He’d spent half of every night listening to his father move just beyond the door, like a wolf in the woods behind the house. A predator, circling too near. But the Russos’ place was quiet, calm, and Eli lay awake, marveling at the way eight bodies under one roof could take up less space than two.

The quiet didn’t last.

At some point Eli must have drifted off, because he started awake to raucous laughter and morning light and a pair of wide green eyes watching him from the edge of the couch. The youngest Russo girl perched there, staring at him with a mixture of interest and suspicion.

Four loud bodies came crashing suddenly into the room, a cacophony of limbs and noise. It was Saturday, and already the Russo children were running wild. Eli spent most of the time trying to stay out of their path, but it was hard in such a crowded house.

“Weirdo,” said one of the boys, knocking into him on the stairs.

“How long is he staying?” asked another.

“Don’t be un-Christian,” warned Mr. Russo.

“Gives me the creeps,” said the oldest boy.

“What’s wrong with you?” demanded the youngest girl.

“Nothing,” answered Eli, though he wasn’t sure if that was true.

“Then act normal,” she ordered, as if that were such a simple thing.

“What does normal look like?” he asked, at which point the girl made a small, exasperated sound and stormed away.

Eli waited for someone to come and get him, take him away—though he didn’t know where they would take him—but the day passed, and darkness fell, and he was still there. That first night was the only one he spent alone. They put him in the boys’ room after that, a spare mattress tucked in one corner. He lay there, listening to the other boys sleep with a mixture of annoyance and envy, his nerves too fine-tuned to let him rest among the various sounds of movement.

Eventually he got up and went downstairs, hoping to steal a few precious hours of stillness on the sofa.

Mr. and Mrs. Russo were in the kitchen, and Eli heard them talking.

“Something’s not right with that boy.”

Eli hovered in the hall, holding his breath.

“He’s too quiet.”

Mrs. Russo sighed. “He’s been through a lot, Alan. He’ll find his way.”

Eli returned to the boys’ room, climbed back into his bed. There, in the dark, the words repeated.

Quiet. Weirdo. Creep.

He’ll find his way.

Act normal.

Eli didn’t know what normal was, or even what it looked like. But he’d spent a lifetime studying his father’s moods and his mother’s silences, the way the air in the house changed like the sky before a storm. Now he watched the way the Russo boys roughhoused, noted the fine line between humor and aggression.