Serial Monogamy Read Online Free PDF Page A

was rather proud of that, another milestone, like Frank’s party. There was a huge Christmas tree in the hospital’s atrium, sparkling with oversized silver balls; the doctor said, “That all looks fine,” and I stopped on the way home to pick up a gift I wanted for the girls. It was a good day.
    Al hurried into the front hall as soon as I came through the door.
    “Where were you? I thought you’d be home by now.”
    “I stopped to do some shopping.”
    “So?”
    “So far, so good.”
    “All good?”
    “Yup, all good. That’s what she said.”
    He folded me into his arms, hugging me tight, but after a moment I pulled back to look at his face. He was smiling. He looked relieved and happy. What else did I expect? It’s not that I thought he wanted me dead or anything; on the contrary, he may have wanted me to get better really fast. Once or twice in the first months after he came home, the phone rang and someone hung up when I answered. Maybe it was just a wrong number. I mean, if she was calling, surely she’d just call his cell. But I got a horrible little reminder of what it felt like when he first told me of her existence, the twisting doubt at every turn, the gut-wrenching assumption about every unexplained gap in his schedule; the ugly temptation to pick his phone up off the kitchen counter and read an incoming text. We had agreed to set this stuff aside, concentrate on my getting better. Of course, I asked him about her. Once, he said, “She understands,” which wasn’t very encouraging, and another time he said, “It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to worry about it,” which sounded better, but mainly I had been too sick and tired to pursue it any further. It’s been a year since he came home, but I can’t help wondering if she’s still waiting for him. If I get better, will he leave?
    “We should go out to celebrate tomorrow night, get a babysitter,” he said.
    “We’ll never get one at this time of year. And I’m busy tomorrow; remember, I asked Frank for a drink. I want to strategize about the serial.”
    At that Al just raised an eyebrow.
    “A good Christmas. That will be our celebration,” I promised.
    —
    Despite the approaching holidays, there was a whiff of fear in the newsroom when I dropped by to meet Frank the following day: it took me a second to recognize it, but it was a familiar odour. The chemo clinic smelled of it too. There, everybody was slow and shuffling, almost languid in their pace but terrified nonetheless.
The Telegram
, on the other hand, seemed to survive in an atmosphere of barely controlled panic; the place was full of scurrying bodies and bent heads, all the editors and reporters engaged in a desperate busyness that suggested they were bailing the
Titanic
rather than simply putting out tomorrow’s paper. In the brew pub across the street, where Frank and some of his cohort often go for a beer, the gossips reported that subscriptions were in free fall; advertising was down and traffic to the website where readers scarf up the content for free was not beginning to make up the difference. Stanek, like some tyrant who can’t believe that nature won’t bend to his will andso blames his underlings for famine and floods, had just fired a perfectly respectable editor and replaced him with some roving social media executive who promised to turn everything around. One of Frank’s witty buddies said the guy was just working in newspapers the way hipsters affect porkpie hats. It’s retro and fun and hey, the next big thing should be on its way soon.
    They continued in this bitter vein for some time and it took me a while to get Frank on his own.
    “You know about this Dickens serial idea?”
    “Emm.”
    “If the publisher is so keen on new media, why am I being commissioned to revive a nineteenth-century form? Nobody publishes fiction in newspapers any more. Do you think people will read it?”
    “I’m not sure people read newspapers period, so why not give it