“Absolutely,” I said, putting a hand over hers, as I had seen in a movie not too long ago. “Cody is a great kid. He's just maturing a little slower than others. Because of what happened to him.” She shook her head and a tear hit me in the face. “You can't know that,” she said.

I can,” I told her, and oddly enough, now I was actually telling the truth. “I know perfectly well what he's going through, because I went through it myself.” She looked at me with very bright, wet eyes. “You —you never talked about what happened to you,” she said.

“No,” I said. “And I never will. But it was close enough to what happened to Cody, so I do know. Trust me on this, Rita.” And I patted her hand again, thinking, Yes, trust me. Trust me to turn Cody into a well-adjusted, smoothly functioning monster, just like me.

“Oh, Dexter” she said. I do trust you. But he's so ...” She shook her head again, sending a spray of tears around the room.

“He'll be fine,” I said. “Really. He just needs to learn to be with other kids his own age.” And learn to pretend to be like them, I thought, but it didn't seem terribly comforting to say aloud, so I didn't.

“If you're sure,” Rita said with a truly enormous snuffle.

“I'm sure,” I said.

“All right,” she said, reaching for a napkin off the table and blotting at her nose and eyes. “Then let's just ...” Sniffle. Honk. I guess we just think of ways to get him to mix with other kids.”

“That's the ticket,” I said. “We'll have him cheating at cards in no time.”

Rita blew her nose a last, long time.

“Sometimes I couldn't tell that you're being funny,” she said. She stood up and kissed me on the top of the head. “If I didn't know you so well.”

Of course, if she really knew me as well as she thought, she would stab me with a fork and run for her life, but maintaining our illusions is an important part of life's work, so I said nothing, and breakfast went on in its wonderfully soothing monotony. There is a real pleasure in being waited upon, especially by someone who really knows what she's doing in the kitchen, and it was worth listening to all the chatter that went with it.

Cody and Astor joined us as I started my second cup of coffee, and the two of them sat side by side with identical expressions of heavily sedated incomprehension on their faces. They didn't have the benefit of coffee, and it took them several minutes to realize that they were, in fact, awake. It was Astor, naturally enough, who broke the silence.

“Sergeant Debbie was on TV” she said. Astor had developed a strange case of hero-worship for Deborah, ever since she found out that Debs carried a gun and got to boss around big beefy uniformed cops.