It was a terrible thing to admit. But sometimes Eleanor slept right through the yelling.
Especially after she’d been back a couple months. If she were to wake up every time Richie got angry … If she got scared every time she heard him yelling in the back room …
Sometimes Maisie would wake her up, crawling into the top bunk. Maisie wouldn’t let Eleanor see her cry during the day, but she shook like a little baby and sucked her thumb at night. All five of them had learned to cry without making any noise. ‘It’s okay,’ Eleanor would say, hugging her. ‘It’s okay.’
Tonight, when Eleanor woke up, she knew something was different.
She heard the back door slam open. And she realized that, before she’d been quite awake, she’d heard men’s voices outside. Men cursing.
There was more slamming in the kitchen – and then gunshots. Eleanor knew they were gunshots, even though she’d never heard any before.
Gang members, she thought. Drug dealers. Rapists. Gang members who were also drug-dealing rapists. She could imagine a thousand heinous people who might have some bone to pick out of Richie’s skull – even his friends were scary.
She must have started to get out of bed as soon as she heard the gunshots. She was already on the bottom bunk, crawling over Maisie. ‘Don’t move,’ she whispered, not sure whether Maisie was awake.
Eleanor opened the window just enough to fit through. There wasn’t any screen. She climbed out and ran as lightly as she could off the porch. She stopped at the house next door – an old guy named Gil lived there. He wore suspenders with T-shirts and gave them dirty looks when he was sweeping his sidewalk.
Gil took forever to answer the door, and when he did, Eleanor realized she’d used up all her adrenaline knocking.
‘Hi,’ she said weakly.
He looked mean and mad as spit. Gil could dirty-look Tina right under the table, and then he’d probably kick her.
‘Can I use your phone?’ she asked. ‘I need to call the police.’
‘What?’ Gil barked. His hair was oiled down, and he even wore suspenders with his pajamas.
‘I need to call 911,’ she said. She sounded like she was trying to borrow a cup of sugar. ‘Or maybe you could call 911 for me? There are men in my house with … guns. Please.’
Gil didn’t seem impressed, but he let her in. His house was really nice inside. She wondered if he used to have a wife – or if he just really liked ruffles. The phone was in the kitchen. ‘I think there are men in my house,’ Eleanor told the 911 operator. ‘I heard gunshots.’
Gil didn’t tell her to leave, so she waited for the police in his kitchen. He had a whole pan of brownies on the counter, but he didn’t offer her any. His refrigerator was covered with magnets shaped like states, and he had an egg timer that looked like a chicken. He sat at the kitchen table and lit a cigarette. He didn’t offer her one of those either.
When the police pulled up, Eleanor walked out of the house, feeling silly suddenly about her bare feet. Gil shut the door behind her.
The cops didn’t get out of their car. ‘You called 911?’ one of them asked.
‘I think there’s somebody in my house,’ she said shakily. ‘I heard people yelling and gunshots.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Hang on a minute, and we’ll go in with you.’
With me, Eleanor thought. She wasn’t going back in there at all. What was she going to say to the Hells Angels in her living room?
The police officers – two big guys in tall black boots – parked and followed her up onto the porch.
‘Go ahead,’ one said, ‘open the door.’ ‘I can’t. It’s locked.’
‘How’d you get out?’ ‘The window.’
‘Then go back through the window.’
The next time Eleanor called 911, she was going to request cops who wouldn’t send her alone into an occupied building. Did firemen do this, too? Hey, kid, you go in first and unlock the door.
She climbed in the window, climbed over Maisie (still sleeping), ran into the living room, opened the front door, then ran back to her room and sat on the bottom bunk.
‘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.’
