The Perils of Pauline by Collette Yvonne

to allow a baby crush to balloon out of proportion. A little time will let the air out of any puffy attraction.
    I check my phone again. Donald isn’t home yet. I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning. Last night he missed the last train and grabbed a hotel room. He said he ran into late meetings. Serenity said he came home this morning and went right out again.
    I texted him three times in the past hour to remind him I have a hockey game. No response. I’m about to try again when he pulls in the driveway. Bibienne pulls in behind him.
    As he squeezes past me in the hall, I notice he smells like he’s fresh out of the shower. “I went to the gym. I had a squash game,” he says when he sees my unsmiling face.
    “Never mind.”
    George is lying across my hockey bag. I shove him off and shoulder my equipment. Donald says, “What? Are you mad at me? Is this about last night?”
    I shoulder my gear and reach for the door knob. “Don’t worry about it. I have to go, I have a game.”
    “I was working late. That’s it.”
    “Whatever.”
    George starts barking and whining as I yank open the door. “Oh yeah, I forgot. Could you please feed George? I don’t know where Serenity is.”
    Donald looks at me as if to say when do I ever know where she is but thinks better of his timing.
    I race out the door, stuff my equipment into the back of Bibienne’s van and jump in.
    “What’s up? You seem pissed.”
    “Nothing.”
    “Come on.”
    “Donald. He didn’t make it home last night. Again.”
    “Are you still doing separate bedrooms?
    I nod yes.
    “Just how separated are you guys? Is Donald dating?”
    “Not as far as I know. He won’t talk to me.”
    “What does your gut tell you?”
    “Yesterday I went to a website that says the top sign that your husband is having an affair is that you’re having to ask the question.”
    “Then you just proved it. You’re asking the question. Donald is having an affair. How long are you going to obsess about this? What are you going to do?”
    “Don’t I need proof first, before I call a lawyer?”
    “Proof helps. But if you don’t trust him anymore, you don’t trust him, am I right?”
    I’m thinking about Michael and me. Together. Drinking late night coffees at the Dingy Cup.
    The thing I don’t say to Bibienne is: I don’t trust me anymore.
     
    After the game, Bibi and I head over to the Puck Stop Lounge with the team.
    At the bar, Mackie pulls out her wallet and motions me to put mine away. “That was sick,” she says to me, with a huge grin. “You owned that winger, Parril.”
    I don’t tell Mackie that it’s because I have a new technique. Every time an opposing player got a piece of the puck, I pictured Donald playing squash with Lindsay.

CHAPTER 9
Adversary
    Adversary: A party acknowledged as potentially hostile to a friendly party and against which the use of force may be envisaged.—Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms
    Holy crap. George escaped from the back yard one too many times and now the Morriston’s poodle is the proud Mom to a litter of seven pups. This morning Lewis’s lawyer served us with notice that we’re being sued for $25,000 for loss of breeding opportunity, veterinary services including examinations, tests, inoculations, whelping fees, etc. I’ll have to make Donald sit down in the living room when I show him this so when he grabs for his chest, he can expire in the comfort of his favorite armchair.
    For once, Donald arrives home from work early. He comes into the kitchen, where I’m rinsing lettuce leaves in the sink, and drapes his suit jacket over the back of a chair. I hand him the notice. He scans it, crumples it and tosses it into the garbage can.
    “You don’t think he’ll follow through?”
    “Nope. He’s just posturing.” Donald sits on the kitchen chair watching me spin the leaves in the salad spinner.
    “You’re home early.”
    “Yeah, I felt like getting out of there. Do