“I know, Adrian. I totally know. That’s the problem. I was nothing before you. I was a total loser. But now what?”
“I’m not following where you’re going with this.”
“Adrian, having you love me made me normal. Better than normal. I felt like a success. Now what am I? The wife of a murderer?”
“Would you listen to yourself? Would you listen to how selfish you sound?”
“So I sound selfish. Don’t turn this back around on me. You always do that when we fight.”
“I understand this is a lot to absorb but could you quit calling me a murderer?”
“But you are.”
“I am not.”
“Is John Spade dead?”
“He is.”
“Alright.”
“But I’m not a murderer.” He ran his hands through his hair in aggravation. “What happened twenty years ago was a terrible mistake that I never should have been involved with. As for John Spade, would it have been better if I had waited at home with a loaded gun until he broke in? Would that make you feel better? Self-defense is self-defense. Our lives and our baby’s life are worth more than his life and he is the one who made me have to decide that. The past could have stayed in the past, but he didn’t want to let it. I can forgive myself. I did what I had to do for us. For me and for you. For you. Got that? I did this partly for me, and partly for the baby, and mainly for you. Could you have done that much for me?”
“I wouldn’t have had to! I neve
r would have gotten us into something like this!”
“You never get yourself into anything. You just ride along with the crowd and borrow everyone else’s life. Don’t you get tired of living vicariously through other people?”
“That’s mean,” I said, numbed and surprised by his cruelty.
“It’s true. You let everyone else make the decisions and you just go along for the ride. Then you sit back and judge. Well, you can’t have it both ways.”
“If it had been up to me, you would have stayed here and we would have gone to the police. You would have just told them what happened twenty years ago and we would have dealt with it. But I guess that’s not enough action for you, so here we are. We were happy and now we’re murderers! We have police visiting us! We’re going to be afraid as long as we live. I’d rather just go away by myself and live my own honest, boring life.”
Adrian stood up and the remote control fell on the floor. Frisky had been lying nearby and he sensed the change in the room, and began to yawn nervously. “Be sure to bring your wardrobe of designer fucking clothes with you on your little trip,” said Adrian. “Oh, by the way, how do you plan to pay for it?”
“I will find a way. And why don’t you quit buying me things if you secretly have a problem with me having them.”
“I don’t buy you all those clothes, you do. With my money.”
“Actually, most of my clothing I sewed myself for practically nothing, but you wouldn’t notice that anyone else in this house has any creativity or talent, because you’re so busy being wrapped up in your own artistic life.” Then I took it a step further, “Do you think you’re really that talented, or is it more likely that one movie star liked your work and everyone else has followed along like sheep?”
He laughed. “Unreal. I am very, very talented. Not that you are any kind of a judge of talent.”
“Of course not. No one is remotely intelligent compared to you, Adrian.”
He nodded and seemed like he was going to add to that, but instead came back with, “You didn’t answer me: How are you going to pay for yourself, now that you’ve gotten accustomed to living off me?”
“By selling oranges.”
“What?”
“By selling oranges,” I said again. And right before my eyes he became a tiny little man. Small enough to fit in my pocket or crush between my fingertips. I walked out of the room. He followed me.
“Don’t you understand this is the perfect crime?” he said, switching from angry and condescending to the equally unsettlingly slippery tone of a salesman. “Do you think anyone cares what happened to some rapist? Even if they think someone killed him, they’re going to figure the bastard deserved it.”
“We aren’t just talking about some rapist. What about Jeb?”