Page 73 of The Quiet Tenant

“The dog. I told her to let her out every day at noon. She’ll do it. Don’t even think about it.”

What it sounds like:Don’t worry about it, she’s taking care of it.What he means:You don’t touch the doorknob, not even for the dog. You don’t use her as an excuse. You don’t try anything.

He reaches into his pocket. “And this is the final thing.”

He opens his fingers to reveal a plastic wristband with a metallic attachment. “Know what this is?”

You used to have one of those. You wore it on runs to track your mileage around Washington Square Park.

“GPS tracker?”

You say it like a question, to give him the satisfaction of explaining it to you.

“Correct.” He turns the band over to reveal a black shiny strip underneath the white plastic. Not part of the original design, you can tell. His personal addition.

“And do you know what this is?”

You shake your head no.

“Strip steel. Very resistant. You can’t cut it with scissors. So don’t try, okay? Don’t mess with it. If anything happens to it, I’ll notice.”

You nod. He sets the band aside and takes out his phone, taps an icon that brings up a map with a blue dot blinking at its center. Your eyes bounce across the screen—everything is knowledge, everything is a clue—but before you can see anything of note, he presses a button and the phone goes dark again.

“The tracker links to an app,” he says. “I can see where you are. Always.” Technology, too, has kept going without you. He has learned how to deploy it, how to use it in his favor. “If you try anything, I’ll find out,” he says. “I won’t be far.” A pause. “Remember what I do for a living?” He points toward the sky.

You tell him you do.

He gestures for you to hand him your wrist.

The band is cold against your skin. He disregards the clasp andinstead pulls the straps on top of each other, so tight your skin starts creasing.

“Don’t move,” he says. He reaches into his pocket again, takes out a tool you can’t identify. The thing clicks a couple of times before a flame rises. It’s a butane torch, but tiny, snug against his palm like the grip of a gun. Still holding your wrist, he brings the torch toward your skin. You recoil. He bites his lip. “I said don’t move.”

The flame licks the wristband. Together, you watch as the plastic melts, sealing both ends together.

“There.”

The torch switches off. You lose him for a second, your eyes no longer adjusted to the dark.

He finds you, handcuffs you to the bed. You sleep on the mattress now. Have done so ever since your recovery from the woods. The plastic pulses against your wrist, hot, a spirit clinging to you as his footsteps fade away.

—

SOMETHING DOESN’T MAKEsense to you. Why let you roam around the house at all? Sure, he has the assurances of the GPS tracker around your wrist, the constant threat of his gaze on you even from afar. But why burden himself with your moving presence at all?

After he’s gone, you lie in the dark, eyes open. You become the ceiling, a boring white expanse, flat and forgotten. You wouldn’t look at it twice, but if you removed it, the house would collapse. Everything would go wrong.

Cecilia.

What did she do, the girl who reads, the girl who says please and thank you, the girl who looks at him with so much love? The girl who wouldn’t dream of causing trouble, studious and disciplined and sweet and loyal?

What did you do, sweet summer child, that he’s terrified of leaving you out of anyone’s sight for even a few hours?

CHAPTER 48

Cecilia

He asked her to keep tabs on me. That’s obvious. I don’t blame her for doing it, and I don’t really blame him for asking. He’s a worrier, my dad. He’s even started wearing his gun indoors. “No gun in the house,” my mom used to tell him. But she’s not here to tame his paranoia anymore, so here we are.

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