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

You are the person I share this house with, nothing more, nothing less. You mean no more to me than the shutters that hide what goes on in here, the floorboards I walk over or the doors we use to separate us.

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.

Given a little time, I become used to most things in the end. I’m that kind of woman; I’ve learned to be adaptable.

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.

Nina is no longer my little girl and I am no longer her mother. And as the chorus begins to fade, so does the memory of what we once had.

Charlotte Brontë. ‘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 know what that woman has lost to end up trapped in the life she lives now, but I know how it feels to have your world thrown from its axis through no fault of your own.

‘When you get older you’ll understand that sometimes appearances can be deceptive,’ she replies. ‘You can never really know a person, no matter how much you love them.’

Sometimes it feels like I’m living a half-life, never knowing if what I’ve done today I’ve done before.

Husbands and dads don’t walk out on their families for no reason, which makes me think she treated him so badly that he had no choice but to leave us both.

‘You’re my flesh and blood. I don’t always have to like you, but I have never stopped loving you.’

However, her truth had the opposite effect and Jon admitted it excited him knowing that what we were doing was forbidden. ‘I like my bananas green,’ he’d said with a grin.

‘Sometimes you get stuck in a rut and it’s hard to get yourself out of it. And for so many years, I thought you were here and I didn’t want to leave you. You were all I had.’