Chapter 3 - The Laundry Door Was Open
He didn't get up off the rug. That was the first thing I kept thinking about. His knees were on my cleaning path and his suit was getting dust on it and he didn't seem to care.
Noah breathed against my neck, warm and wet. The vacuum hummed low beside us until Mr. Daniel reached out and turned the knob all the way. Click. Then the room went so quiet I could hear the rain hitting the big windows.
"Okay," he said, quiet. "No cleaning right now. Just talking."
I squeezed my cloth tight. My hands were shaking and I tried to make them stop.
"How did you get in my house?" he asked.
I didn't answer at first. I looked at the door behind him. It was still open a crack and the hallway was dark. I thought if I ran I could make it, but not with Noah on my back and my feet bare. I couldn't run fast enough.
He saw me looking. "I'm not going to grab you," he said.
I believed him a little because he stayed kneeled down. Grown-ups who are going to grab you don't stay kneeled down.
I pointed with my chin because my hands were full. "That side," I whispered. "Where it smells like soap."
He frowned. "The laundry room?"
I nodded. I remembered because I'd counted the doors. When we came up from the sidewalk, the house was so big I thought it was an office. All the windows were dark except one yellow light by the side. There was a little gray door with a square window in it, down three concrete steps. It said something on a paper taped inside but I couldn't read it in the dark.
"It wasn't locked," I said. "It was open this much." I held up my fingers a tiny bit apart.
Mr. Daniel breathed out through his nose. He rubbed his forehead. "Mrs. Ellis," he said, like to himself. "She leaves it cracked for the morning crew."
I didn't know who that was so I didn't say anything.
"You didn't break anything to get in?" he asked.
I shook my head fast. "No. I knocked first. Real soft. Nobody answered. I pushed and it moved." My voice got smaller. "I said sorry when I came in."
He looked at me for a long time. The lamp made his face gold on one side and blue on the other from the window. He looked mad but not at me. He looked mad like when Dad used to find out the truck door wouldn't lock right.
"That door should have been latched," he said. "That's on me. That's my house."
My chest felt a little less tight. He wasn't saying I was a thief. He was saying it was his fault the door was open.
"Why this room?" he asked. "Why didn't you stay back there where it's —" He stopped.
I knew what he meant. Why didn't I stay by the laundry where nobody would see me.
"Because it was cold back there," I whispered. "And the road —" I looked toward the windows, toward the rain. "Cars kept going by. Lights kept moving on the wall. Noah kept waking up."
He glanced at the big windows, at the blue light coming through. "So you came down the hall."
"I followed the warm air," I said. "This vent." I pointed at the low vent by the desk. "It blows warm. And this room is far. No car lights. Just books."
That was true. I had walked real slow down the hallway with my hand on the wall so I wouldn't bump anything. Noah was heavy and my legs were shaking. When I saw this rug and the desk lamp left on low, I thought maybe somebody worked here and would come back. But it was warm and quiet and it smelled like wood and paper and not like rain.
Mr. Daniel looked around the study like he was seeing it new. The desk. The windows. The rug with the vacuum tracks on it.
"You've been sleeping in here?" he asked.
I nodded at the corner behind the big chair. "I folded my jacket for him. I didn't use your blanket. I didn't want to mess it."
His mouth did something sad. He stood up slow, his knees cracking. I flinched a little and he put his hands up.
"It's okay. I'm just moving this," he said.
He grabbed the handle of the big gray vacuum and rolled it careful off the rug onto the wood floor by the desk. The wheels were loud even when he tried to be quiet. Thump-thump. He stopped and looked at the door, listening. Noah stirred and made a little whine. I bounced on my toes and shushed him.
"Sorry," Mr. Daniel whispered.
He walked to the study door and pushed it shut all the way. Click. The sound was soft but it filled my whole body. Now we were closed in. Nobody in the hallway could see the light. Nobody could hear us if we were quiet.
He stood there with his hand still on the knob. I could see him thinking. His eyes went to the phone on the desk. My stomach dropped.
Please don't call, I wanted to say. But I didn't say it. I just held my cloth and looked at him.
He let go of the knob. He came back and sat down, not on the chair, but on the edge of the rug across from me, so we were the same height again.
"Listen to me," he said, low. "It's late. It's raining. I'm not putting you two out in that tonight."
My breath caught. I didn't mean for it to, it just did.
"You stay in here tonight," he said. "Quiet. No vacuum. You understand me?"
I nodded so fast my hair fell in my face. "Yes sir. I can be quiet. Noah can be quiet."
He looked at Noah over my shoulder, at how the blue shawl held him. "That knot holding?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "I check it. I always check it three times."
May you like
"Good," he said. "You keep checking it."
He didn't smile, but his voice got softer. He pulled the desk chair blanket down and held it out. For a second I thought he was going to cover us right there, and I didn't know if I should say thank you or if thanking him would make him change his mind.
