Title: Normalcy
Author: teagrl Rita finds out
Disclaimer: Not mine
The room had been impossibly clean afterwards. She had walked in and inspected every inch with a frenzied, morbid desperation. Nothing.
But everything had already changed. Rita wished she'd believed him when he'd said he'd go bowling. Wished she hadn't gotten out of the car. Wished she hadn't heard the screaming, the whirring of tools coming from inside the abandoned warehouse. At least, she hadn't been tempted to go inside the building. She'd been too preoccupied containing her nausea. She'd run off at feeling the futility of it and her dinner had ended up tossed out in a darkened corner a few yards from the place she'd seen him go into. Rita hadn't been able to summon the will to go back.
How many minutes, hours had passed, she didn't know, but at some point she saw his shadowy form make its way back to the car carrying several garbage bags. Two trips later and she heard the car drive away. Then she had turned and heaved some more, sore stomach muscles crying out in protest that there was no more to expel, visions of the past media chaos playing behind her eyelids. Bodies in bags.
Afterwards she had stood on shaky legs, unable to reconcile what she had heard and seen. All circumstantial Rita, she attempted to tell herself. She had seen Dexter walk in alone, sure there had been something heavy slung over his shoulder, but that could be a number of things. She had seen him walk out alone. And the whirring had been so loud, maybe she'd made up the screams in her head?
It was with the same feeling that she'd before cutting herself in high school that she had gingerly walked from her hiding place and into the warehouse. There had been nothing.
She needed to get home. Needed the reassurance of normalcy.
Rita made her way back to the car; she had parked it at an obscure corner several blocks away.
What was she going to do?
The question looped endlessly in her head, as she went through the familiar actions. Key in the ignition. It was sort of difficult with the shaking of her hands, but she managed it after a few tries. The rest was easier, automatic. Parking brake off. Turn into the street. She could see the news reports in her mind's eye, she could see herself covering her face, the flash of cameras...
The Honda in front of her neared at a quickened rate and she realized the light was red. Rita stomped on the brake, the seat belt yanking her back, squeezing the air from her chest in its suddenness. She turned the wheel quickly and narrowly avoided hitting the car.
Rita switched lanes and let out a relieved sigh.
Would he kill her if she crashed the car? The thought popped into her head, ludicrous and she was laughing, laughing so hard that tears began to spill and she pulled over because she could no longer see. The world was blurry again, truths turned on their heads, inside out. So she covered her face and sobbed.
The clock on the dash said 12:00 am, when she finally lifted her head from the steering wheel. She turned back into the street and continued home, feeling somehow wrung out, exhausted. At this hour, the events felt like something out of a dream.
The rest of the drive went without incident. The usual ritual. Parking in the driveway. Walking out. Key in the lock. Walk in. Turn on the light. Close the door, lock.
Astor and Cody were at an overnight camp. Suddenly, she felt terribly alone and she leaned back, sagging against the closed door. It was selfish to feel that way, she knew. She should be relieved that they were away, that she had time to figure out what she should do.
They had been distinctly male screams.
Rita walked to the kitchen, not bothering to turn on the light. The illumination from the living room was enough. She served herself a glass of water.
It wasn't the first time she'd felt caged.
There was the sound of the key in the lock minutes later and she felt her stomach clench, the glass sliding down from her slackened hands. She heard it shatter at her feet, but was too unsettled by the sight of Dexter walking in.
Even in the dim light, the blue of his bowling shirt seeped into her pupils. He walked over to her, dropping a quick kiss on her cheek before turning on the kitchen light. Rita blinked, momentarily disoriented by the brightness.
"What happened?" he asked.
Rita looked down at the broken glass. "Nothing." Going to look for a broom and dustpan at least gave her something to do other than stare at him hollowly.
"I thought you'd be asleep," she heard him say while she searched for the dustpan.
"I—I," Rita covered the hesitancy with industriousness, carrying the broom and dustpan back to the kitchen and beginning to sweep the pieces away. "I couldn't sleep."
"Is it Astor and Cody?"
Rita nodded without looking at him.
"We saw them last week; they looked like they were having fun. Besides they'll be home soon."
She didn't answer and felt his gaze more deeply on her. "How was bowling?" she said trying to keep her voice even.
"We won."
Rita looked up and faked a smile. "That's good," she said, walking to the trash emptying the dustpan.
--
A half hour later, she was lying on her side looking at the play of shadows on the wall. The room was silent save for Dexter's even breathing. It was all she could do not to run out get into the car, drive to the camp, grab her children and make a mad dash for the nearest state. She would dye her hair brown, cut it short, she would take a job as a teacher…
It hadn't been the first time she'd fantasized about a hurried escape.
The kids had been at camp to give them time to begin to move to their new house. The place Dexter had found them was a godsend; the kids had loved it. It wasn't too far away and just what they'd been looking for. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, it even had a storage room, a yard and most importantly, a reasonable mortgage between the both of them. She and Dexter had planned to begin bringing in his stuff in a week. By the time Astor and Cody got back from camp, they'd wanted to have most of the house set up. They'd hoped to be completely settled in by the time school started.
Why had he done it? Why such a gruesome--?
Did it mean there was some sort of macabre finish to their domestic paradise?
It could end right there. She still kept the bat she'd hit Paul with under the bed. She could reach for it silently, and then swing it against Dexter's head, again and again for his deceit, for his failure to be who she'd imagined him to be. She could break a window, call 911, say someone had come in. The kids would never know. It would be a tragedy. She let out a soft sigh.
It wasn't the first time she'd fantasized about murder either.
When all was said and done, it couldn't be fear that made her anxious. There was something inconceivable about the idea of her children's blood, her blood in Dexter's hands. It was as if what had happened at the warehouse didn't concern her. It was another person, another life, entirely distinct from the man who slept serenely beside her. No one could sleep easily after committing murder. Rita closed her eyes.
The screaming had blended with the mechanical whirring. A horrific harmony.
She had always been so good at lying to herself.