Room: Living Summary & Analysis

That night, Jack is at Grandma and Steppa’s house. He has come to live with them in spite of Dr. Clay’s recommendation that he stay on at the clinic—Grandma thinks it’s best for Jack to live with his family. As Grandma, Jack, and Steppa eat dinner, Jack keeps Bad Tooth tucked in the corner of his mouth carefully. He asks if Ma is dead, and tells Grandma that if Ma isn’t alive, he doesn’t want to be alive either. Grandma starts to cry. She tells Jack that though the clinic hasn’t yet called with an update, she thinks Ma is going to be okay.

Grandma shows Jack to the spare room where he’ll be staying, but Jack says he doesn’t want to sleep in it. Grandma offers to put a blow-up mattress in her and Steppa’s room for the night, and Jack says he’d like that. He brings his Dora bag upstairs with him, worrying all the while about Ma. Grandma hurries Jack into bed. He asks for a story, but Grandma says she’s tired. Grandma tries to leave the room, but Jack stops her and asks where she’s going. She says she’s going to watch TV. Jack points out that Grandma just said she was tired. Grandma explains that she’s not sleepy, but tired in a different way. She tells Jack to lie down and close his eyes, but he tells her he can’t sleep alone. Grandma calls Jack a “poor creature,” and then lies down beside him on the mattress.

In the morning, Jack wakes up and starts counting all the things he has in his Dora bag inside his head. He feels “Gone.” Grandma leaves the room but comes back a while later to tell him that Dr. Clay has called—Ma is stable. She asks Jack to come down for breakfast, but he stays in bed counting his fingers, toes, and teeth. Grandma comes back up to tell Jack to come downstairs and say goodbye to Grandpa, who is flying back to Australia. Jack tells Grandma that Grandpa “wants [him] not born.” Grandma tells Jack to come have a pancake. When Jack insists he can’t eat without Ma, Grandma points out that Jack is “breathing and walking and talking and sleeping” without Ma—surely he can eat without her, too.

Later that afternoon, Grandma comes into the living room, where Jack is watching TV, and shuts the “goggle box” off. She tells Jack that Dr. Clay has just called—Ma is still in stable condition, but Dr. Clay doesn’t want Jack sitting around worrying or watching TV all day. Grandma suggests they go to the playground, and then she helps Jack get dressed and ready to go out. On the walk there, Jack is overwhelmed by all the things on the street and sidewalk around them.

At the playground, Jack is scared to play with the other children, but Grandma insists that he can play alongside them even if he’s afraid to talk to them. Jack, though, would rather watch the other children play on the swing sets and monkey bars than actually join them. After a little while, Grandma and Jack walk back home. While Jack eats lunch, he notices that his whole body feels “red and hot”—he has gotten sunburnt. Grandma begins crying, ashamed of having been neglectful of Jack’s sensitivity. Jack asks if his skin is going to fall off, and Steppa tells him “little bits of it” soon will.

The next day, Jack has learned the rules of Grandma and Steppa’s house a little better. Steppa spends a lot of the time alone in the den, and Grandma explains to Jack that sometimes people like to be alone. Jack has lots of toys and art materials to play with, but he has a hard time focusing on games given how worried he is about Ma. Later that afternoon, the phone rings. Grandma takes the call, and when she hangs up, she tells Jack tearfully that Ma has “turned the corner.” “What corner,” Jack asks. Grandma explains that Ma is going to be fine.

Jack takes a nap, and when he wakes up, Grandma asks what he wants to play. Jack says he wishes he could play with his jeep—but it’s back in Room. Grandma says that maybe she can call the police and ask them to get it for him. Jack is amazed that people can go into Room. Grandma explains that the police have been in and out collecting evidence. Jack asks what evidence is, and Grandma tells him it’s proof of something that happened. 

Grandma helps Jack put on some sunblock, and together they go outside to spend some time in the yard. Jack asks lots of questions about everything he sees, but Grandma doesn’t have answers to the things he wants to know about trees, pollen, and more. Jack is once again overwhelmed by how much is in the world. Jack gets a bee sting while playing with a flower, and after Grandma puts some ointment on it, Jack helps her put up an old hammock—the one Ma told Jack about. Jack swings in the hammock by himself for a while, thinking about whether Ma really sat in this very hammock herself years ago.

The phone rings, and Grandma goes inside to answer it. Soon she comes back out with the phone and tells Jack that Ma wants to talk to him. Jack is hesitant at first, but soon he gets on the phone with Ma and asks if she’s “not poisoned.” Ma insists she’s getting better. Ma asks Jack “what’s new” at Grandma and Steppa’s, to which Jack replies, “Everything.” Ma laughs.

That night, Steppa makes pasta carbonara while Jack and Grandma watch. Jack plays with a match and nearly burns himself. Steppa reprimands Jack and asks whether he ever learned not to play with fire, but Jack replies that “there wasn’t” fire in Room. When Steppa recalls that his brother got burnt as a child and now has an arm that’s “rippled like a chip,” Jack says he's seen potato chips on TV. Unable to believe that Jack has never tried a potato chip, Grandma lets him have one from an open bag—but Jack doesn’t like it. He asks more about Steppa’s brother, and Steppa replies that his brother is technically Jack’s uncle. Steppa compares their family to LEGO—bits of things stuck together. Jack admits that he’s only seen LEGO on TV.

The next day, Dr. Clay comes by for a visit. He asks Jack all about his stay at Grandma and Steppa’s so far, and Jack says he’s enjoying being in the real world—even though “nothing in TV ever stinged [him.]” Jack asks when Ma is coming home, and Dr. Clay tells him she’s working her best to get better. As Dr. Clay leaves, Jack hears him arguing with Grandma—she is defending herself against Dr. Clay’s inquiries about Jack’s sunburn and bee sting.

The next morning, Grandma wakes Jack very early so that they can go to the playground before anyone else gets there and have it all to themselves. Grandma encourages Jack to run and play on all the different parts of the playground, and Jack enjoys himself as he explores. He lets Grandma push him on the swings—but becomes startled and upset when a little girl arrives at the playground and starts swinging next to him. Jack retreats into himself and refuses to play or explore any longer, and Grandma takes him home.

Later that day, Jack listens from upstairs while Grandma meets with her book club. The ladies in her club all want to know about how Jack and Ma are doing, and they comment on how darling Jack is. Grandma is startled to realize that the women have seen photos of Jack, but they tell her that “everything gets leaked these days.” As Jack listens to the women continuing to talk about him and Ma’s escape, he puts Bad Tooth in his mouth and sucks on it—but he is sad to realize it doesn’t taste like Ma anymore.

Jack and Steppa play LEGOs, and Steppa remarks on how long it’s been since he played with the pieces. Jack asks if Steppa ever played LEGO with his kids, but Steppa tells Jack that he doesn’t have any kids. Jack asks if there is “a word for adults when they aren’t parents,” and Steppa laughs. He says that there are “other things to do” than be a parent that are easier than having kids with “stinky diapers”—at this, Jack is the one who laughs.

One day, Grandma tells Jack he needs a bath. Jack is nervous to bathe by himself and asks Grandma to come in with him. Grandma is hesitant at first, but after putting on a bathing suit and a shower cap, she joins Jack in the water. After the bath, as Jack is drying himself with a towel, he notices little pieces of his skin coming off. Steppa comes into the bathroom to fetch his slippers, and when he sees Jack, he offers to help him peel his first sunburn.

The next morning, Jack cuts his ponytail off in the kitchen using Grandma’s scissors. When she sees what he’s done, she offers to help him tidy the haircut up, and makes him a bracelet using the special hairs from his first-ever haircut. Jack checks his muscles and is relieved to find he still has his “strong.”

Jack has been at Grandma and Steppa’s house for a whole week—that makes it two weeks he’s been “in the world.” Jack feels like time is passing more slowly without Ma around. As the days go by, he runs errands with Grandma and sees the library, the post office, a car wash, a coffee shop, and the building where Paul works. As Jack experiences more of the world, he notices that “persons are nearly always stressed and have no time.” In Room, Jack thinks, he and Ma had endless time. Jack has also noticed that adults “mostly don’t seem to like” kids—even their own. Jack starts interacting more with other children his age that he meets while out and about, and as he grows more socially confident, Grandma has to teach him about space and personal boundaries.

One day, Steppa announces that a delivery has arrived for Jack. He cuts open a huge box and begins removing its contents—it is stuff from inside Room. Jack is delighted to see many of the objects, even though Grandma and Steppa think most of them—including grimy old Rug—should be thrown out. Jack is also reunited with his jeep, remote, and even Meltedy Spoon. He is happy and content as he plays with his old things.

One afternoon, Grandma and Steppa take Jack out for a surprise. They drive a long way, and when they arrive at their destination, they ask Jack if he can guess where they are—but he can’t. They are at the seaside, a place Jack has never been. As Grandma and Steppa take Jack down to the water he feels scared of the ocean, but after they talk to him a little bit about his surroundings, he begins to feel more at ease.

Jack talks to Ma on the phone and tells her about all the things he, Grandma, and Steppa have been doing, and all the things he’s learning. Jack asks Ma if she can come home tonight, but Ma says the doctors at the clinic are still helping her get better and figuring out what she needs. Jack replies that what Ma needs is him.

After dinner one night, Jack watches TV and is surprised to see a group of men sitting at a big table talking about him, Ma, and Room. The men are discussing Jack as a symbol of “the sensory overload of modernity.” Grandma quickly comes in and turns the TV off, then puts Jack to bed by reading him The Runaway Bunny. The book unsettles Jack, who begins wondering what the story would be like “if it was the mother bunny that ran away and hid.”

Grandma takes Jack to the mall one afternoon to buy him a soccer ball, but after he gets on the wrong escalator, Jack finds himself separated from her. As Jack wanders around a store, a sales associate asks him where his mother is—Jack replies “She’s in the Clinic because she tried to go to Heaven early. […] I’m a bonsai.” Jack goes on to explain that he used to be locked up, but is now a “rap star.” The sales associate recognizes Jack from TV, and gathers her coworkers around to gawk at Jack. Suddenly, Grandma rushes into the store and yanks Jack out by the hand.

In the car, Grandma chastises Jack for running away, and warns him that he could get snatched by a stranger. Jack asks if Old Nick is coming back for him. Grandma replies that while Old Nick is in jail, there are still people like him out in the world. Jack asks to go back to the mall for the soccer ball, but Grandma refuses. Back at the house, Jack is so angry that he packs his things in his Dora bag and heads for the front door, shouting that he’s going back to the clinic. Grandma tries to stop Jack, but he yells at her. Steppa picks Jack up and drags him back up the stairs, refusing to drop him even as Jack hits and kicks. Upstairs, Steppa sits on the edge of Jack’s blow-up mattress until Jack calms down. 

One afternoon, Jack is painting at the kitchen table when he looks up to see Ma at the window. He is so excited that he knocks his paints over. Ma comes into the house and hugs Jack, marveling at how different he looks with his hair cut. Jack gives Ma the bracelet strung with his hair. Ma asks Jack if he’s ready to leave, but Grandma insists they stay for supper. After dinner, Ma starts hurrying Jack to pack again—she tells him they have their own apartment to go to now. Grandma seems uncertain about the idea, but Ma assures her that it is an independent living facility with round-the-clock counselors. Grandma, wringing her hands, tells Ma she’s “never lived away from home before.” Steppa lets out a huge laugh.

Grandma drives Ma and Jack to the Independent Living Residential Facility and helps them to bring their things inside. The doorman smiles at them as they enter the building, and Jack asks if the man is going to “lock [them] in.” Ma assures Jack that his job is to keep them safe. Jack feels nervous again, though, when Ma has to put a special code into the elevator to get them up to their apartment.

Grandma helps Ma and Jack unpack some groceries, but seems afraid to leave them alone. Ma, though, insists that she and Jack are going to be fine on their own. After Grandma leaves, Ma and Jack get ready for sleep and climb into bed. Jack pulls Ma’s t-shirt up to breastfeed, but Ma tells him that she has no more milk for him. Jack kisses Ma’s breasts “bye-bye,” and the two of them fall asleep.

The next morning, as Ma and Jack finish unpacking their things, Jack gets worried when he can’t find Bad Tooth. He asks Ma what will happen if he’s eaten something that’s “not food.” Ma assures him he’ll be fine. Jack and Ma spend the day setting up the apartment, and Ma suggests they have separate rooms. Everyone, Ma says, “should have a room of their own.” Jack is nervous about the idea of having his own space—and about the idea that Ma wants room away from him—but he agrees to give the idea a try just for the day.

As Jack is filling his room with his own things, he insists on keeping Rug on the floor. Ma doesn’t want Rug in the house, but Jack is adamant about keeping “her.” Ma says that Jack can keep Rug if he agrees to leave it rolled up in the wardrobe where she can’t see it. She leaves Jack’s room. Jack follows her into the kitchen and, in a fit of rage, breaks a vase. He tells Ma that he doesn’t want to be her “little bunny” anymore before hiding away in the wardrobe in his room for “hours and hours.”

Jack comes out of his wardrobe after he hears the doorbell, followed by voices in the living room. Dr. Clay and Noreen have come for a visit, and they have brought with them some take-out and a computer. While Noreen plays on the computer with Jack, Dr. Clay and Ma have a therapy session and discuss the “secondary trauma” of Ma and Jack’s newfound celebrity. Jack overhears Dr. Clay suggest a new surname, perhaps, for Jack to make the transition to school easier. Jack doesn’t think he’ll “ever be ready” to go to school.

That night, Jack tells Ma that he has lost her Bad Tooth. Ma tells him that things get lost all the time, and that Jack will be fine without the “rotten” old thing—“end of story.” Jack wonders if Bad Tooth will stay hiding inside of him forever. That night, Ma and Jack go to bed together in Ma’s room after deciding their separate rooms are just for daytime—but neither of them can sleep very well.

The next day, as Ma and Jack prepare to go on an outing, Jack apologizes for throwing the vase. He tells Ma that she can ask for another “for Sundaytreat,” before remembering that Sundaytreat doesn’t exist anymore. Ma assures Jack that he will never have to see Old Nick again—though she’ll have to, just once, at his trial. Ma and Jack walk around town window-shopping and taking in the sights. They eat ice cream, play, and talk about the future. By the end of the outing, Jack is exhausted and wonders if “people in the world [are] tired all the time.”

As the weeks go by, Ma and Jack spend time at their own apartment as well as visiting Grandma and Steppa at their house. Paul comes to visit Ma and Jack, and brings Jack a new soccer ball to play with. Jack and Ma do new things all the time, and decide to “try everything one time so [they] know what [they] like.” They go to museums, parks, and concerts, and Jack learns how to ride a bike. They visit churches and attend plays, and make lists of all the new things they do—as well as lists of things they hope to try one day once they’re both “braver,” such as “Driving a car,” “Inventing something,” and “Having jobs.” One night, in bed, Jack asks Ma if she ever wishes that they didn’t escape from Room. After a long pause, Ma says she never wishes for that.

The day before May Day, Ma is telling Jack about the parade they’re going to attend. Jack asks if it will be May Day in Room, too. Ma says she supposes it will be. Jack asks if they can go back to Room, just to visit. Ma gets frustrated and says she doesn’t want to go. She asks if Jack likes Outside more than Room, and he says he does—“mostly.” Jack promises to hold Ma’s hand if they go back to Room. Ma says she still doesn’t want to, but Jack replies that he is “choosing for both of [them.]” Ma takes the phone into her room and closes the door.

The next day, Officer Oh shows up at the door. Jack and Ma ride with her in her police car a long way until Officer Oh announces they’ve arrived. Ma unbuckles her seatbelt and tells Jack that she wants to get their visit over with—she is never coming back again. Jack and Ma approach the door of Old Nick’s house and find yellow caution tape strung all over. A male police officer lets Ma and Jack into the house and they walk through to the backyard. Officer Oh points out the fifteen-foot hedge surrounding the yard.

There is a hole in the ground, and when Ma sees it, she stops and says she doesn’t know if she can go forward. Jack asks if the hole is where Ma’s first baby was buried, and Ma says it was—she asked the police to dig her remains up so that Ma could move them somewhere better. Jack suggests buying her in Grandma’s garden, but Ma cries and shakes her head. Ma points out a gray shed in the corner of the yard and tells Jack that it’s Room. Jack doesn’t believe her and goes closer to investigate. When Ma doesn’t follow him, he turns around and sees that she is vomiting onto the ground. Officer Oh asks her if she wants to go back inside, but Ma steadies herself and follows Jack into Room.  

Inside, Jack thinks Room looks all wrong—it is smaller than he remembers. Jack whispers to Ma that he doesn’t think they’re in the right place, but Ma assures him that they are. Jack asks if Room has “got shrunk,” and Ma answers that it was always this size. After looking around and touching a few things, Jack concludes that while this “really was Room one time,” it isn’t anymore. Ma says she needs to leave, and Jack asks her if he can say good-night to Room in the day. Ma tells Jack he could say “good-bye.” Jack wanders around Room, bidding good-bye to everything left inside of it. Ma quietly says good-bye, too. As they leave Room, Jack looks back one last time, thinking that Room is like a crater—“a hole where something happened.”