Eileen

In recounting her childhood Christmas memories, the narrator describes her family’s poor eating habits, alcoholism, and her parent’s negligence in getting her and her sister gifts. Eileen buys a bottle of wine to bring to Rebecca’s that evening. She steals the last of her mother’s pain medication with plans to use it to sleep through Christmas Day. Rebecca calls to plan for the evening, and the narrator reflects on how she must have been in love with Rebecca at the time. Eileen drives to the address Rebecca gave her, carrying the pills and gun in her purse.

On her way, Eileen stops in front of a church nativity scene to steal the blanket used to wrap the false baby Jesus. She wraps the bottle of wine in the cloth, hoping to impress Rebecca. She arrives at the address, a rundown house in the poorer section of X-ville. Rebecca wears a tattered robe over her clothes and seems “tense and false” to Eileen (199). Inside, the house is cluttered and dirty. Eileen becomes uneasy with Rebecca’s disorientated and aberrant behavior and tries to leave.

Rebecca reveals that the house is actually Mrs. Polk’s, and that she has Mrs. Polk tied up in the basement. At Moorehead the previous day, Leonard confessed to Rebecca that he killed his father after years of sexual abuse, which Mrs. Polk helped to perpetuate. Rebecca’s plan is to make Mrs. Polk provide a written confession. At first, Eileen is offended that Rebecca is only using her, but helps after Rebecca insists that they are friends.

They go down to the basement. Eileen pulls the gun from her purse and threatens Mrs. Polk, reveling in Rebecca’s approval. Rebecca goes back upstairs to get a pen and paper. Meanwhile, Mrs. Polk confesses to perpetuating the abuse. She tells Eileen that though she knew what she was doing was wrong, she couldn’t conceive of asking for help or disobeying her husband’s orders. Rebecca returns and takes the gun, accidentally dropping it and shooting Mrs. Polk in the arm. Rebecca and Eileen give her the sleeping pills from Eileen’s purse.

Eileen realizes she can use this situation to disappear. She puts the now unconscious Mrs. Polk in her car and drives home, intent on finally running away from X-ville.

Eileen parks outside her house. She goes inside to retrieve her saved money, and lays her father in her mother’s bed. She does not expect Rebecca to meet her as they arranged, knowing that Rebecca is too frightened: “Idealism without consequences is the pathetic dream of every spoiled brat, I suppose” (255). As she leaves the house for the last time, an icicle breaks off from above the front door and cuts her cheek, just as she has long fantasized about. Eileen drives herself and the unconscious Mrs. Polk to the highway, then parks off the side of the road. She puts the windows up and leaves the keys in the ignition so that if Mrs. Polk continues sleeping, she will eventually asphyxiate from carbon monoxide poisoning through the faulty exhaust pipe. However, if Mrs. Polk wakes up, she can drive herself to safety.

Eileen hitchhikes to New York City. When she arrives, she walks around Times Square, then decides to see a film. In the theater, she meets the man that will be her first husband. She introduces herself as Lena and lives in a boardinghouse for women until getting married the next spring.