What Lies Between Us

by John Marrs

‘A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.’ —Charles Spurgeon

It’s only now that I recognise the wretched life you cloaked me in and how your misery needed my company to prevent you from feeling so isolated. There is just one lesson I have learned from the life we share. And it is this: everything that is wrong with me is wrong with you too. We are one and the same. When I die, your flame will also extinguish.

Not everyone is content to live in a house where the previous occupant’s dead body lay undiscovered for weeks.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to have to ‘untell’ people. I don’t think you can ever be normal again after losing something you were so looking forward to loving.

If I guess the culprit correctly, I’ll be disappointed at how predictable the story is. If I get it wrong, I’ll be annoyed at myself for not spotting it earlier.

Relatable

Once upon a time we were the best of friends. But that was before he destroyed everything. Now the two of us are little more than the debris he left behind.

‘I can be on guard against my enemies, but God deliver me from my friends.’ I wonder if that includes family members too.

I keep most people at arm’s length for a reason. If you allow an emotional attachment to develop, eventually that person will disappoint you. They might not mean to, but if a better opportunity comes along, they will always leave you for it. I’ve learned the hard way that people – even loved ones – are transient souls.

I don’t want anything that enters my house to leave it.

Hmmm

‘You can never really know a person, no matter how much you love them.’

I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but my hatred for my husband has sounded new depths. I’m glad he is never coming back because Nina deserves better. I just need to make her understand this.

‘The brain is such a complex thing. It has the ability to store so much, and also to tuck away certain things that don’t need repeated examination.’

‘They’re called repressed memories,’ she says. I keep my face blank. ‘They are memories that have been subconsciously blocked because they are so stressful or traumatic. But by hiding us from them, they keep us shackled to the past.’

I love the privacy this corner offers and I understand why Maggie chose it. It’s the one blind spot – and perfect for a grave.

‘Do you recall when he was jailed for killing his pregnant girlfriend? Well, he launched this massive court appeal to get a retrial but it was turned down yesterday. I used to quite fancy him.’

Waaaa

‘You either tell me now what you’re playing at or I block you and we never speak again. It’s your choice.’ ‘Please don’t do that.’ ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ ‘Because you’re my sister.’

What?!

Mum was a prisoner of her own denial, whereas I am a prisoner of my daughter.

We have both got this so very, very wrong. Bobby isn’t my half-brother. Bobby is Dylan. And Dylan is my son, not the lost daughter I have pined for all these years.

Waaaaaaa???

Whatever she did to him was swift and brutal, and what I’m going to do to her will be long and drawn out. But she will pay for taking my dad and my son away from me.

I want to say from yourself but I can’t. Instead I find someone else to blame.

But why???

And for her sake, I cannot allow her to know of the blood she has on her hands, either. I cannot kill as she has killed.

This is my dead husband. When I went to bed, this was the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Now I must get rid of him as if he never existed.

I am rewriting our history. It has always been and always will be just Nina and me. I am not sorry that he’s dead, only that it wasn’t me who killed him.

He’s the cuckoo in the nest. All I need is for him to see what I see and that he could have a better, more loving home with me and not them.

Nah, girl. You’re cuckoo.

Whatever’s going on in here isn’t normal. You both need help.’

That’s an understatement

When she murdered her father, he deserved it. But Dylan didn’t; he was innocent. And so was Sally Ann Mitchell.

If she knows my daughter and can offer a description that leads to Nina’s identification, then that is it for her. She will be locked away indefinitely in a young offenders’ institute, a prison or a psychiatric facility.

WHERE SHE SHOULD BE!

For the rest of my life, her safety and mental well-being will be my only priorities.

Really? Smh

She carries death around with the casualness of a handbag. It has taken me most of her adult life to understand that all she touches becomes fetid.

Now I can see it’s different to what happens when her psychosis takes over. The psychosis completely absorbs her and acts for her. But with her dad and Dylan, she was present in the moment rather than being swallowed by it. I shudder to think what this means.

He says that while he loves me to the moon, he doesn’t love Mum any more and he’s leaving us. He’s met someone new and wants to be with her. As he disappears, I’m furious that he wants to ruin my perfect world and leave me and I want to make him hurt like he is hurting me.

Oh no.. 🫣

Bobby is gone for good, Jane, because ‘Bobby’ never existed. He has always been Dylan, no matter how much you’ve fooled yourself into believing he’s not.

If I had a second chance, I’d do everything differently. I’d have found Nina the help she so badly needed and I wouldn’t have let my grandson slip through my fingers.

It’s a little late for that, Maggie.