She shook her head slowly. “But he was so sure— How could he even …? I mean, if you didn’t.”
There comes a time when repeating your arguments starts to sound like you’re only making excuses. I knew this very well from the hours of daytime drama I had watched over the years, and I was pretty sure I was at that point now. Luckily, I had seen this exact situat
ion so many times on TV that I knew precisely what to do to. I put both hands on the table, pushed upward, and stood. “Rita,” I said, with truly impressive dignity, “I am your husband, and there has never been anybody else but you. If you can’t believe me now, when I really need you—then I might as well let Detective Hood take me away to jail.” I said it very sincerely, and with such conviction and pathos that it nearly persuaded even me.
It was my last round of ammunition—but it was a bull’s-eye. Rita bit her lip, shook her head, and said, “But all those nights when you— And the pictures … And then she’s dead.…” For just a second a last small doubt flickered across her face and I thought I had failed; and then she closed her eyes tightly and bit her lip and I knew I had won. “Oh, Dexter, what if they believe him?” She opened her eyes and a tear rolled out of the corner and down across one cheek, but Rita brushed it away with a finger and pursed her lips. “That bastard,” she said, and I realized with great relief that she no longer meant me. “And he’s supposed to— But he can’t just …” And she slapped a hand on the table. “Well, we won’t let him,” she said, and then she stood up and ran around the table and grabbed me. “Oh, Dexter,” she said into my shoulder. “I’m so sorry if I— You must be so …”
She snuffled, and then pushed herself away to arm’s length. “But you have to understand,” she said. “And it wasn’t just— It’s … for a while now. And then lately, you’ve been so … kind of …” She shook her head slowly. “I mean, you know,” she said, but in fact I didn’t know, or even have a guess. “It just all made sense, because sometimes it seems lately like … I don’t know— And it isn’t just the house,” she said. “The foreclosures? It’s everything, all of it.” She kept shaking her head, faster now. “So many nights, when you— I mean, that’s how … men act. When they’re doing that— And I have to, with the kids here, and all I can do about it is just …”
She turned half away from me and crossed her arms again, placing the knuckle of one finger between her teeth. She bit down and a tear rolled down her cheek. “Jesus, Dexter, I feel so …”
It may be that I really am becoming more human, slowly but surely, but I had a sudden moment of insight of my own as I watched Rita hunch her shoulders and drip tears onto the floor. “That’s why you’ve been drinking so much wine,” I said. Her head jerked back around toward me and I could see the muscles of her jaw tighten down even more on her poor helpless finger. “You thought I was sneaking out to have an affair.”
“I couldn’t even …” she said, and then she realized she was still chewing her finger and dropped it from her mouth. “I wanted to just— Because what else can I do? When you are just so— I mean, sometimes …” She took a deep breath and then stepped closer. “I didn’t know what else to do and I felt so … helpless. Which is a feeling I really— And then I thought it was probably me—because right after a new baby? And you never seem to …” She shook her head vigorously. “I’ve been such an idiot. Oh, Dexter, I’m so sorry.”
Rita leaned her forehead against my chest and snuffled, and I realized it was my line again. “I’m sorry, too,” I said, and I put an arm around her.
She raised her head and looked deep into my eyes. “I’m an idiot,” she said again. “I should have known that— Because it’s you and me, Dexter,” she said. “That’s what matters. I mean, I thought so. Until just suddenly, it seemed like …” She straightened suddenly and gripped my upper arms. “And you didn’t sleep with her? Really?”
“Really and truly,” I said, greatly relieved to have a sentence fragment with a complete thought behind it that I could react to at last.
“Oh, my God,” she said, and she put her face down onto my shoulder and made wet noises for a minute or two. And from what I know about people, it’s possible that I should have felt a little guilt about the way I had manipulated Rita so completely. Or even better, maybe I should have turned to the camera to show my true villainy with a leer of wicked satisfaction. But there was no camera, as far as I knew, and I had, after all, manipulated Rita with the truth, for the most part. So I just held on to her and let her soak my shirt with tears, mucus, and who knows what else.
“Oh, God,” she said at last, raising her head. “I can be so stupid sometimes.” I did not rush in to disagree, and she shook her head and then wiped at her face with a sleeve. “I never should have doubted you,” she said, looking at me closely. “I feel like such a— And you must be so totally … Oh, my God, I can’t even begin to— Dexter, I am so sorry, and it isn’t just— Oh, that bastard. And we need to get you a lawyer, too.”
“What?” I said, trying to switch gears rapidly from following her mental leaps with bemusement to dealing with an alarming new idea. “Why do I need a lawyer?”
“Don’t be simple, Dexter,” she said with a shake of her head. She sniffled, and began to brush absentmindedly at my shoulder where she had leaked all over it. “If this man Rich—Detective Hood,” she went on, pausing just a second to blush. “If he’s trying to prove you killed her, you need to get the best possible legal advice and— I think Carlene, at work? She said her brother-in-law … And anyway the first consultation is almost always free, so we don’t have to— Not that money is any— So I’ll ask her tomorrow,” she said, and clearly that was settled, because she stopped talking and looked at me searchingly again, her eyes jerking from left to right. Apparently she didn’t find what she was looking for on either side, and after a moment she just said, “Dexter—”
“I’m right here,” I said.
“We really have to talk more.”
I blinked, which must have been startling to her at such close range, and she blinked back at me. “Well, sure, I mean … talk about what?” I said.
She put her hand on my cheek and for just a second she pressed so tightly that I wondered if she was trying to stop a leak in my face. Then she sighed and smiled and took her hand away and said, “You can be such a guy sometimes,” and it was difficult to disagree with that, since I had no idea what it meant.
“Thank you?” I tried, and she shook her head.
“We just need to talk,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be about— Because that’s where this whole thing has gone so completely— And it’s probably my fault,” she said. Again, it was very tough to argue with the conclusion, since I hadn’t understood anything leading up to it.
“Well,” I said, feeling remarkably awkward, “I’m always happy to talk with you.”
“If I had only said,” she told me sadly. “Because I should know you wouldn’t— I should have said something weeks ago.”
“Um,” I said, “we didn’t know any of this until today.”
She gave her head one brief, irritated shake. “That isn’t the point,” she said, which was a relief, even though I still didn’t know what the point was. “I just mean, I should have …” She took a deep breath and shook my shoulders slightly. “You have been very, very— I mean, I should have known that you were just busy and working too hard,” she said. “But you have to see how it looked to me, because— And then when he called it all seemed to make sense? So if we only just talk more often …”
“All right,” I said; agreeing seemed a little easier than understanding.
It was clearly the right thing to say, because Rita smiled fondly and then leaned forward to give me a big hug. “We’ll get through this,” she said. “I promise you.” And then, maybe oddest of all, she leaned back slightly from our embrace and said, “You didn’t forget that this weekend is the big summer camping trip? With Cody and the Cub Scouts?”
I hadn’t actually forgotten—but I also hadn’t remembered it in the context of playing out a dramatic scene of domestic anguish, and I had to pause for just a second to catch up with her. “No,” I said at last. “I didn’t forget.”
“Good,” she said, putting her head back down onto my chest. “Because I think he’s really looking forward— And you could use some time away, too,” she said.
And as I patted Rita’s back with absentminded little thumps, I tried very hard to feel good about that thought—because, thanks to a Neanderthal detective and a copycat murder, I was going to get some time away whether I wanted it or not.