Each morning at five o’clock, I knock on her door to find her dressed and sitting on her bed ready to go to the stables and do her work. She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t answer me when I say something. Just obediently gets to her feet and walks ahead of me to the stables as if she were the prisoner and I were her guard.

Seeing her sitting on the bed is unnerving. I still haven’t given her her makeup so her face is still free of it, but where before she was taking care of herself, showering, brushing her hair, changing her clothes, everything is different now.

If I don’t tell her she needs to shower and stand there to watch her do it, she doesn’t. She simply strips off her clothes—the same jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt she’s worn every fucking morning to clean the stables—and gets back into bed to sleep until evening when Lois can get her downstairs to eat the little bit she’ll eat. The only time she changes into clean clothes is when Lois or Miriam take the dirty ones to wash.

Her hair is losing its gloss. I’m not sure when she last brushed it. I have tried to, but she screams bloody murder when I go near her, so I stopped. Her skin too, for as much sleep as she’s getting, has grown sallow, dark circles appearing under her sad, distant eyes.

A part of me, the one that sounds exactly like my grandfather, tells me it’s fine. That she’s trying to manipulate me with this little show of rebellion. This is the voice that worries me. That has made me swear to never marry. And watching Mercedes come undone so completely, it’s just evidence that I’m right. Proof of what I can do. What I’m capable of.

I call her my little monster. There’s a certain affection that comes with that. I don’t know if she realizes that.

But what I am? Inside me lives the real monster, the true beast. And I need to keep very tight hold of the reins because it cannot be allowed to breathe. It’s why I’m so disciplined in every aspect of my life.

It’s Sunday evening, exactly two weeks after the night of her punishment. I carry two large boxes into the house. A rush order. My peace offering. She’ll probably think it comes from the money Santiago is paying me to look after her, but the truth is, there is no money, no payment. I refused it. I’m wondering now if I should have told her the truth about it. Or at least not let her believe an untruth. But it was another way to keep her at arm’s length, and I need all the help I can get with that when it comes to Mercedes.