In the morning it was as if it never happened.
I put my ear to the floor to hear what my parents were screaming to each other just one floor below, my father's bass voice carrying the violent strains of an anguished song with a treble refrain following after from my mother. All was muffled except the words "what's wrong with you" which I could hear only because they were shouted louder than the rest, by my father.

With a desk chair leaning just under the door knob of my bedroom door I doubted that my father's rage could find its way to me. Afterall, I was in the room in the new addition. My father would have to pass by both my sisters' and my brother's room before finding me. Rage like his didn't wait and I figured he'd try someone else's door first - but he never did. My father directed all his rage at my mother.

I left the chair there just the same and climbed back into bed. Knock knock knock I heard fainly through the wall next to my pillow. Knock knock scrape, tap tap tap, I answered with my index finger. It was my twin asking me by her knock if I could hear the fighting, too. "I love you, A-dri-ennne", I sounded out with three slower taps followed by three stoccato taps. She replied with the same rhythm because my name has three syllables, too.

I was smiling now and thought she might be, too, sharing the comfort of knowing we weren't really alone. Sleep would help me forget and drown out the sound that still floated through my floor filling my room.

I welcomed the sleep and surrendered to it.