THE BILLIONAIRE'S UNDOING

Tonight on the weather channel, bad weather had been announced as a blizzard. Yet here I was at an event. Despite the blizzard, no one seemed in a rush to leave. People were chatting and clinging to one another with the desperation of those who knew it might be five minutes before they could start texting again. "Are we ready to leave?" I asked. My husband squeezed my arm, but he did not answer my question. Children swarmed around us. Jake was more charmed by children than many men I knew, but tonight, he wasn't smiling. At least not when he was talking to me. Then, for the second time that night, the place was plunged into darkness. This darkness did not inspire awe. Simply utter confusion. There was a moment of stunned silence, some sputtering of nervous laughter and then, obeying a response that had become second nature to us all, we reached for our cells. As I reached into my bag, my eyes remained on my husband. So I could tell that I saw what looked like him kissing someone in the dark. I blinked to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me. When my heart started to pound very hard in my chest, I concentrated on getting my phone out of my purse. Within seconds, the hall was dotted with a rectangle of light that dated through the gloom, fireflies for our electronic age. Someone's baby began to cry and I reached out to the child. He held out his arm and I took him from the tired mother placing him against my chest which was still beating hard while I stared at my husband who all of a sudden was acting hard and innocent. "They'll get the power back," he said. "We'll just have to sit tight." "Great advice," I said. "Except that while we're sitting right, some people might take the avenue to do things that are totally uncalled for." "Sorry?" He did not hear me. "Oh nothing baby. There was a lady here, wasn't there? About some seconds ago " Sure enough a lady turned around. I used my eyes to scan. She was wearing a wedding ring. She was married! Shame on you! Kissing my husband in broad daylight! More like broad day darkness or so, I thought. "Oh yeah," he pulled her as she spun around as if it was the first time they were seeing that night. "She was trying to make it through the crowd to her husband," he said to me. Then he turned to her and asked,"Have you found him?" She shook her head no. Fifteen minutes later, the hall and reportedly the whole city was still without light. A spirit of cheerful anarchy seized the crowd. Plunged into darkness in the company of friends and cellphone, the young ones, their voices split the silence with different kinds of gists that showed youthful exuberance. The adults resigned. They knew how to behave in winters like this. Blizzards and blackouts were expected at the start like this. Everyone knew that. So sooner or later, the blizzard stops, power returns and then everybody can go home. So they waited calmly So did I. Except that I stared at nothing while I held a stranger's baby hoping that the softness and the innocence of the child would calm my beating heart. And so far, it was working. I had let my husband follow the strange woman to go find her husband with only a flash light of his phone. Whatever they were finding, whether husbands or each other tongues, I wasn't going to let that bother me. Of course I knew that Jake cheated but doing it in front of me was insane. In the dark? What were they? Kids? If you had the boldness to touch another person's wife, be bold to do it in a better place. Kissing in the dark like some teenagers! I hissed at the stupidity. I hissed again hoping the baby's mother wouldn't mind and take the comforting child away from me. Thankfully, she didn't notice as she seemed lost in a thought of her own. Perhaps her husband was screwing other people too. Perhaps my husband was screwing her too. Who knew? Everyone else around us seemed to be relieved and enjoying the moment. Enjoying the moment was a sensible option, but not for me. The baby's mother had wandered off and I was ready to go home. As I waited by the door through which the baby's mother vanished, I was isolated by growing fear and frustration. The room was growing noticeably cooler. I zipped up the baby's playsuit and put his toque on him properly. Then I wrapped him in the blanket that I had received him in. Swaddling and held close, he fell asleep on my shoulder. It was in this position my husband met me. "I've been looking all over for you. Are you good?" I nodded. He still looked so smartly dressed even though I was quite sure he had some quick rough handling from whence he was coming from. "Are you ready to go?" He asked, even though there were still lights out and probably a dangerous road that lay ahead of us. I shook my head, pointing at the baby. So he waited with me for a while. Then he broke. "f**k it. I'm sick of waiting," Jake said. "I'm going to go find the mother and if I don't, we'll call an officer. They have auxiliary power so they'll be able to figure out how to keep him warm and fed until somebody finds the mother. I kissed the baby's head. "Sounds good to you, bud?" "You're liking the little guy, aren't you?" Jake asked. "Baby lust." Just then the mother walked up to us. She had gone to get the car seat and she probably spent the last thirty minutes looking for us. I could tell because she was sweating in this cold. She thought she had lost the baby. "It's alright ma'am. Your baby is safe," I reassured her, as I handed the sleeping wrapped carefully over to her. She thanked me as she placed the baby in the car seat and vanished once more. "So the deed is done," Jake said. "Let's find out how bad it is out there." He shifted aside to make a call. I didn't know what to feel about him at the moment so I decided to feel nothing instead. When he hung up and came back, he sounded weary and unsatisfied. "Apparently it's s**t city out there. No power except on the east side. Traffic lights are out and the roads are god awful, so plenty of accidents." "Do you still want to sit tight?" I asked. I didn't. I just wanted to go home and get to bed. So when he said no, I was relieved. Even more relieved when he offered to drive. I was normally a confident driver but that night, I felt unmoored. "Did she find her husband?" I asked when we got into the car and I was safely strapped. "Huh?" "The last who was looking for her husband -Did she find him?"