Page 52 of The Tenant
“Open?”
“Unlocked, I mean.”
“Does he usually leave it unlocked?”
“I have no idea.”
“So when you noticed it was unlocked, you went in?”
I nod. “I just wanted to make sure he was okay, but then I saw there was some food he left on the kitchen counter. And I saw the light on in the bathroom, and I…”
I find myself getting choked up. I don’t know why. I didn’t even like that bastard.
“It’s okay.” The officer taps at the screen of the iPad and stuffs it back in his jacket. “I think that’s enough.”
I nod, unable to speak.
“I’ll be giving his daughter a call,” he tells me. “I’ll let her know what happened.”
“Mr. Zimmerly had a daughter?”
“Looks like it,” he confirms. “She lives all the way out in California. Guess they didn’t see each other much.”
I never saw one person coming in or out of Mr. Zimmerly’s house in the time I’ve known him. Certainly not a woman young enough to be his daughter. (Although I suppose given his age, any daughter would be at least in her sixties.) He had a whole family I never knew about, yet it seemed nobody cared about him at all.
Somehow, I think about Krista. And how I imagined building a life with her. Without her, I have nobody. The same way Mr. Zimmerly had nobody.
Great. I’m going to end up bitter and alone and obsessed with garbage until one day, I drop dead in my own bathroom.
As soon as the last of the entourage leaves my block, I take out my phone. I tap out a message to Krista:
Mr. Zimmerly died.
I am heartened by the fact that a few bubbles appear on the screen, indicating that she might be responding. Although I have been fooled by those bubbles before.
But then a response pops up:
I’m sorry. Are you OK?
Kind of shaken. At least I don’t have to worry about the garbage bins anymore.
She writes back:
Silver lining.
She’s talking to me. This is a really good sign. Maybe she’s done having her space and she’s ready to come back. While I’ve got her attention, I type into the screen:
I miss you.
The bubbles appear again. They flash on the screen over and over as I stand there, holding my breath, waiting for her to respond.
But she never does.
31
I’m at the laundromat.
It’s not my favorite place to be, especially after I spent most of last night tossing and turning, having nightmares about finding Mr. Zimmerly’s dead body. But I don’t have much of a choice. I don’t have Krista to wash my clothes at work anymore, and I can’t trust my own washer and dryer.
