The Watcher

Arthur's **dog** Buster stared at him from across the kitchen table, that unblinking gaze that made Arthur question everything. Buster was a rescue, part terrier, part mystery, and entirely too perceptive for something that spent most of his day sleeping in a patch of sunlight.

"You know," Arthur said, pouring his third cup of coffee, "sometimes I think you understand more than her."

Buster's tail gave a singular thump against the linoleum.

Arthur hadn't meant to become a **spy** in his own marriage. It had happened gradually—the credit card charges that didn't match receipts, the phone always screen-down on the table, the sudden "girls' nights" that ended at 2 AM. Now he spent his Wednesday mornings parked three blocks from her office in his ancient Honda, watching who came and went.

It was pathetic. He knew it was pathetic. But the alternative—confronting her with what might be nothing—felt worse than this slow-burning purgatory.

He pulled his father's old fedora from the passenger seat. The **hat** had seemed clever when he started this surveillance routine, a kind of disguise. Now it just smelled like desperation and the faint scent of his father's Aqua Velva. Arthur put it on, catching his reflection in the rearview mirror: fifty-two years old, balding, pretending to be Sam Spade in a world that had moved on.

At 11:47, she emerged from the building with a man Arthur didn't recognize. Younger. Fit. They laughed at something—he couldn't hear what from this distance—and then they did it: she reached up and fixed his collar, intimate, practiced.

Buster whined from the backseat.

"I see it too, buddy," Arthur said, his voice cracking.

But then the man turned, and Arthur saw the wedding ring. Saw the way he leaned into her touch. Watched them walk toward the parking structure, not holding hands, but close enough that their shoulders brushed.

Arthur realized something then: he'd been so focused on gathering evidence that he'd forgotten to ask himself what he'd do if he found it. He had three choices. He could follow them. He could drive home and pretend he'd never seen this. Or he could pull into traffic, take Buster to the park like they used to before the suspicion took hold, and finally—finally—ask her the question he'd been avoiding for six months.

He started the engine. Buster perked up, ears forward.

"Park," Arthur said, and for the first time in months, he meant it.