Dexter decided that it was time to watch the television mounted on his hospital room's wall. He found the control and turned it on. He hoped that something interesting had happened to draw attention away from his situation. To his dismay and horror, that wasn't the case.
Even though the shooting had happened the previous day, they were still replaying it. He turned up the volume wondering what they were saying about him.
Dexter watched incredulous. He couldn't believe the things they said about his behavior. He watched the broadcast of the shooting, fascinated by the difference in his recollection of the events, and what the reporter had said about them. One of the commentators compared his actions to a modern day version of David versus Goliath. He almost tore his stitches out, he was laughing so hard.
In addition to the segments about the events at the courthouse, there were segments about his website. Dexter listened to the television totally baffled by what he was hearing. He couldn't believe the kinds of things they were saying about him. He wondered if anyone had talked to anyone who actually knew him.
Pundits called him a communist, socialist, and anti-corporate activist. Other pundits asserted that he was the defender of the working man. A university professor type had declared that he had single-handedly turned business practices upside down with the consequence that the long term economic impact would not be known for one or more years.
Whether it was the result of the news broadcasts or not, people at the hospital treated him strangely. It was as if they didn't know quite how to deal with him. He didn't understand it. He wondered how celebrities dealt with the looks and stares.
Mark entered the room and walked over to Dexter.
He asked, "How are you doing?"
"I'm bored. They won't let me use my cell phone so I can't call Eric and find out what is happening with the website," Dexter said. "I'm worried about it."
"I talked to Eric. He's on top of things," Mark said.
"That's good to know," Dexter said.
Mark said, "I've got some good news."
"What?" Dexter asked.
"Your visit here is covered under your insurance policy. Anything not covered by your policy should be picked up by your wife's insurance," Mark said.
"I've got the money to pay for it," Dexter said.
Mark picked up the nurse call button and examined it.
Shaking his head, he said, "It is just insurance."
"No," Dexter said stubbornly.
Mark twirled the nurse call button around by its cord. He said, "Look at me. I'm a cowboy with a lariat."
"Put that down," Dexter said.
Mark put the nurse call button down just out of Dexter's reach. He said, "The papers are already signed. Don't worry about it."
"I'm not taking anything from her," Dexter said crossing his arms.
Mark shrugged his shoulders and said, "I'll look into what we can do."
"Do that," Dexter said.
Mark walked out of the room while Dexter muttered, "I'm not taking a damned thing from her."
A couple of minutes later, Janet stepped into the room. She closed the door, and stood there looking at Dexter.
"Get out of here," Dexter shouted.
"Now that I've got you where you can't run off ... there's no way I'm leaving!" Janet said with a smug little smile.
Dexter looked around for the nurse call button. He spotted it and reached for it. It was just out of his reach. "God damn it! I'm gonna kill Mark!"
Janet pulled a chair over to the side of the bed. She sat down and studied him. Dexter crossed his arms over his chest and turned his head away from her.
Janet shook her head and then said, "Look at what we've become. Do you realize that we've been married for nineteen years?"
"We've been married for eighteen years and separated for one," Dexter said.
"You missed our last anniversary," Janet said.
"I didn't miss it. I ignored it," Dexter said.
For a long time Janet didn't say anything hoping that he would say something. Finally, she said, "I've had a lot of bad days in my life."
"Join the club," Dexter said.
Janet said, "One of the worst days of my life started at six in the morning. I had a conference call with the group in Ireland. It was first thing in the morning, and I hadn't even had a cup of coffee before it started. It lasted until I dropped the kids off at school.
"I drove into work and found a pile of work on my desk that hadn't been there the day before. There was a note on it that I had to finish it before the end of the day.
"To make matters worse, someone had shoved a cattle prod up my bosses butt, and he was doing everything he could to make all of us suffer. I worked through lunch eating a stale sandwich from the shop around the corner. The afternoon was more work, and more meetings. I had so much work that I knew I was going to have to stay late, just to only stay a little behind.
"I still had three hours worth of work on my desk when I found out that I had to attend a dinner engagement with my boss and one of our customers. My boss wanted me to be there with the them.
"This customer is a real jerk. He thinks he is God's gift to women. I couldn't believe it when he bragged about his ten inch cock to the waitress. He kept hitting on her throughout the whole dinner. My boss laughed it off like it was some sort of joke. I wanted to disembowel both of them with my dessert spoon so badly that I could taste it.
"My boss and the asshole decided that they wanted to check out one of the local strip clubs. I had to listen to a half hour of comments about lap dances. Fortunately, my boss didn't require me to go there with them. They left for the strip club leaving me to pay the damned two hundred dollar dinner bill. I had to put it on my credit card.
"I finally escaped and made my way home. I nearly had an accident on the way there. I was so tired that I basically fell asleep for a second. I woke up to a horn blaring from the car next to me. I had drifted out of my lane.
"I stepped through the door thinking that I was finally home. I had reached my sanctuary from the harsh cruel world. I could relax, knowing that I was safe and sound.
"I was so tired that I could barely walk. All I wanted to do was take a hot shower, and then crawl into bed to sleep. I'm marching down the hall dreaming of hot water cascading over my tired muscles when I heard you say, 'Who was that woman?'
"I was so shocked that I almost tripped and fell. With that one question, you had destroyed my sanctuary. Instead of being nurtured by my loving husband, I had become a stranger in my own home. If I hadn't been so tired I would have turned around and let you have it. I staggered on to the bathroom, wondering how my husband could possibly ask that question. You have no idea how much that hurt."
Unimpressed by her story, Dexter shrugged his shoulders and said, "Who were you?"
"I was your wife, damn it!" she shouted.
"Were you?" Dexter asked.
"We were married for eighteen years!"
Finally looking at Janet, Dexter asked, "Do you really believe that?"
"Yes."
Dexter said, "I've thought about it a lot since I got your wonderful text message, kicking me to the curb."
She started to interrupt, but he held up a hand.
He said, "I figure we were a married couple for about eight years. Those first eight years were great. We were man and wife. We were intimate. I'm not talking about making love although we did make a lot of love during that time. No. I'm talking about talking and sharing our dreams. I knew you and you knew me. We could finish each others sentences.
"The next ten years we cohabited. Somehow, making love turned into sex which turned into doing nothing. We went months and years at a time without sex. We started communicating through phone calls rather than the face to face sessions in bed on Sunday mornings like we used to do. The phone calls turned into text messages. Oh, we exchanged some great messages. Goodbye. Working Late. Pick Up Milk. Feed Kids."
Dexter gave a bitter laugh. "That night you're describing, I looked at you and realized I didn't know who you were. For over two years, I hadn't had a single conversation with you about anything that wasn't superficial. What were our conversations? Your turn to use the bathroom. I'm tired and I'm going to bed. There were days when we didn't even exchange that much.
"I saw you for an average of ten or fifteen minutes in the morning and ten minutes at night. We shared the same bed, but our eyes weren't open."
Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
Dexter said, "So I ask you again. Were you really my wife?"
"I truly believed I was," Janet said with a quaver in her voice.
Dexter said, "Your text message ripped my heart out. That was the day everything fell into place. You got tired of cohabiting with me and found some guy who would whisper all of the right things into your ear."
"No," she protested.
"He told you that he loved you."
"No."
"He told you that he shared your dreams."
"There was no 'he'!"
"You figured that you deserved more than half a life," Dexter said.
"That's not true."
"All you had to do was get rid of me and move in with him."
"No! That's not right."
Dexter waved a hand to cut off her protests. He said, "Maybe there wasn't a guy. There could have been. There probably should have been."
"No."
"I won't insist," Dexter said. "I guess you just fucked me over for no real reason. That makes me feel better."
"I didn't..."
Dexter said, "How do you end ten years of cohabitation? You send a text message."
"No!"
"It's like dumping a room mate," Dexter said.
Janet cried, "You've got it all wrong."
Dexter asked, "Did you miss me over the past year?"
"Yes," Janet said.
"What did you miss? Did you miss texting me? Did you miss looking at me in the morning while chatting on the phone and dropping bagels in the toaster? Let's be honest, there was nothing for you to miss," Dexter said.
Janet said, "I missed you."
"You missed the 'me' that lived ten years ago, when we intimate," Dexter said. "That 'me' is dead. He slowly wasted away over the past ten years. He is dead and buried. Nobody even attended the funeral."
"Jesus," Janet said feeling like her heart had just been ripped out.
Dexter said, "Would you leave me alone so that this corpse can rot in peace?"
Janet left the room without saying another word. Five minutes later, Mark returned.
Dexter said, "File the divorce papers. She'll sign them now."
"Okay," Mark said.
"Put two million in a trust fund for each of the kids. Make it an annuity that kicks in when they are twenty-eight," Dexter said. He figured that would give them a nice middle-class income for the rest of their lives. It would also give them a chance to experience life without getting drowned by work.
"Two million total, or two million each?" Mark asked.
"Each," Dexter answered.
"I'll set it up," Mark said.
"Split the rest of the money between Janet and me," Dexter said.
She'd get it in the divorce, anyway. He didn't see a reason to make her wait for it.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," Dexter said, "Find someone who can shelter as much of that money as possible."
Having faced that problem himself, Mark said, "I've already found someone."
"Get to it," Dexter said.
Mark asked, "Are you okay?"
"Yes," Dexter said softly.
It was strange. He had just had heart surgery. It didn't hurt nearly as much as talking to Janet had. The physical therapist would be coming by later to get him to walk around. There wasn't any therapist who could help get him to be emotionally vulnerable with others, again.
He looked over at the nurses call button and added, "Put that damned nurse's call button where I can reach it."
Mark moved the button onto the bed. Without saying another word, he left the room.
Alone in the room, Dexter said, "I wonder when hospitals will become 'self-service'?"
This is the end of Part 1.
Edited By TeNderLoin