A List of Cages

by Robin Roe

  We go back to silence, until again, Emerald breaks it. “Everyone watches you, and you don’t even know it. You just…It’s like you come into a room and you’re glowing or something.”

  I laugh, but it’s not a happy sound. “Yeah, glowing is my superpower.”

  “And when you smile…my grandmother calls them big-soul smiles. She says some people have souls so big that they spread out, touching everyone they pass.” Emerald wipes her wet face again. “There are different ways to help people, Adam. There are different ways to do good.”

  I don’t know if it’s the fear or the sadness or all the pure emotion from the last month, but I’m embarrassingly close to crying, so I respond the way I normally would. “Are you going to start singing that what makes me beautiful is that I don’t know I’m beautiful? Because I don’t think I can take that.”

  “You are.” Her voice is more tender than I’ve ever heard it, and I can only stare at her, no longer in the mood to joke. “Beautiful.” And her fingers touch my face, carefully, like I’m something that might break.

  JULIAN’S TYPING AWAY on the desktop computer in the living room while I’m watching TV and texting Emerald. All of a sudden he leaps up and stares at the television—some show on the Travel Channel.

  “Can I borrow your laptop?” he asks, which is weird, since he’s already using a computer.

  “Uh, yeah, I guess.” He grabs it off the coffee table and bolts from the room. A few minutes later I hear the sound of breaking glass.

  I head into Julian’s room to find one of the framed photos of Mittens smashed against the wall. I step over the pieces and try for a joke. “I told you we could redecorate.”

  Julian’s either ignoring me or doesn’t hear me. Sitting in the center of his bed, body thrumming with tension and face furrowed with intense concentration, he leans over an open spiral notebook. His fingers run along the page, tracing the words like they’re Braille.

  “Julian?”

  Getting more agitated, he thrusts his finger into the paper.

  “Julian.”

  He keeps stabbing the page, starts whispering something to himself. I cross the room and grab his wrist. He goes still and looks up at me with eyes that are too huge for his face. I let him go, then sit on the end of the bed.

  “Why didn’t she write titles?” he asks, looking back down at the notebook.

  “What?”

  “Titles. None of them have titles. I was always sure they meant something.”

  I give a closer look to the neat round letters on the page.

  1. ALMA, COLORADO

  2. BRIAN HEAD, UTAH

  3. VILLAGE OF TAOS SKI VALLEY, NEW MEXICO

  “Who wrote this?”

  “My mom. This whole notebook is full of lists. I always knew these cities, these lists, had to be important. She wouldn’t write them unless they were important. But you just have to guess at what they mean, you know?”

  I nod, but I don’t know. I don’t know at all the pain of trying to know and understand someone after they’ve gone.

  “I finally get what this one means.” He points to my laptop on the nightstand. A webpage is opened to a list of U.S. cities with highest elevation. “It looks like they’re all probably explainable. The movies are just Best Picture winners. The songs are number-one songs from different years.”

  “So…that’s good, that you figured it out?”

  “Good?” Such a venomous expression on Julian’s face is unnerving. “They’re just facts she recorded. They don’t tell me anything about her. She wrote all these lists, but they don’t mean anything!”

  Suddenly and violently, he starts ripping the pages out of the notebook.

  “Nothing means anything! People just go. They don’t finish.” He grabs the loose sheets, wildly tearing them into shreds. “We don’t die after we complete some mission, we just die.” He yanks the green cardboard away from the silver spiral till that’s all that’s left. “Do you know how I know?”

  I shake my head.

  “Because if they could have chosen, they wouldn’t have left me. I know them. They weren’t finished with me!”

  He folds in on himself like a closing shutter. Surrounded by torn bits of paper, he begins to sob. It’s horrible to watch when you can’t do anything to fix it.

  He goes abruptly silent, like someone turned off his voice, and he picks up one of the torn pieces with two fingers. “Oh no.”

  He starts to cry again, bending till his face is pressed into the mattress.

  He shoots back up and kneels, wrapping his arms around his stomach.

  Then he collapses again.

  It’s the kind of desperate thing I did when I was on the meds that made me so sick. Miserable and nauseated, I was in so much agony I didn’t know what to do with myself. Should I lie in bed? On my side? On my back? There was nowhere to go that me and the pain didn’t follow. I remember my mom watching, looking totally helpless because she couldn’t fix it.

  “Stop, Julian. You’re going to give yourself a headache.”

  He freezes, looking stunned. His crying becomes less hysterical, but deeper. My mom couldn’t fix me, but I remember she’d pet my back, and I know Julian’s father used to rub his head.

  There are different ways to help people, Adam.

  I extend my fingers like I’m playing the piano across his face.

  Gradually, he goes quiet and turns to stare vacantly at the wall. “I know.” He sounds so tired. “I know if there was any choice at all, they wouldn’t have left me alone. They would have made sure I was taken care of.”

  In a heartbeat, a thousand memories at once. All the times I knew things I couldn’t have known. All the times he was assigned to me.

  “Julian,” I say, “maybe they did.”

  EMERALD’S BACKYARD IS strung with paper lanterns and golden lights. There are tables covered with food, streamers, balloons, party hats, stacks of wrapped gifts, and an enormous cake.

  The last birthday cake I had was the summer I turned nine, the summer my parents bought me the trunk and told me I was brave. It was always just the three of us on my birthday, never a party with other kids, since school was out. That year we wore hats and I opened gifts, then we walked along the rocky beach where I found the conch.

  Emerald’s yard fills with people, too many to fit at the picnic table where I sit at the head. Everyone sings “Happy Birthday” and watches me open presents. Adam gives me a novel, and Emerald gives me a journal, and it’s overwhelming to have so much attention, but it’s not embarrassing, not really.

  Later I say to Adam, “Fifteen seems a lot older than fourteen, doesn’t it?”

  Tilting his head, he laughs. “Yeah, I guess it does.”

  We listen to music and eat cake while the sun shines on everyone, making them glow like angels. Adam’s and Emerald’s faces are close together, whispering things I can’t hear. Jesse pulls out his guitar and asks me if I want to sing. I shake my head. Today I just want to listen. Charlie passes out popsicles. Everyone’s lips change color. The last day of July slowly fades, but everyone keeps talking and laughing like they could stay here forever.

  It’s dark when I stretch out on my back on the trampoline. Listening to the voices of all the people I love, I gaze up at a perfect night sky. It’s as if the lights strung through the trees have moved to float above us. Beautiful and too many to see all at once.

  Ten million stars.

  Not long ago, I told my son I love him so much that sometimes my chest fills up like it’s going to burst, and I have to take a deep breath. He responded, “That sounds like a medical condition.” Did I mention he’s a bit of a smart aleck?

  Well, that’s what I’m feeling now—an I-can’t-breathe kind of love and gratitude for the people in my life. So much that even though my editor’s given me a year of extensions, I still don’t know how to put it into words.

  But here goes.

  I would like to say thank you to:

  ★
Peter Steinberg. When I pictured my dream agent, he was smart, dedicated, and above all else, kind. I got my dream agent. I’m also very grateful for my foreign-rights agents (Jess Regel, Kirsten Neuhaus, Heidi Gall) and Foundry Literary + Media.

  ★ Stephanie Lurie—my warm, wise, endlessly encouraging editor, who showed such sensitivity and patience with a first-time novelist—and everyone at Hyperion. They all made this journey such a joy.

  ★ Kate Hawkes—the kind of friend who’ll hop on a plane when you need her, never judges, and has so much love to give—and the entire Hawkes family, who I’m claiming as my family too.

  ★ Sandra Francis, the embodiment of unconditional love. And all my friends in Dallas (Tracy, Jody, Dina, Daphney, Petra, and the list goes on). Life is better than I ever could have imagined because of them.

  ★ Joshua, who came into our lives singing and made us a family.

  ★ Michael—my hyperfriendly-wild-running-resilient-brown-eyed boy.

  ★ And Joe. For several years I had a debilitating illness. There were times I couldn’t walk. There were times I couldn’t see. And through all of this, Joe was there—kind and funny and nurturing and giving, with a maturity so far beyond his years. He told me I would get better, every single day, until I did.

  ROBIN ROE has a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a master’s from Harvard. She counseled adolescents in Boston before she moved to Dallas, Texas, to run a mentoring program for at-risk teens. Follow Robin on Twitter @robinroewriter.