Chapter 4

Mara drove her on Tuesday and Thursday now.

It had not been discussed and it had not been agreed to in words. The first Tuesday after the third visit, Mara had simply said over breakfast, Steph asked if you could come twice a week, and Kiya had said yes, and that had been the end of the negotiation. Mara had rearranged a shift at the small accountancy firm where she did the books two days a week. She had told her husband she was helping her cousin. He had nodded and had not asked further. He was a kind man who had learned, long ago, that when his wife told him she was doing a thing she did not need his help to do, the right response was to let her do it.

The fourth visit was a Tuesday.

Stephanie was waiting with the bed already raised. She had asked the nurse, again, to set the chair where she wanted it. The nurse was beginning to anticipate the request and had begun to do it without being asked, which Stephanie noticed and did not comment on. The nurse’s name was Caroline. Stephanie had decided she liked her.

“Sit,” Stephanie said when Kiya came in.

Kiya sat.

“I am going to tell you about the first year of our marriage today,” Stephanie said. “I am going to tell you about how he trained me. I am going to use the word trained because that is the word for what it was and softer words would be dishonest. Are you ready.”

“Yes.”

“Kiya.”

“Yes.”

“You bought a notebook.”

Kiya’s face moved, very slightly. How does she know.

“I bought one too, when I was your age,” Stephanie said. “After our seventh date. I bought a notebook and I wrote down what he said to me, because I was nineteen and I knew that my memory would not be enough. I assumed you had bought one. You have the kind of face that buys a notebook.”

“I bought one.”

“Where do you keep it.”

“In the drawer of my nightstand.”

“Under what.”

“A sweater.”

Stephanie smiled.

“I kept mine in a hatbox on the top shelf of my closet, under three other hats. We are alike in this. Keep it well. Do not let anyone read it. Not your mother. Not anyone you may someday think you can trust. The notebook is for you.”

“All right.”

“Now. The first year.”

Stephanie shifted on the pillow. Kiya watched her settle herself with the small careful movements that had become familiar.

“He moved me into his apartment two weeks after I said the word slave out loud in the coffee shop,” Stephanie said. “It was the spring of our junior year. We were both twenty. My parents thought I was moving in with my boyfriend, which was technically true and not at all the truth. His apartment was a small one bedroom off campus. I brought two suitcases and a box of books. He had cleared half the closet and half the dresser. He had also, I noticed when I was unpacking, removed the lock from the bathroom door.”

Kiya’s hands did not move from her lap. She was listening with her whole face.

“That was the first thing he did. He did not announce it. He did not point it out. He had simply taken it off, and the screws had been filled in, and the door closed but did not lock. I noticed when I went in to take a shower on the second night and reached for the lock and it was not there. I stood in the bathroom and I looked at the door and I understood that he had done this on purpose and that he was waiting to see what I would do about it.”

She paused.

“I did nothing. I took my shower. I came out. I did not mention it. He looked at me over his book when I came out of the bathroom and he saw on my face that I had noticed and decided not to mention it, and he smiled at me. That was the first lesson. He had begun to teach me before I had asked to be taught. He had begun by removing a privacy I had taken for granted, and he had waited to see whether I would protest. I had not protested. He had filed that. He had also, I think, decided in that moment that he had not been wrong about me. We had not yet had the formal conversation about training. He had begun anyway because he was confident. I think about that often.”