Lies Within Me by Vanessa Garbin

Author:Vanessa Garbin [Garbin, Vanessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

28

Diana

We’re seated in the living room now. Well, I’m sitting on the couch, but Terence is pacing the beige carpet. I want to warn him about making a track in the lovely plush pile but Terence rarely gets cross and when he does, you don’t really want to stir him. What’s that saying? Something about needing to watch the quiet ones? Well, that is Terence to a tee.

‘Don’t get angry. It wasn’t like last time,’ I say.

My husband stops in his tracks and shakes his head.

‘Lord help me. I’m going to need a stiff drink for this conversation. You want a whiskey?’

I nod. Normally I hate the taste but I need something to quell my nerves.

Terence is the only one who knows about my dark side.

Sometimes I can go about my life and forget that that side of me exists.

Maybe Terence disappears into his shed and carves the wood because he, too, wishes to remain blissfully oblivious.

I’ve grown skilled at pretending that the bad things I’ve done never happened. But they always come creeping back. My dark side has become a part of me, another skin that I’ll never be able to shed.

Terence returns with two of his special, hand-blown and hand-cut glasses with two-finger measures of whiskey in each. The crystal set was a gift from a client – a famous television chef who’d hired Terence to craft a unique chopping block for cutting all his meats on.

‘Let’s go sit in the back garden,’ he suggests.

‘That sounds lovely,’ I say, and it is. Because I no longer have to watch my husband run a path into the lounge room carpet.

Despite the low-hanging clouds, the air is pleasantly warm outside. We sit on the garden bench beneath our lemon tree. From here, I have a good view of Terence’s workshop.

My husband is a woodworker who likes to build handcrafted pieces. One of a kind. All of our friends have his pieces in their homes, Simon’s friends as well. Now Alice’s friends all want one too. I’m sure this is the reason behind my husband’s slightly inflated ego of late.

He goes around calling himself an artisan, nowadays.

Sometimes, when his clients come to collect their pieces, I stand beside Terence feeling rather bland.

That’s why I’ve tried so hard to be a good wife. And a good mother.

I’ve always done what’s best for my family.

‘Now tell me everything,’ Terence says, as he sits down on the other end of the bench. I try not to notice the large gap he’s left between us.

I take a sip of the whiskey and gasp as the fiery liquid burns its way down my throat.

Then I start telling my husband what I’ve been up to in the past twenty-four hours.

Terence is a good listener and takes it all in with not a single interruption, just a few nods of his head. Sometimes I worry that he’s only humouring me while secretly thinking that I've gone mad.

Just as I’m about to tell him the most important bit of detail, somebody calls out.

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