the baked chicken, brown rice, sliced carrots, and yogurt. I can’t imagine eating anything, but I know Adam will ask, and I don’t think I’ll be able to lie.

  I open the container of plain yogurt, taking a cautious bite. It has a strange texture, not quite solid, not quite liquid. It’s like…toothpaste. I gag and spit into my napkin.

  Back inside the circle, I fiddle with the hem of my T-shirt. My pajama pants are long, but when I cross my legs I can see dark hair sprouting on my shins. It looks strange. I’m wearing hospital socks and I want to wear shoes like everyone else, but my sneakers are still somewhere inside Russell’s house.

  The woman who’s running group pulls a question from a plastic box. What would you like to change about your lives? No one wants to answer first, so we go in order around the circle.

  The group leader pulls out another question. If you could confront someone who has harmed you, what would you say? Around the circle again.

  When she stops at me, I shake my head. She looks unsatisfied, but turns to the boy with all the piercings. He tells us again why he hates his mother and why he still thinks she deserves to die.

  Annie is next, and she says in her soft, small voice that she’d confront her stepbrother Chris. She tells us that she and Chris always fought, and sometimes it got physical. One day, she was so frightened she ran and hid beneath the car in their neighbor’s driveway. Chris found her and took hold of her ankles to drag her out. She reached up to stop him, not realizing that beneath the car, the engine was still hot.

  Annie lifts her arm to show us the long shiny burn. She tells us about the pain, how much it shocked her, how she cried and told Chris that she was hurt, but he didn’t care. He crouched down, reached under the car, and dragged her out by her hair.

  Annie looks away from us, ashamed. I imagine her stepbrother, someone bigger, stronger. Then I imagine her, burned and afraid. “The things that went on in our house,” Annie says, “you wouldn’t believe. I feel sorry for him really. I was the stupid one who…” She goes on, insulting herself, pitying him, explaining away everything he did as if it’s okay for him to hurt her.