Chapter 4 - I Heard His Boots Stop on the Wood Floor
The air in the storage room had gone still after the lock clicked. I could hear my own breathing too loud in my ears. The fluorescent tube over the shelves buzzed and made everything look gray. Grandma had her arm around my shoulders and she kept me close against her side where her apron was soft.
I pressed my cheek into her dress. The concrete under my shoes was cold straight through my socks. I tried not to cry because Melanie had said I was acting like a problem, and I didn't want to give her another reason. Grandma's hand moved slow up and down my arm.
Then we heard it. A thump from a long way off. Then another sound, lower. The front door.
I knew that sound. Dad always pushed the door a little hard and it stuck on the weather strip before it gave. I lifted my head. Grandma went still too. We both listened.
Footsteps crossed over us. Heavy boots on the wood in the foyer. They stopped. I counted in my head, waiting for him to call out like he always did when he got home from a trip. My chest felt tight.
Grandma leaned down close to my ear. Her breath was warm. "Go on, honey," she whispered. "Call loud as you can."
I was scared to make noise. Melanie was still out there in the hallway. I thought if I yelled she would open the door and be madder. But I thought about Dad upstairs with his tan bag in his right hand, looking around the empty house. I swallowed and the air tasted like dust and plastic bins.
I gathered all my breath until my stomach hurt. I turned my face up toward the pipes in the ceiling where the sound might get through.
"Dad, we're in here," I called. My voice came out muffled and shaky and too small at first. The walls swallowed it.
I tried again, louder. "Dad, we're in here."
For a second there was nothing. Just the buzz of the light. Then, faint through the floor and the shut door, I heard him. "Claire?"
My whole body shook. He'd heard me. Grandma squeezed my shoulder hard and nodded for me to keep going.
"Dad," I cried. I didn't have other words. The tears I'd been holding back spilled over and my voice broke. I hated how fearful I sounded, thin against the concrete.
Upstairs his boots moved. I could track them. A few quick steps across the foyer toward the hallway that led to the basement stairs. I pictured the staircase, the warm dim light by the front door with the glass panels, him setting down his duffel bag.
Then another set of footsteps came fast. Lighter shoes. Melanie. I knew the click her shoes made. She must have been waiting upstairs, listening like we were.
I heard voices through the ceiling, muffled. I couldn't make out every word, but I knew her tone. The stern, controlled one she used when she wanted Dad to believe her. She was talking over him, cutting in before he could call again or come down.
Grandma pressed her forehead to the side of my head. "He knows," she whispered. "He knows we're down here now."
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I nodded, but I kept staring at the locked door. The gap underneath showed the warm hallway light. A shadow moved across it. Melanie's shoes stopped right outside. She wasn't opening it. She was standing there, blocking.
I held Grandma's hand with both of mine. Down here the room was cold and bright and smelled like old boxes. Up there, Dad was close enough that I'd heard him say my name. The floor between us felt so thin and so heavy at the same time. I didn't yell again because I was afraid Melanie would hear me first. I just waited, listening to his boots shift and her voice keep going, and I prayed he wouldn't listen to her.
