A woman on the receiving end of lies from her husband.
It smells like rain
It smells like rain, except it isn’t rain. It’s lies. It can’t smell like rain all the time.
‘You’re mistaken,’ he says again. ‘Deluded.’
Words come and go to him like a wet dog shaking itself free of wet. The drops go flying everywhere. It doesn’t matter where, just off, out of the fur.
‘Unavoidable,’ he says. ‘Work. Pressure.’
I am drenched with your words, by your tongue and the shake of your head that sends the wet drops flying at me, into me. Soaking me.
‘I hate being late, too,’ he says. ‘The traffic, the deadlines – one after the other. My boss. You do believe me, don’t you?’
When the rain comes, it isn’t metal-clean and pure. It is hard and heavy and tainted with sepia-like dye; everything it touches is slightly off. Coloured.
The rain falls on the breakfast table. It falls on the patio and over the garden furniture. It falls so easily, noiselessly, the dripping, the wetting, the leaking of falsehoods, half-truths, lies.
I press my face to the glass to peer out. The rain impairs my view. It is grey. I have dispensed bottles and jam jars inside and out to catch your rain so that when I cry they tinkle back in sympathy.
The rain falters. It is bed time. The rain falls more gently now.
‘You are very special,’ he says. ‘Sorry I was back so late.’
Softer. Still wet, out of the side of your mouth. Making me sip it.
Puddles are beside my side of the bed and yours. In the morning I peel off my wet nightie, trip downstairs and outside to hang it out to dry.
It smells like rain
