Page 11 of The Quiet Tenant

“What else?”

You lower the pitch of your voice, enrich it with the round inflections of fervor. He needs something from you, and he has taught you, time and time again, how to give it to him.

“You found me.” You offer up the rest without him having to ask. “All I know is what you have taught me. All I have is what you have given me.”

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

“I was lost,” you recite. “You found me. You gave me a roof.” The next sentence is a gamble. If you lean in too hard, he will see the strings behind your magic trick. But if you hold back, he will remain out of your reach.

“You keep me alive.” You pick up the Tupperware again as evidence. “I’d be dead without you.”

He traces the outline of his wedding band, twists it around his finger a couple of times. Takes it off and puts it back on.

A man free to roam the world, locked in a garden shed. A man who met a woman, held her hand, got down on one knee, convinced her to marry him. A man so determined to control the elements, and still he lost her. Now his world has fallen apart, but in the rubble of his life, he still has you.

And he still has a daughter.

“What’s her name?”

He looks at you likeWhat are you talking about?You point toward the house.

“Why do you care?”

If telling the truth were an option in the shed, you’d say,You wouldn’t get it. It’s embedded in you, once you’ve been a girl. You pass them on the street. You hear their laughs. You feel their pain. You want to lift them into your arms and carry them over to the end point, sparing their feet from the thorns that drew blood from your own.

Every girl in the world is a little bit me, and every girl in the world is a little bit mine. Even yours. Even the one that’s half you.

I care,you would tell him,because I need the part of you that made her. You would never kill your own daughter, would you?

You sit in silence. Let him believe what he needs to believe.

His left hand curls into a fist. He presses it against his forehead, squeezes his eyes shut for a moment.

You watch, unable to take another breath. Whatever he sees at the back of his eyelids, your life depends on it.

His eyes open.

He’s with you again.

“She can’t start asking questions because of you.”

You blink. With an impatient sigh, he tilts his head in the direction of the outside world—in the direction of the house.

His kid. He’s talking about his kid.

You try to resume breathing, but you’ve forgotten how.

“I’ll tell her you’re an acquaintance. A friend of friends. Renting out a spare room.”

His speech ramps up as he explains. This is him: Hesitant, until he convinces himself of his own invincibility. Then he commits and never looks back.

He tells it to you like it was all his idea. Like you never planted a seed, never made a suggestion. He’ll move you to the new house in the middle of the night. No one will see. You will have a room. You will spend most of your time in that room. You will be handcuffed to a radiator, except to eat, shower, and sleep. There will be breakfast most mornings, lunch on some weekends, dinner most nights. You will have to skip a meal here and there. No tenant, no matter how friendly or needy, would eat with her landlord and his daughter all of the time.

At night, you will sleep handcuffed to the bed. He will visit you, as always. That part won’t change.

You will be quiet. Through it all, you will be very quiet.

You will speak to his daughter only at mealtimes, just enough to ward off suspicion. This is what the meals are for: he will make you accessible to her, so you will lose your allure. She will not be intrigued by you. You will become a part of her life—a boring one, one she won’t even think to question.

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