Page 37 of The Quiet Tenant

I asked what he meant.

After she’s born, he said. What if I can’t do it?

I was about to ask if he meant “it” as in being a father or “it” as in what he was about to do to me.

And then I had my response, I suppose, when he did “it.” Trying to prove something to himself.

It was the great enigma of his life, what he did to me, and he wasn’t done solving it.

If he had let me, I would have told him not to worry. I would have told him that if I had to guess, he would go on doing it for a very long time.

CHAPTER 23

Emily

I wasn’t going to text him so soon. I wanted to wait a day or two, maybe three.

Lying on my bed, freshly back from dinner service, I unlocked my phone and looked up facts about red-tailed hawks. Once I found what I was looking for, I started typing. I stopped. Hesitated. I resumed typing.

“Hi! It’s Emily (your cocoa conspirator). Thanks again for all your help today. By the way, did you know a red-tailed hawk can lift a dog up to twenty pounds?”

I added a “:O.” My thumb hovered over the delete key. Was Aidan an emoticon guy? I had no way of guessing where he fell on that spectrum, and I wasn’t prepared to get it wrong. Delete. Delete.

I proofread the message once, then twice, then a couple more times until the words stopped making sense. I changed my “hi” into a “hey”—more casual. I removed “(your cocoa conspirator).” I agonized some more. What if I bothered him? What if giving me his number was nothing more than a business gesture? What if, when he said, “In case you ever need anything,” he meant,If you need your electricity fixed I’ll take care of it in exchange for money, as that is my job?

I closed my eyes. When I opened them back up, I was holding my breath. I kept holding it as I hit “send.” The message did a littlewoopas it soared from my phone to his.

It’s been fifteen minutes. No answer. No “read.” Just a note that the text has been delivered. I don’t even know if I regret sending it. My brain is burned out on anxiety.

In the bathroom, I remove my makeup. Take off my uniform, drop my starched button-down and black slacks on the tile. Steam fills the room.

I won’t think about him.That’s what I tell myself as I step under the stream. As my hands brush my hair back. As my fingers travel overmy breasts, down my waist, between my legs.I won’t think about him,but I do, all the time. I carry a yearning inside me, and sometimes it feels good to let it swallow me.

I rub the places that make me forget everything. In the shower, in this moment, I am not a lovesick puppy. I am a woman who knows her body, knows how to make it feel good. My ribs expand and fall. My palm presses against the wall. The things I see, quick and elusive like moths: his shirt lifting when he reached for the jar of granulated sugar; the place I wanted to kiss, where his neck meets his collarbone; his hands on the table, hovering next to mine; his hands grabbing me, touching me, molding me to his image. My entire self folding into his. I shudder, whisper his name to myself. Somewhere in my brain registers the faint hope that the smacking of the water on the tile will drown me out.

I open my eyes. I’m alone again. I soap myself, wash and rinse my hair, watch the foam trickle into the drain. When I step out, I tell myself I’m going to take my time before I check my phone. I wrap myself in a towel, start combing my hair until I can’t stand it any longer. What the fuck am I doing, standing here with my phone just feet away? Trying to play it cool for a nonexistent audience? I stumble out of the bathroom and back into my room. The phone is on my bed, screen down. My palms sweat as I bring it to life, my thumb on the home button.

“Twenty pounds? Whoa! And you’re very welcome. Pleasure was all mine.”

There’s a “:)” followed by his signature, a simple “A.”

I go to bed with my heart thrumming in my ears.

CHAPTER 24

The woman in the house

You wait for him to quiz you about the pads. For his hand around your arm, shaking you. For the urgency of his voice demanding answers. He brings you downstairs for breakfast, then for dinner. You wait and you wait and nothing comes.

Does he not know? Did he not see?

Are there no cameras, or did he just not check?

Or is he testing you? Does he know, and is he waiting to unmask you?

But his attention isn’t on you. When Cecilia’s not looking, and even at times when she is, he keeps taking out his phone and checking it under the table. Every once in a while, he types a few words and puts it away just as quickly.

You’re not even halfway through dinner, and already he’s done it five times. Right after he placed a roast chicken at the center of the table and called out for his kid. After he carved the bird, meticulously, with a giant fork and knife. After he asked you—made a show of asking you, really—if you preferred a breast or a leg. (You said leg, please. You need all the calories you can get. You have no stomach space to waste on lean protein.) And now, every time Cecilia looks down at her plate, every time she reaches for the water pitcher, his eyes dart to the screen.

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