Dexter Is Delicious

FIVE

I spent an hour sitting with rita and watching lily Anne sleep, fuss, and feed. Objectively speaking, it was not really a great deal of activity, but it was far more enjoyable and interesting than I would have imagined. I suppose it is no more than a form of egotism to find your own baby so very fascinating-certainly, I had never found other babies compelling-but whatever it might say about me, I did it now and I liked it. Rita dozed, waking only once when Lily Anne twitched and kicked for a few seconds. And then a few minutes later, Rita frowned, opened her eyes, and looked at the clock on the wall above the door.

"The kids," she said.

"Yes," I said, watching as Lily Anne reacted to Rita's voice by curling and uncurling one tiny hand.

"Dexter, you have to pick up Cody and Astor," she said. "At the after-school program."

I blinked. It was true: The program closed at six, and the young women running it began to get very cranky by quarter past. The clock said ten minutes of six. I would just make it.

"All right," I said, and I stood up, reluctantly tearing myself away from my baby watching.

"Bring them back here," Rita said, and she smiled. "They need to meet their new sister."

I headed out the door, already imagining the wonderful scene: Cody and Astor stepping softly into the room, their little faces lit up with love and amazement, seeing for the first time the tiny wonder that was Lily Anne. The scene was crystal clear in my mind, rendered with the combined genius of Leonardo da Vinci and Norman Rockwell, and I found myself smiling as I ambled down the hall to the elevator. It was a real smile, too. An actual, unfaked, spontaneous human expression. And surely Cody and Astor would soon be wearing the same fond smile, gazing down at their new sister and realizing as I had that a life on the Dark Path was no longer necessary.

For Cody and Astor had also been condemned to walk in shadows, monsters like me, flung into the darkness by the savage abuses of their biological father. And I, in my own wicked pride, had promised to steer their little feet onto the Harry Path, teaching them to be safe and Code-abiding predators, as I was. But surely the coming of Lily Anne had changed all that. They, too, would have to see that everything was new and different. There was no longer any need to slink and slash. And how could I, in this brave new world, even think of helping them spin away into that dreadful abyss of death and delight?

I could not; everything was new now. I would lead them to the light, set their feet on the path to the Good Life, and they would grow to be decent, upstanding human beings, or the best possible imitations. People can change-wasn't I already changing, right before my very own eyes? I had already had an emotion and a real smile; anything was possible.

And so with a true surge of genuine human confidence that all would soon be rose petals, I drove to the after-school program, which was at a park near our house. The traffic was in full rush-hour, homicidal flow, and I had a new insight into what made Miami drivers tick. These people weren't angry-they were anxious. Each one of them had someone waiting for them at home, someone they hadn't seen all miserable workday long. Of course they got upset if another driver slowed them down. Everyone had a Lily Anne of their own to get home to and they were understandably eager to get there.

It was a dizzying image. For the first time I felt a real kinship with these people. We were connected, one great ocean of humanity bound together by a common goal, and I found myself humming a pleasant tune and nodding with forgiveness and understanding toward each upraised middle finger that came my way.

I made it to the park only a few minutes late, and the young woman standing anxiously at the door gave me a relieved smile as she handed Cody and Astor over to me. "Mr. Um Morgan," she said, already fishing for keys in her purse. "How is, um…?"

"Lily Anne is doing very well," I said. "She will be in here finger-painting for you in no time."

"And Mrs. Um Morgan?" she said.

"Resting comfortably," I said, which must have been the correct cliche, because she nodded and smiled again and stuck the key into the door of the building.

"All right, kids," she said. "I'll see you both tomorrow. Bye!" And she hurried off to her car, at the other end of the parking lot from mine.

"I'm hungry," Astor said as we approached my car. "When is dinner?"

"Pizza," Cody said.

"First we're going back to the hospital," I said. "So you can meet your new sister."

Astor looked at Cody, and he looked back, and then they both turned to me.

"Baby," Cody muttered, shaking his head. He never said more than two or three words at a time, but his eloquence was astounding.

"We wanna eat first," Astor said.

"Lily Anne is waiting for you," I said. "And your mother. Get in the car."

"But we're hungry," Astor said.

"Don't you think meeting your new sister is more important?" I said.

"No," Cody said.

"The baby isn't going anywhere, and it isn't really doing anything except lying there, and maybe pooping," Astor said. "We've been sitting in that dumb building for hours and we're hungry."

"We can get a candy bar at the hospital," I said.

"Candy bar?!" Astor said, making it sound like I had suggested she eat week-old roadkill.

"We want pizza," Cody said.

I sighed. Apparently rosy glows were not contagious. "Just get in the car," I said, and with a glance at each other and a surly double stare for me, they did.

The drive back to the hospital theoretically should have been about the same distance as the trip in from the hospital to the park. But in fact it seemed to be twice as long, since Cody and Astor sat in complete and sullen silence the whole way-except that, every time we passed a pizza place, Astor would call out, "There's Papa John's," or Cody would say quietly, "Domino's." I had been driving these streets my entire life, but I'd never before realized how completely the entire civilization of Miami is devoted to pizza. The city was littered with the stuff.

A lesser man would certainly have weakened and stopped at one of the many pizza parlors, especially since the smell of hot pizza somehow drifted into the car, even with the air-conditioning on, and it had been several hours since I had eaten, too. My mouth began to water, and every time one of the kids said, "Pizza Hut," I was sorely tempted to park the car and attack a large with everything. But Lily Anne was waiting, and my will was strong, and so I gritted my teeth and kept to the straight and narrow of Dixie Highway, and soon I was back in the hospital parking lot and trying to herd two unwilling children into the building.

The foot dragging continued all the way across the parking lot. At one point, Cody even stopped dead and looked around as if he had heard someone call his name, and he was very reluctant to move again, even though he was not yet standing on the sidewalk.

"Cody," I said. "Move along. You'll get run over."

He ignored me; his eyes roved across the rows of parked cars and fixed on one about fifty feet away.

"Cody," I said again, and I tried to nudge him along.

He shook his head slightly. "Shadow Guy," he said.

I felt small and prickly feet on my spine and heard a cautious unfolding of dark leathery wings in the distance. Shadow Guy was Cody's name for his Dark Passenger, and although it was untrained it could not be ignored. I stopped and looked at the small red car that had caught his attention, searching for some clue that might resonate with my own inner sentinel. Someone was half-visible through the windshield of the car, reading the New Times, Miami's weekly alternative paper. Whoever it was gave no sign of interest in us, or anything else besides the cover story, an expose of our city's massage parlors.

"That guy is watching us," Astor said.

I thought of my earlier alarm, and the mysterious bouquet of roses. It was the flowers that decided me; unless there was a slow-acting nerve toxin in the roses, there was no real threat hovering around me. And while it was possible that the person in the car really was a predator of some kind-this was Miami, after all-I felt no twinge of warning that he was focused on us.

"That guy is reading the paper," I said. "And we are standing in the parking lot wasting time. Come on."

Cody turned slowly to look at me, an expression of surprised peevishness on his face. I shook my head and pointed at the hospital; the two of them exchanged one of their patented looks, and gave me a matching expression that said they were disappointed but not surprised at my substandard performance. Then they turned together and began to walk again toward the hospital door. Cody glanced back at the car three times, and finally I did, too, but there was nothing to see except a man reading the paper, and eventually we got inside.

Dexter is nothing if not a man of his word, and I led them straight to the vending machine for the promised candy bar. But once again they dropped into sullen silence, staring at the vending machine as if it was some kind of torture device. I began to fidget with impatience-another real human emotion, making two of them so far, and I had to say I was not enjoying my transformation to the species. "Come on," I said. "Just pick one."

"But we don't want one," Astor said.

"Would you rather be hungry?" I said.

"Rather have pizza," Cody said softly.

I could feel my jaw beginning to tighten, but I maintained my icy control and said, "Do you see pizza in this vending machine?"

"Mom says that too much candy can make you have diabetes," Astor said.

"And too much pizza makes you have high cholesterol," I said through clenched teeth. "And going hungry is actually good for you, so let's forget the candy bar and go upstairs." I held out my hand to them and half turned toward the elevator. "Come on," I said.

Astor hesitated, mouth half-open, and we stood that way for several long seconds. Then Cody finally said, "Kit Kat," and the spell was broken. I bought Cody his Kit Kat, Astor chose a Three Musketeers, and at last, after what had seemed as long and painful as major surgery, we all got into the elevator and headed upstairs to see Lily Anne.

We made it all the way to Rita's room without a word about pizza or diabetes, which I regarded as a miracle, and in my new human optimism I actually thought we might get through the door and into Lily Anne's presence. But Astor stopped dead just outside the closed door, and Cody trickled to a halt behind her. "What if we don't like her?" Astor said.

I blinked; where does this stuff come from? "How can you not like her?" I said. "She's a beautiful little baby. She's your sister."

"Half sister," Cody said softly.

"Jenny Baumgarten has a little sister and they fight all the time," Astor said.

"You're not going to fight with Lily Anne," I said, appalled at the thought. "She's just a baby."

"I don't like babies," Astor said, a stubborn expression growing on her face.

"You're going to like this one," I said, and even I was surprised at the tone of firm command in my voice. Astor looked at me uncertainly, and then at her brother, and I took advantage of their hesitation and seized the moment. "Come on," I said. "Inside." I put a hand on each one and herded them both through the doorway.

Not much had changed in the tableau; it was still Madonna and Child, with Lily Anne lying on her mother, who held her with one arm. Rita opened her eyes sleepily and smiled as we came in, but Lily Anne simply twitched a little and kept sleeping.

"Come meet your sister," Rita said.

"You both keep saying that," Astor said. She stood there looking peevish until Cody pushed past her and walked over to stand beside the bed. His head was just about level with Lily Anne's, and he studied her for a long moment with apparent interest. Astor finally dribbled over to stand next to him, seemingly more interested in Cody's reaction than in the baby. We all watched as Cody slowly put a finger out toward Lily Anne and very carefully touched her tiny curled-up fist.

"Soft," Cody said, and he stroked her hand gently. Lily Anne opened up her fist and Cody let her grasp his finger. She closed her hand again, holding on to Cody, and wonder of all, Cody smiled.

"She's holding me," he said.

"I wanna try," Astor said, and she tried to get around him to touch the baby.

"Wait your turn," he told her, and she took a half step back and jiggled impatiently until he finally took his finger away from Lily Anne's fist and let Astor have a turn. Astor moved right in to repeat what Cody had done, and she smiled, too, when Lily Anne clutched her finger, and the two of them took turns at this new game for the next fifteen minutes.

And for a whole half hour we didn't hear a single word about pizza.