‘This is the police,’ she heard.
Then she heard Richie cussing, ‘What the fuck?’
Her mom: ‘What’s going on?’
‘ This is the police.’
Her brothers and sisters were waking up and crawling to each other frantically. Someone stepped on the baby and he started to cry.
Eleanor
heard
the
police
tramping through the house. She heard
Richie
shouting.
The
bedroom door flew open, and their mom came in like Mr Rochester’s wife, in a long, torn, white nightgown.
‘Did you call them?’ she asked Eleanor.
Eleanor nodded. ‘I heard gunshots,’ she said.
‘Shhhh,’ her mother said, rushing to the bed and pressing her hand too hard over Eleanor’s mouth. ‘Don’t say anything more,’
she hissed. ‘If they ask, say it was a mistake. This was all a mistake.’
The door opened, and her mother moved her hand away.
Two flashlights shot around the room. Her siblings were all awake and crying. Their eyes flashed like cats’.
‘They’re just scared,’ her mother said. ‘They don’t know what’s happening.’
‘There’s nobody here,’ the cop said to Eleanor, shining his light in her direction. ‘We checked the yard and the basement.’
It was more of an accusation than an assurance.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought I heard something …’
The lights went out, and Eleanor heard all three men talking in the living room. She heard the police officers on the porch, with their heavy boots, and she heard them drive away. The window was still open.
Richie came into the room then – he never came into their room. Eleanor felt a new flood of adrenaline.
‘What were you thinking?’ he asked softly.
She didn’t say anything. Her mother held her hand, and Eleanor locked her jaw shut.
‘Richie, she didn’t know,’ her mom said. ‘She just heard the gun.’
‘What the fuck,’ he said, slamming his fist into the door.
The veneer splintered.
‘She
thought
she
was
protecting us, it was a mistake.’
‘Are you trying to get rid of me?’ he shouted. ‘Did you think you could get rid of me?’
Eleanor hid her face in her mother’s shoulder. It wasn’t a protection. It was like hiding behind the thing in the room he was most likely to hit.
‘It was a mistake,’ her mother said gently. ‘She was trying to help.’
‘You never call them here,’ he said to Eleanor, his voice dying, his eyes wild. ‘Never again.’
And then, shouting, ‘I can get rid of all of you.’ He slammed the door behind him.
‘Back to bed,’ her mother said.
‘Everybody …’
‘But,
Mom
…’
Eleanor
whispered.
‘In bed,’ her mom said, helping Eleanor up the ladder to her bunk. Then her mom leaned in close, her mouth touching Eleanor’s ear. ‘It was Richie,’ she whispered. ‘There were kids playing basketball in the park, being loud … He was just trying to scare them. But he doesn’t have a license, and there are other things in the house – he could have been arrested. No more tonight. Not a breath.’
She knelt down with the boys for a minute, petting and hushing, then floated out of the room.
Eleanor could swear she heard five hearts racing. Every one of them was stifling a sob. Crying inside out. She climbed out of her bed and into Maisie’s.
‘It’s okay,’ she whispered to the room. ‘It’s okay now.’
CHAPTER 25
Park
Eleanor seemed off that morning.
She didn’t say anything while they waited for the bus. When they got on, she dropped onto their seat and leaned against the wall.
Park pulled on her sleeve, and she not-even-half smiled.
‘Okay?’ he asked.
She glanced up at him. ‘Now,’
she said.
He didn’t believe her. He pulled on her sleeve again.
She fell against him and hid her face in his shoulder.
Park laid his face in her hair and closed his eyes.
‘Okay?’ he asked.
‘Almost,’ she said.
She pulled away when the bus stopped. She never let him hold her hand once they were off the bus. She wouldn’t touch him in the hallways. ‘People will look at us,’ she always said.
He couldn’t believe that still mattered to her. Girls who don’t want to be looked at don’t tie curtain tassels in their hair. They don’t wear men’s golf shoes with the spikes still attached.
So today he stood by her locker and only thought about touching her. He wanted to tell her his news – but she seemed so far away, he wasn’t sure she’d hear him.
Eleanor Where would she go this time?
Back to the Hickmans’?
‘Hey, remember that time when my mom asked if I could stay with you guys for a few days, and then she didn’t come back for a year? I really appreciate the fact that you didn’t turn me into Child Protective Services. That was very Christian of you. Do you still have that foldout couch?’
Fuck.
Before Richie moved in, Eleanor only knew that word from books
and
bathroom
walls.
Fucking woman. Fucking kids.