The Quiet Tenant by Clémence Michallon

Author:Clémence Michallon [Michallon, Clémence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2023-06-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 36

Cecilia

When I was little, my dad taught me how to read. Every night, he would quiz me: What sound do an i and an n make, strung together? What about a double o? And a double e? Later on, he taught me words. Food words, nature words, plant words. Construction words, medical words, electricity words. One time we drove past a bunch of turkeys on the side of the road—I must have been six or seven—and he told me that was called a gang, a gang of turkeys.

I became obsessed. I went through a whole phase of wanting to know what different groups of animals were called. A swarm of bees, a quiver of cobras. He printed a list off the internet and every day he taught me a new one. A colony of bats, or a camp, or a cloud. A sloth of bears. A caravan of camels. A shadow of jaguars. We made a game of it, anytime he drove me anywhere. He’d say falcons and I’d say cast, a cast of falcons. Crocodiles? A bask of crocodiles. Rhinos? A crash. Lemurs? A conspiracy. Crows? A murder. That was my favorite one. A murder of crows. Crows are so goth. It had to be a murder.

We fight, my dad and I.

Of course we fight. He’s my dad. But I know he loves me.

Some daughters won’t ever know what it feels like to be loved this way. I hear people at school. In the stories of their lives, their dads are always in the background, working late, showing up for games and holidays like guests instead of actual parents.

Me, I’ll always know. Sometimes I think it’s the only thing I’ll know for sure in my entire life. No matter what, if I die old or young, sick or healthy, happy or miserable, married or not. If anyone asks—like if I become famous and suddenly everyone wants to know what it was like to be me before they knew my name—there’s one thing I’ll be able to say with certainty.

I will tell the world my father loved me.

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