Page 8 of The Quiet Tenant
You squat in a corner of the shed. Without him to bring you the bucket, you have no other choice. He’ll be furious, if he gets back. He’ll wrinkle his nose, throw a bottle of bleach in your direction.Start scrubbing and don’t stop until I can’t smell it anymore.
You try not to worry, because worrying gets in the way of staying alive.
—
HE HAS LEFTyou before. Not like this, though. Nine months into the first year, the man who kept you in the shed told you he was goingsomewhere. He brought you the bucket, a box of granola bars, and a pack of small water bottles.
“I need to leave,” he said. NotI want.NotI have to.I need.
“You will not,” he said, “do anything. You will not move. You will not scream. I know you won’t.”
He grabbed you by the shoulders. You felt the urge to wrap your hands around his. To hold on to him, just a little bit.You are Rachel. He found you. All you know is what he has taught you. All you have is what he has given you.
He shook you. You allowed the tremor to rock you. “If you try anything,” he said, “I will find out. And it won’t be good for you. Do you understand?”
You nodded. By then, you knew how to nod so that he’d believe you.
He was gone for three days and returned the happiest man on earth. A pep in his step, something like static buzzing through his limbs. He took deep, gluttonous breaths, like the air had never tasted so sweet to him.
This wasn’t the man you knew. A man of duties and responsibilities.
He did what he came to do to you. Buzzing. A little wild.
Then he told you. He didn’t say much. Just that she went along with it. That she wasperfect.That she didn’t know, until she knew, but by then it was too late.
It happened again. Right before last Thanksgiving. You knew because he brought you leftovers. Has done so every year. You don’t know if he knows that’s how you keep track of time. You suspect he hasn’t thought about it.
That’s two, total. Two he killed while he let you live. Two now added to the rule while you remained the exception.
Each time he left you, he prepped. This time, he gave you nothing. Did he forget about you? Did he find another project to devote himself to?
—
WITHOUT HIS VISITS,it’s hard to count the days. You think his truck signals when he leaves in the morning and when he returns at night, but you can’t be sure. Your body tells you when to sleep andwhen to wake up. Palm against the wall, you try to feel the warmth of the sun and the cold of the night. Based on your estimates, one day goes by, then another.
By the end of what feels like day two, your mouth is lined with sandpaper. Bats zoom around your brain. You suck on your fingers to make saliva, lick the wall of the shed in search of condensation, anything to relieve the thirst. Soon you are just a body, a skull and a spine and a pelvis and feet lying flat on the wooden slats, your skin clammy, your breath labored.
Maybe he overestimated your resilience. Maybe he’ll kill you without meaning to. He’ll return, open the shed, and find you cold and unresponsive, as you were always meant to be.
On what you tell yourself is day three, the padlock rattles. He’s a silhouette in the doorframe, bucket in one hand, a bottle in the other. You should sit up, snatch the water away, unscrew the cap, and drink, drink, drink until the world comes back into focus. But you can’t. He has to come to you, kneel at your side, position the neck of the bottle against your lips.
You swallow. Wipe your lips with the back of your hand. He doesn’t look like himself. Most days, he’s a man who takes care of his appearance. Nicks from a manual razor turn up on his cheekbones and down his neck. His hair smells of lemongrass. His teeth are white, his gums healthy. You’ve never seen him do it, but you can tell he flosses assiduously, every morning or every night, a swish of mouthwash to finish the job. But tonight, he looks rough. His beard is unkempt. His gaze bounces, unfocused, from one end of the shed to the other.
“Food?”
Your voice comes out raspy. He shakes his head no.
“She’s still up. Packing.”
You assume he means his daughter.
“So there’s nothing? Nothing at all?”
You’re pushing your luck, you know, but it’s been three days, and without the thirst numbing your body, you feel it all, the hollowness of hunger below your rib cage, the soreness in your back, a thousand alarm bells pointing to the broken parts of you.
He holds up his hands. “What? You think I can microwave a TV dinner and walk out the door and she won’t ask any questions?”
The food he brings you is always one part of a whole. A portion of lasagna, a bowl of stew, the center square of a casserole. Meals that can go missing unnoticed. Much more discreet than a slice of pizza, a whole cheeseburger, the leg of a roasted chicken. For all this time he’s been cooking in bulk, squirreling away parts of his dishes and bringing them to you. It’s one of the ways he’s found to keep you a secret.
