Page 72 of The Quiet Tenant

I picture him sitting in the living room, reading, watching TV. Maybe he’s lying down, scrolling through old photos of his wife on his phone, telling himself he’ll go to sleep after one more, just one more.

My muscles relax. My back settles against the driver’s seat. Even from afar, the knowledge of him soothes me. It’s not enough, but it’s something.

He’s here. He’s real. That makes me feel real, too.

A bang breaks the silence from the other side of the street. I jump, then peer through the trees. Mr.Gonzalez steps out of his house holding a garbage bag. On his way back from the trash can, he stops to adjust the string lights on the side of his house, red and yellow bulbs tracing the outline of the structure. The Gonzalezes have gone all out this year. A red-nosed reindeer grazes in the front yard. An inflatable Santa stages a break-in through a first-floor window. A large wreathhangs from the door. The house itself has been turned into one huge wrapped-up present, by way of a large red ribbon twinkling above the garage.

It’s not just the Gonzalezes. The houses nearby are all done up, blinking gold and red and green. Aidan’s home is the only one on the street without decorations.

Every December, he and his wife used to host a holiday party. My parents let me go with friends a couple of times, and I’ll never forget the lights—hanging from the roof to the ground, cascading from the gutters, aligned in neat rows, wrapping around trees, wreaths, every bush in a half-mile radius. People couldn’t stop complimenting him. He waved away their praise. “I work with electricity,” I heard him say. “It’d be embarrassing, really, if I didn’t know my way around a few string lights.”

His heart isn’t into it this year.Of course.I tug at a piece of dry skin on my lower lip.Of coursehis heart isn’t into it this year.The man’s wife died, Emily.Obviously, he doesn’t want to screw around with string lights. Obviously, he’s not feeling the Christmas spirit.

All this time, I thought something was wrong with us, with me. I didn’t stop to think that perhaps he was just sad. Grieving.

I gaze at the windows again.

Maybe he doesn’t know how to ask for help. Maybe he’s waiting for someone. A person, intuitive and stubborn, who will knock at his door again and again and again, until he has no choice but to let herin.

CHAPTER 47

The woman in the house

It is long after dinner, after the house has gone quiet. Silence, then he’s here. Sigh, zippers. You always find yourselves back to the same place, the two of you, like magnets facing opposing directions.

After, he lingers, sits next to you.

“Listen,” he says.

You listen.

“I need you to do something.”

You give yourself a few seconds. “Tell me.”

He bites the inside of his cheek. “It’s Cecilia.”

Your stomach contracts. “What about her?”

“Christmas break is starting soon.” He waits for you to react, but you’ve got nothing, so he continues. “I need you to keep an eye on her.”

You frown. “Keep an eye on her?”

He explains pointedly, like this is all very obvious and you’re making things harder, for no reason. “She’s not going to be in school. She’ll be home all day. She’s a grown kid. She doesn’t need someone to look after her or anything like that. Just…someone to be around. Know what she’s up to.”

He looks up at the ceiling. “Usually she’d spend time with her mom this time of year, but, you know. And I have to work, so.”

Cecilia. His kid who never gets a minute to herself. Who never has sleepovers, never spends time at a friend’s. Who gets ferried to and from the house the minute her classes begin and the second they end. Who spends her weekends with her dad and her evenings in front of the television.

If she had a minute to herself, she might start to think. About her father and the things he does.

“Sure,” you say. “I’ll do it.”

He smiles out of the corner of his mouth. “Well, thank you,” hesays, the irony biting at you. He wasn’t really asking. You never had a choice.

“Two more things,” he says.

You nod.

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