"Dinner," Rita said, roaring into the room with a platter held between two large oven mitts. "I'm afraid it's not-I mean, it isn't actually burned, but I didn't-It's just a little too dry and, Astor, get the rice into the blue bowl. Sit down, Cody."
Dinner was a cheerful affair, at least as far as the video warriors were concerned. Rita kept apologizing for the Orange Juice Chicken-which indeed, she really should have. It was one of her signature dishes, and she had let it overcook to the point of dryness. But Cody and Astor found it very funny that she was embarrassed, and began to play her with just a touch of cruelty. "It's dry," Cody said after Rita's third apology. "Not like usual." And he smirked at Brian.
"Yes, I know, but-I really am sorry, Brian," Rita said.
"Oh, it's delicious; think nothing of it, dear lady," Brian said.
"Think nothing at all, dear Mom," Astor echoed loftily, and she and Brian laughed. And so it went until dinner was over and the kids jumped up to clear the table, goaded on by the promise of fifteen more minutes of Wii before bed. Rita took Lily Anne down the hall for a diaper change, and for just a moment, Brian and I faced each other across the table. This was the moment to speak, to bring things out in the open between us, and I leaned forward to seize it.
"Brian," I said.
"Yes?" he said, raising his eyebrows expectantly.
"Why have you come back?" I said, trying very hard not to sound like I was accusing him of something.
He gave me a look of cartoon astonishment. "Why, to be with my family, of course," he said. "Why else?"
"I don't know why else," I said, irritated even more. "But there must be something."
He shook his head. "Why would you think that, brother?" he said.
"Because I know you," I said.
"Not really," he told me, locking his eyes onto mine. "You only know one small part of me. And I thought-Oh, damn," he said, as the tinny notes of "Ride of the Valkyries" swelled up from somewhere in his pocket. He pulled out his cell phone, glanced at the screen, and said, "Oh, my. I'm afraid I have to eat and run. As much as I've enjoyed talking with you. I'd better make my apologies to your lady wife." And he got quickly to his feet and swept into the kitchen, where I could hear him flinging his flowery compliments and apologies.
The entire family followed him to the front door, but I managed to cut them off by stepping outside with Brian and firmly closing the door between them and my brother and me. "Brian," I said, "we need to talk a little more."
He paused and turned to face me. "Yes, brother, let's," he said. "A good old-fashioned chin-wag. Catch up with each other and all that. Tell me, how are you coming along with finding that missing girl?"
I shook my head. "That's not what I mean," I said, determined to see this through to the end and drag things into the light. But once again his phone began its frantic Wagnerian chorus and he glanced at it and shut it off.
"Another time, Dexter," he said. "I really do have to go now." And before I could protest, he patted me awkwardly on the shoulder and then hurried away to his car.
I watched him drive away, and my only consolation was that the shoulder he had patted was still slightly damp from Lily Anne's blarp.
TWENTY-THREE
I stood and watched the taillights of brian's car until they were gone in the distance. But my unhappiness did not leave with my brother. It swirled around me and rose higher as the moonlight poured in and mixed with the irritation and once more the serpent voice began to wheedle and coax and make its sly suggestions. Come with us, it whispered in honeyed tones of pure and perfect reason. Come away into the night; come and play and you will feel much better…
And I pushed it away, standing firm on the shores of my new land, human fatherhood-but the moonlight flowed back and tugged harder and I closed my eyes for just a moment to shut it out. I thought of Lily Anne. I thought of Cody and Astor, and the fawning pleasure they showed with Brian, and another small rivulet of irritation surged up. I pushed it down, and thought of Deborah and her deep unhappiness. She had been so pleased with catching Victor Chapin, and so miserable when she'd had to let him go. I wanted her to be happy. I wanted the kids to be happy, too-and the wicked little voice trickled back in and said, I know how to make them happy, and you, too.
For just a moment I listened, and everything clicked together with perfect sharpness and clarity and I saw myself slipping away into the night with my duct tape and a knife And I pushed back one more time, hard, and the picture shattered. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. The moon was still there, beaming at me expectantly, but I shook my head firmly. I would be strong, and I would prevail. I turned away from the night with brittle resolve and marched briskly back into the house.
Inside, Rita was in the kitchen cleaning up. Lily Anne burbled in the bassinet, and Cody and Astor were already back on the couch in front of the TV, playing with the Wii. Now was the time to start, to set things straight between us, to stamp out the embers of Brian's influence and get these children moving out of the darkness; it could be done. I would do it. I went straight to Cody and Astor and stood between them and the TV screen. They looked up at me and seemed to see me for the first time tonight.
"What," Astor said. "You're in the way."
"We need to talk," I said.
"We need to play Dragon Blade," Cody said, and I did not like what I heard in his voice. I looked at him, and I looked at Astor, and the two of them looked back at me with smug and self-righteous irritation, and it was too much. I leaned over to the Wii's control box and pulled its plug out of the wall socket.
"Hey!" Astor said. "You lost the game! Now we gotta start over on level one!"
"The game is going in the trash," I said, and their mouths dropped open in unison.
"Not fair," Cody said.
"Fair has nothing to do with this," I said. "This is about what's right."
"That doesn't make any sense," Astor said. "If it's right then it's fair, too, and you said…" And she was going to go on, but she saw my face and trickled to a stop. "What?" she said.
"You don't even like Chinese food," I said sternly. Two small and blank faces looked at me, and then at each other, and I heard the echo of what I had just said. It didn't even make sense to me. "What I mean is," I said, and their eyes swung back to me, "when you went out with Brian. My brother. Uncle Brian."
"We know who you mean," Astor said.
"You told your mother you went for Chinese food," I said. "And that was a lie."
Cody shook his head, and Astor said, "He told her that. We would have said pizza."
"And that would have been a lie, too," I said.
"But Dexter, you told us already," she said, and Cody nodded. "Mom isn't supposed to know about, you know. All that other stuff. So we have to lie to her."
"No, you don't," I said. "What you have to do is not do it anymore."
I watched astonishment blossom on their faces. Cody shook his head with bewilderment and Astor blurted, "But that's not-I mean, you can't really-What do you mean?" And for the first time in her life she sounded just like her mother.
I sat down on the couch between them. "What did you do with Uncle Brian that night?" I said. "When he said you went for Chinese food?"
They looked at each other, and an entire conversation went on between them with no audible words. Then Cody looked back at me. "Stray dog," he said.
I nodded, and anger surged through me. Brian had taken them out and found them a stray dog to learn and experiment with. I had known it was something like that, of course, but to hear it confirmed fed my sense of moral outrage-with my brother and with the children. And oddly enough, even as I drew myself up into a lofty tower of righteous indignation, a small and mean voice whispered that it should have been me who did this with them. It should have been my hand guiding their fledgling knife strokes, my wise and patient voice steering and explaining and teaching them how to catch and cut and then how to clean up when playtime was over.