Sometimes I think nobody but me knows how thin the walls of this house really are.

"Where's he live?" says Dad, shouts Dad, and Mom answers much more quietly – maybe she does know how thin the walls are. No, no, because she was yelling a minute ago, too. Saying bad words, bad words that Uncle Merle says a lot but that I'm not allowed to say.

I'm in my room, on my bed.

"Leah, I swear to God –"

"What're you gonna do, Daryl, you gonna kill him?"

Then one of Daddy's long, growling sounds. Like a yell, with closed teeth. One of the worst sounds I ever hear him make.

I'm sitting cross-legged. My fingers start moving across my knees.

Mom says something after a minute. Something like Forget it, I think.

"Why? So you can keep invitin' him back over here, let him do shit like this to ya some more?"

Mom whispering.

"You 'spect me to believe that?"

My fingers start going faster, start moving from my knees and along my bedspread. "Nocturne," Billy Joel. My teacher Ms. Rosen knows every piano song and can teach me any of them, too, and so Mom asked her to teach me some Billy Joel, Mom's favorite, so that's what I'm learning now. Nocturne. The word, it means something about night. Dark. Dark like how it is outside? Or dark like how it feels inside, inside of me?

My fingers play it out, still a little clumsy, still learning. I want to play our real piano, want to hear the music, but the piano's in the living room, and it's war in there right now.

"I know how this works!" Dad yells. "You say it's all done and over, he comes knockin' on your door, swears it'll never happen again, and you let him back in and pretend everything's just fine!"

"Oh, yeah, sounds like me, doesn't it?"

"I'm sure as hell beginnin' to think so!"

"Damn you, Daryl, I'm not your –"

When two people suddenly go quiet in the middle of an angry moment, it's never good. I wonder if I'm still going home with Dad after this. It's his weekend. This is Saturday, he had to come a day late, but it's still his weekend. These fingers will pull triggers instead of pushing keys. Or pretending to push keys.

One of them needs to start talking. Or just end things right here and go on.

I hear Mom. Then Dad. He says my name, I catch that much. Mom says some more, she's back to whispering. Then Dad says something, louder. Then Mom says something louder, too. No more whispering, no, it's starting again –

". . . hide this from me?" snaps Dad.

"It's my life, Daryl!"

"And that's my kid in that room!"

"I just told you, he's not coming back! He's never getting near her again!"

"You just – You shoulda told me, Leah! You shoulda called me and told me the second he did it!"

"So you could do something that would put you in prison? So you could see Sydney even less? What would have been the point?"

"Keepin' you safe! Keepin' her safe!"

"Sydney is safe!"

"Tell that to your black eye!"

Faster, fingers, faster. Things feel better when they move faster, and I'm not being so clumsy now, no, the music's flowing. Flowing. Or getting there.

Bad quiet, then Mom talking in a normal tone. I catch the words back again. And maybe never, before that. I hope so. Like she said a minute ago – not coming back, never getting near me again . . . never again, Shawn. Never come back again.

Dad'll kill you if you do.

Dad speaks low. The one word I hear, crystal clear? Kill.

Mom laughs in a bad way. Says something in a bad way, bad like sad, not angry.

Dad answers, sounding kind of like her. Just tired, I guess, that might be a good way of explaining it.

I hear them go into the kitchen. Not much talking now, just a few mutters. Clinking glass. Drinks. They have drinks together a lot. Dad'll have just one, because he's driving me to his place. Mom, I don't know. Sometimes she just has one. Sometimes she has more. Wonder if Dad knows about that.

Me, I play Nocturne. I hear it. Hear it like Billy Joel plays it on Mom's record, and I know my fingers can't draw out those sounds for real yet, I know that, but someday they will.

Then Dad, from the living room. "Sydney! C'mon, we got some huntin' to do . . ."

My fingers fall from my pretend piano, stop making Billy Joel music that I can't even make real yet, even though I will, I will . . . and maybe, maybe I'll let Dad hear me then.

But for now I just grab my bag from the floor and leave Nocturne behind. Because with Dad, I'm Sydney Rose, hunter, tomboy, Little Bit, his tough girl. Not the girl who sits on a bed playing pretend piano. He doesn't know that girl. He doesn't know that me.