Page 26 of The Quiet Tenant

I wanted to tell him that wouldn’t be a problem, that I wasn’t dying to make friends with some random woman anyway. But that wouldn’t have been nice. And my dad, he’s a nice person. What he’s doing right now, helping out Rachel, that’s a nice thing, especiallyright after my mom—his wife—died. So I told him okay. I told him I’d do my best.

I’m not stupid. I know it’s not exactly normal to move a stranger into your house the minute your spouse dies. So at first, I thought for sure Rachel must have been his girlfriend or something. I’ve seen movies. I watch a good amount of TV. I know what husbands do after their wives die. They move on. Granted, I didn’t expect my dad to move on that fast, but it’s not like I had a say.

But then I saw how they acted around each other, and I realized I had it all wrong. I remember how my parents used to hold hands, how she called him “honey,” how they would look at each other, even after a fight. There’s none of that between my dad and Rachel. No sparks. No butterflies. Nothing.

It was unfair of me to think those things about my dad in the first place. He would never forget my mom so fast, move someone in to replace her. He loved her. We still love her so much.

The most surprising thing about Rachel so far is that I kind of like her. She’s a weirdo, for sure, but that’s not a bad thing. I’m kind of a weirdo, too, to be honest. But Rachel doesn’t talk to me the way other adults do. She asks about me and the things I like. She never mentions my mom. It’s refreshing, having someone who doesn’t treat me like a broken thing.

Before she moved in, my dad promised me her arrival wouldn’t change anything for us. Obviously, it has. Not in a bad way. But she lives with us. She eats with us. Of course things have changed. I don’t know how he could have expected them not to. He likes to think he can control those things, freeze time into place. But things are always changing.

Take this, for example: after my mom died, I had trouble eating for a while. Now, my appetite is back. Even worse: I’ve started enjoying dinner again. The three of us sit together and watchJeopardy!and for a few moments things are sort of okay.

And ever since she arrived, I haven’t felt the need to kick that poor tree as often as I used to.

I’m sure the tree’s thrilled, but me? It kills me to say that. My mom’s been dead for only a couple of months. What kind of daughter does that make me?

I’m not supposed to be done feeling sad. I’m supposed to be hurting still.

I like her, the woman in our house, but I also hate her a little bit for pulling me out of my funk.

Mainly, though, I’m just relieved she and my dad aren’t doing it.

CHAPTER 17

The woman in the house

When the house is dark, he finds you.

His process here is almost identical to what it was in the shed. He sighs. He scans you from head to toe. He doesn’t need to wait until you’re done eating or until you’ve used the bucket now. Instead, he uncuffs you, gestures for you to get onto the bed. Then, he thinks better of it and tells you to get back on the floor. You’re confused, but you obey.

A little later, you get it. He doesn’t want his daughter to hear springs creaking, the telltale thump of the bed frame against the wall.

CHAPTER 18

The woman in the house

The days are yours.

You read your paperbacks. You know them by heart now, almost entirely. You challenge yourself to recite the first chapter ofA Tree Grows in Brooklynfrom memory. You try to remember meditation sequences from your previous life, how your mind could compress the time or let it stretch.

The house is so silent without them that you sometimes hum just to make sure your ears still work.

Your life as a runner taught you skills. The key to a marathon: You do not think about the end. You do not picture the finish line. You keep moving. You exist in the present. The only way to do it: one stride at a time. It doesn’t have to be pretty. It certainly doesn’t have to be enjoyable. All that matters is that you are still alive at the end of it.

—

YOU LOOK AROUNDfor the cameras. Alone in the bedroom, and from the kitchen at mealtimes. You can’t know for sure whether he was telling the truth or making them up. You can’t see anything, but how easy would it be to hide them between two books, in the corner of a dropped ceiling, behind a kitchen cabinet? You believe he can see everything.

On weekend mornings, they depart, packed lunches in stuffed backpacks. You hear nothing but birdsong until the evening. Cecilia returns exhausted but willing to share tales of an afternoon spent hiking, exploring, wandering around a library, a museum. You mine each of her sentences for information. Cold hikes: you must be near mountains, maybe still upstate. Impossible to know for sure. Some days, she mentions the names of nearby towns. Nothing rings a bell. You could be anywhere.

She quizzes you. Cecilia. Wants to know what you’re up to whenshe’s not around. You recite the lie her father cooked up: you work remotely, doing customer service for a tech company. Around it, you make up a life for Rachel, for the person Cecilia believes you to be. Afternoons spent reading—not exactly a lie. Vague excursions to stores, the same ones you’ve heard her father mention. You stop short of giving Rachel friends or a family. You do not trust your brain to hold a cast of made-up characters, to keep up with the full stories of their lives. She’s smart. If you make a mistake, she’ll notice.

—

YOU ARE NOTallowed to touch anything, but your eyes have powers. They can travel anywhere. Like when you were a kid and your mom took you shopping:Touch with your eyes only.You let your gaze bounce around the kitchen, peer into the living room. On the bookshelf, a row of medical thrillers. You sit on the couch, head tilted, trying to decipher the titles. What are you looking for? A pattern? A theme? An explanation for who he is and what he does, tucked betweenPostmortemandThe Andromeda Strain?

It is right here, pulsing through the walls, like a quiet roar underneath the hardwood floors. The truth of him, encased in the very heart of this house.

---