What the Dog Knew

The first clue was in the bathroom drain. Long, dark strands of hair that didn't belong to me. I'm blonde. She wasn't. I cleaned it out, told myself it was nothing. Maybe a friend from work. Maybe his sister. Maybe I was paranoid.

Then came the vitamins. His usual multivitamin sat untouched on the counter, replaced by expensive pre-natal supplements I'd never purchased. He'd sworn up and down three months ago that we weren't ready for children, that we needed more time. I'd cried. He'd held me. Now I stared at those pills and wondered who else he was holding.

Buster knew. Our golden retriever had stopped greeting Marcus at the door, started growling from his bed whenever Marcus's phone pinged late at night. Animals sense deceit before we admit it to ourselves. They smell the guilt on our skin, hear the insincerity in our voices.

I was standing at the kitchen counter, chopping spinach for a salad we'd never eat together, when I saw them. Two figures reflected in the window—Marcus and some woman, laughing as they walked toward our front door. I set down the knife.

"I'm not a spy," I whispered to the empty kitchen. "I'm just the wife who stopped looking."

Buster pressed against my leg, sensing my pulse spike. Outside, Marcus glanced at his watch, then at her hand on his arm. He didn't look like a man who'd made a mistake. He looked like someone who'd been living two lives and finally had to choose.

The spinach was still bleeding green onto the cutting board when he walked in alone. She was gone. He'd sent her away.

"Your hair looks different," he said, and I realized he hadn't really looked at me in months.

I picked up the knife again. "It's not my hair that's different, Marcus."

He froze. Buster lifted his head from his bed, watching us both.

"It's everything."