Eleanor and Park: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

At first, Park thought he was imagining things, but now he knows without a doubt that each day, on the bus, Eleanor is reading his comics along with him. Park feels he should say something to her to ease the “irrevocably weird” and silent situation between them—after all, they do sit together for an hour each day—but he is too intimidated.

The narrative switches to Eleanor’s point of view—she arrives home from school to find her mother looking tired, like she is “crumbling at the edges.” As soon as the other little kids get home, Sabrina kicks them all out of the house—Eleanor included—for making too much noise. Eleanor walks past Richie’s Rottweiler, Tonya, and follows her siblings to a little playground across the street, even though she wishes she could take a bath during the precious time when Richie isn’t home.

As Eleanor asks her siblings questions about their home life and how they feel about Richie, Ben tells her that they all call him “Dad” now simply because “he’s married to Mom.” Eleanor asks if Ben feels like Richie is his dad, but Ben admits he doesn’t know what having a dad is “supposed to feel like.” Ben asks Eleanor what it was like living with “those people”—last year, Eleanor went to stay with the Hickmans, friends of Sabrina’s. Eleanor says that it was “okay” staying with them, but privately thinks that the Hickmans’ was better than home. Eleanor was only supposed to stay for a few days, but wound up staying a year.

Eleanor looks around the playground for Maisie, who has gone off with the baby, and sees her sitting over near the basketball courts—the “stupid Asian kid” from the bus is playing, and Eleanor leaves the playground as soon as she sees him, warning Ben to look after the others. When Eleanor walks in the front door of the house, Richie is in the living room—she walks past him without saying a word, her “eyes straight ahead.”