‘She’s an accountant and has worked at the same firm for nine years but is taking annual leave for an upcoming trip to New Zealand. They have a chocolate border collie at home and were so sad to leave him at the kennels while they were away on their last trip. Who calls a dog Donald?’

‘A Trump fan,’ he says.

‘Ugh.’ Four hundred and thirty dollars, I remind myself. ‘Might need to burn sage after they leave.’

Cain, who is, as far as I know, politically agnostic, stands now. ‘They’ll be fine.’

‘Maybe we don’t do this with each guest,’ I say with an uneasy squeezing feeling inside. ‘I don’t think it makes me feel any better.’

‘Really?’ He laughs. ‘You don’t find this interesting? Kind of fun? It’s harmless.’

I swallow. ‘Fun? Really?’ It doesn’t feel like we are looking into the internet at them but rather they’re looking out at us. I shudder.

‘You like it,’ he says. ‘I can tell.’

•

When the weekend comes around, he does it again. Only this time I catch him in the act, at his desk in the study. I head in to ask if he needs anything from the grocer and see he’s on their social media feeds. I lean against his desk.

‘At it again?’ I say.

‘Just checking up on them,’ he says. ‘They’re there now at our place.’

On Cherry’s Instagram there are photos from in our house. Grinning, sitting around our table, using our Yahtzee set, and drinking the wine we left out for them from our glasses.

‘I think you’re a voyeur,’ I tease.

‘Maybe I am,’ he says. ‘I’m not going to pretend I don’t find it interesting.’

‘Am I pretending that I don’t find it interesting?’

‘You seem to be.’

He opens up the electricity app. Bar graphs spread on the page showing time of usage for the day.

‘The information is out there, they are putting it out there. And it’s important for us to make sure they’re looking after the house. Like this,’ he says, looking at the power app closely. ‘They’ve been using power since yesterday afternoon, so we know they arrived and made it inside.’

‘The power peaked this morning for an hour at ten,’ I note, looking closely at the bars.

‘It must have been the oven, or the heater,’ he says. I can see why some people like to watch others, just for a short while; inhabit them in a way as if they’re watching their favourite TV show, or reading a familiar book. They can be that person for a while to escape themselves. But there is a line, and when you cross that line you’re no longer doing due diligence but stalking.

‘Don’t overthink it,’ he says, turning back to me. ‘It’s natural to be curious.’