Eleanor and Park: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

After school, Eleanor takes a bath while her mother makes bean soup for dinner—again. Sabrina points out that Eleanor has been quiet lately, and asks her if everything is okay. Eleanor shrugs off the question, gets out of the bath, and dresses quickly. As she passes Sabrina in the kitchen, Sabrina asks Eleanor once more if she’s all right. Eleanor insists that she’s just been tired and busy with homework lately. She knows her mother won’t press the issue any further—since Eleanor has moved back home, she’s noticed that her mother “seem[s] to realize that she’[s] lost her right” to know certain things about what going on in Eleanor’s head.

Eleanor falls asleep right after dinner that night, tired from staying up all week reading Park’s comics each night. She wakes up in the middle of the night to the sounds of Richie’s shouting—and Sabrina’s crying. Eleanor can sense that all of her other siblings are already awake, sitting up nervously on the floor. Eleanor gets down on the floor with them and holds them, trying to comfort them. They all listen helplessly to the sounds of their mother’s tears and shrieks. Eleanor thinks about how in the past, she would have confronted Richie or called 911; now, though, she knows there is nothing she can do but wait the incident out.

In the morning, Eleanor wakes up to the sound of her alarm. She smells bacon, and is grateful that her mother is alive and well enough to make breakfast. Eleanor smells like pee—one of her little brothers, Mouse, wets the bed, and she fell asleep on the floor with all her siblings. Eleanor grabs her clean clothes from the day before and heads out towards the bathroom to change. She notices bruises—and a hickey—on her mother’s face and neck. Eleanor hurries into the bathroom and washes herself off, then leaves in a hurry for school without even grabbing her books from the bedroom.