Chapter 2 - Stay Quiet and Stay Small
The vacuum clicked off and the room got too quiet.
One second there was that loud hum filling up my ears, and then there was nothing but the rain at the windows and Noah breathing small against my back. Mr. Daniel's hand was still on the switch. He didn't pull it back right away. His knees cracked a little when he went down on the rug in front of me, his suit pants pulling tight. Close up, he looked tired. Not mad-tired. The kind of tired Mom got at the diner after doubles.
I could smell dust and warm lamp light and the rubber of the hose. My bare feet were cold on the rug. Noah's weight pulled on my shoulders through the blue shawl. I kept holding the little cleaning cloth out because I didn't know what else to do with my hands.
"I was fixing it," I said.
He looked at the cloth, then at me. His eyes moved slow from my face to Noah's leg tucked in the shawl to the gray tank of the vacuum behind me.
"What were you fixing?" he said. His voice was low. He didn't whisper, but he talked like the walls were listening.
I pointed with the cloth at the spot by the desk leg. "Spill. Crumbs. I didn't want it to stain."
It was true and not true. There had been crumbs earlier, from the crackers I'd brought up from the kitchen trash that afternoon when nobody was home. I'd tried to pick them up with my fingers, but they kept grinding into the rug. That was why I'd dragged the big vacuum out of the closet. It was too heavy. The hose had banged the desk when I pulled it.
He stood back up and checked. That was the worst part, having to stand there while he did it. He walked around the vacuum first, bent to look at the wheels, ran one finger along the black hose where it curled on the rug. Then he crouched again and pressed his palm flat on the place I'd pointed to, feeling for wet.
"Did you plug this in yourself?" he asked.
I nodded. My hair fell forward and I didn't push it back because Noah was shifting.
He went to the desk next. He didn't touch the papers, just looked. There was a lamp on with a yellow shade and a stack of envelopes and a glass with nothing in it. He checked the corner of the desk where the hose had hit, rubbed his thumb over the wood. No scratch. He breathed out through his nose.
"That thing is too big for you," he said.
"I can push it," I said fast. "I can. I'll put it back. I just wanted it clean before you saw."
He looked at me then, really looked. I tried to make myself smaller without moving. Mom always said stay quiet and stay small when you're someplace you shouldn't be. I tucked my toes under the hem of my cream dress so he wouldn't stare at my dirty feet.
"How long have you been in this house?" he asked.
My stomach dropped. Noah made a little snuffle sound in his sleep, the kind he makes right before he wakes up hungry. I felt it through the shawl on my neck. I put my hand back over his bottom through the fabric and patted, the way I'd practiced, one-two, one-two, don't bounce.
"Please don't call," I whispered.
He didn't say yes. He didn't say no. He glanced at the windows where the rain was sliding down the glass, blue from outside, then back at the wall behind me. At the bookcase. I felt his attention leave my face.
"Stay right here," he said.
He stepped past me. I turned my head to watch because I couldn't help it. My eye had kept going there too, even while the vacuum was on. That tall dark wood with all the books sleeping in it. In the middle, between two shelves, there was a thin line going straight down, darker than the rest. Not a crack. Too straight for a crack.
Mr. Daniel stopped two steps away from it. He didn't touch it. He just stood and listened. I held my breath and patted Noah at the same time.
Then Noah woke up.
It wasn't a big cry. It was that tight whimper he does with his mouth still closed, his legs kicking once inside the shawl. The faded blue fabric pulled at my shoulders. I could feel his bald head hot against my back. I swayed side to side, tiny, on the rug, and shushed without any voice, just air through my teeth.
"Shh, shh. I'm here. I'm here," I breathed. Barely sound at all.
Mr. Daniel turned around fast. For a second he forgot the bookcase. He watched my hand patting, watched how I bent my knees a little to rock Noah.
"He's hungry?" he whispered.
I shook my head, then nodded, because both were true. He wasn't starving-crying yet, but he would be soon. His cheek rubbed my dress through the shawl. I smelled baby sweat and old milk.
Mr. Daniel looked from us to the door, which was still half open to the dark hall, then to the vacuum sitting dead on his nice rug. He put his hands in his pockets and took them out again, like he couldn't decide what to do with them.
"Sit down," he said, pointing at the edge of the rug. "Right there. Keep him quiet. Don't touch anything else. I need to think."
I sat. The rug was rough under my legs. The cleaning cloth was still bunched in my fist, damp now from my palm. Noah settled a little with the rocking, his whimper fading into sucking sounds against the fabric.
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Mr. Daniel didn't leave the study. He didn't pick up a phone. He walked to the window and stood there with his back to us, rain tapping, lamp light making his shadow long across the desk.
I stared at his shoes and kept rocking, and tried not to look again at that straight dark line in the wood.
