Free Dexter's Final Cut by Jeff Lindsay

back into the house and sat for half an hour, marveling at the chaotic din that ebbed and flowed through the house as the rest of my little family got ready. It was really remarkable how complicated they could make the simplest tasks: Astor couldn’t find old socks that matched and flew into a towering miff when I suggested it didn’t matter whether they matched, since she was just going to get paint on them. Then Cody appeared in a T-shirt with a picture of SpongeBob on it and Astor began to scream that it was
hers
and he better take it off right now, and they fought about whose shirt it was until Rita hurried in and solved it by taking SpongeBob and giving Cody an
Avatar
shirt, which he wouldn’t put on because he still liked
Avatar
and didn’t want to get paint on it. Then Astor appeared in a pair of shorts so small they might have been denim underwear and fought Rita for the right to wear what she wanted to wear for another ten minutes.
    Cody finally came out and sat next to me, and the two of us waited in silent camaraderie and watched as Rita and Astor changed shoes,shirts, shorts, hair scrunchies, and hats, fighting every step of the way. By the time they were finally ready, I was so exhausted just from watching them that I wasn’t sure I could lift a paintbrush. But somehow, we all got into the car, and I drove us over to the new house.
    It was a surprisingly peaceful day. Cody and Astor stayed in their separate rooms, slopping paint over almost everything, every now and then even getting some on the walls, where it was supposed to go. Rita painted the kitchen and then the dining room, running back and forth between roller strokes to supervise Cody and Astor, and Lily Anne stayed in her playpen in what would someday be our family room, yelling instructions.
    I worked around the outside of the house, pulling weeds, painting trim, and discovering two fire ant nests the hard way, by stepping on them. I found a few other things even less pleasant—apparently there was a very big dog living in our new neighborhood. Luckily, there was a hose still hooked up to the side yard’s faucet.
    At noon I drove out to Dixie Highway and picked up two large pizzas, one with just cheese and the other with double pepperoni, and we all sat in the screened enclosure by what would someday be our swimming pool, if we could figure out how to get all the green floating crud out of the water. Large chunks of the screen hung from the pool cage’s frame like Spanish moss, and several of the metal ribs were bent or missing, but it was all ours.
    “Oh, my God,” Rita said, clutching a slice of cheese pizza and staring around her at her new kingdom. “This is going to be so …” She waved the pizza in a way that was intended to convey unlimited magnificence. “I mean, to have our own— Oh, Dexter, Carlene says her nephew has a pool service?”
    “Carlene’s nephew is a lawyer,” I said. I remembered quite clearly meeting him at Rita’s office Christmas party, and coming home with three of his business cards.
    “What?” Rita said. “Don’t be silly; why would a lawyer have a pool— Oh, you mean
Danny
.” She shook her head and took a bite of pizza. “Mmp. This is Mark. Danny’s younger brother.” She said it through a mouthful of pizza and still made it sound as if she was explaining shoelaces to someone with brain damage. “Anyway, he can get all the gunk out of the pool and make it totally— But we couldsave a lot of money if …” She took another bite of pizza, chewed, and swallowed. “I mean, it can’t be that hard. And we still have to get a new pool cage, which costs— But we can buy the chemicals at the pool store? If you don’t mind doing— Cody, you’ve got tomato all over your— Here, let me get that.” She leaned over to Cody and scrubbed at his face with a paper towel, while he scrunched up his eyes and looked annoyed.
    “Anyway,” Rita said, leaning back away from Cody. “It would save some