The House That Lies Built.

Ginny and Sarah sat in the restaurant sipping Chai tea. It was delicious and they savoured it along with the wonderful food set before them. Ginny even laughed when Sarah first suggested murdering Joe. He was her second husband. They had been married many years before and divorced many more.

Her nervous giggle quickly evolved to a more somber response as she realized Sarah was perfectly serious.

At first Ginny was slightly horrified, but warmed to the idea as Sarah began outlining several plans. She listened carefully to Sarah’s schemes but became overwhelmed by the vehemence of her motivation. As Sarah outlined various forms of vengeance, Ginny slowly drifted off to a place she rarely visited, a land where she once loved Joe.

Sarah and Ginny had only recently renewed a friendship begun eighteen years previously. They had married the same man, just not at the same time. That man was Joe.

In some strange way, they were almost the same woman, if you could overlook the two hundred pound difference in weight and four inches of height. They were both beautiful women, intelligent, humorous and with large compassionate hearts and even when contemplating murder, they did so with some degree of concern for the intended target.

They each believed that his demise would be for the best, not just for themselves and others he’d caused pain to, but for Joe himself. Putting him out of his misery seemed almost a humanitarian act of kindness.

Ginny had been the first to marry Joe. They were young and when she had first met him, he was still a human being, at least most of the time. Over the years this façade slowly changed. The change was so gradual that Ginny failed to see that for many years she’d been living, more or less full time, with a monster. The monster looked like Joe. It spoke with Joe’s voice and had many of Joe’s mannerisms. What few comprehended was that pretty much every word Joe spoke was a lie. Even when his stories were based in some obscure truth, the twisted, manipulative version made every word a blatant untruth.

In the beginning, the true Joe only occasionally slipped and revealed itself. Ginny, and a few others who knew Joe well were puzzled at times. Some secretly wondered if he might have a brain tumour which was growing slowly. Joe actually harbored an enemy in his brain - the disease we call alcoholism. This disease expressed itself in his ever increasing use of harder and harder drugs. Though inactive till his teens, this disease seemed to set Joe apart from others from the time he was very young. Born into a large family of staunch Roman Catholics, there were a number of issues that slipped beneath Joe's radar. His addiction to alcohol and drugs was but the tip of the iceberg.

There was an underlying ailment that never quite managed to rise to the surface and though it's threads wove themselves through the cloth of his life, he chose to remain ignorant. His frustration at being unable to grasp hold of his most elusive fear often erupted into a fit of temper which all did their best to avoid. Sometimes his anger boiled over and most who knew him well ran, far and fast. This secret condition was yet another ingredient in a life based solely on a foundation of lies.

Had Ginny been a little less naïve, a little less desperate, she would've walked away from Joe after their first date. However, she was rather idealistic, firmly believing that her love would open the door to Joe's heart and allow her entry into a place she believed would fulfill all of her dreams. Her desperation was having reached an age where her opportunities to begin a family were wearing thin. She'd sought this dream from the time she was very young and at the age of thirty, with Joe’s help was finally able to realize her life’s goal.

Over the next seven years they were blessed with three children and Ginny felt her life to be complete. Little did she understand that Joe was the circle’s weakest link and that even her deepest love could not hold the chain together. It took her over eighteen years to finally recognize Joe for what he really was, to fully comprehend what an extremely poor decision she had made. With much heartache she began to accept the reality of her loss.

She did not go down easily with that ship. There was no white flag, no surrender. She knew she shouldn’t continue to love Joe, that he had proved unequivocally that he was unworthy of that love. Her heart was not an easy accomplice to convince. Gradually a miracle happened, her heart began to follow her head’s lead and her love for Joe died. It withered slowly. No amount of wishful thinking seemed to revive what for her, had once been a life sustaining vessel. In some rather twisted way she still held a kind of love for Joe. This love came from a place that called upon all her reserves of forgiveness and compassion.

For she knew Joe to be a most sick being. He appeared physically to be of sound mind and body, but it took little scraping to realize that balance and human compassion were no longer a true part of his act. She had overlooked much during their time together. What she was unable to look away from, she simply had pretended was not there.

A number of her friends had tried to tell her Joe was gay. She would only scoff, as she held close her memories of the days spent languishing in bed. They got up mostly to use the bathroom with side trips to the kitchen to replenish their food supply.

It dawned on her about fifteen years in, that the passion had been missing for some time. Though Joe put on a good act, something was missing. He had the right equipment and an admirable grasp of how to use it. For Ginny, the act always fell a little short of her expectations.

True, Joe had always been a little distant. It took much of Ginny’s powers to pry open a little glimmer into the recesses of his psyche. She settled for these small insights. At the end of the day, she realized that Joe hid much from her and was capable of hiding even more. Over the years the con side of his list began to fill the page and the pro side became virtually nonexistent.

His violent temper filled every room he entered with crushed eggshells. Weaving through the terrain became an arduous task. She and the children began to live in a constant state of fear and anxiety, never sure just what might trigger a fit of anger which often left physical marks.

What was more damaging were the emotional scars that raked the psyche of his victims. Had Joe been a little more devoted in perfecting his act as a faithful husband, and perhaps more skilled at covering up his lies, Ginny might well have continued on with the charade. At the end, he seemed to care less and less about what she suspected. His cover stories became sparser, eventually nonexistent, the lies so dominated every spoken word, that they might as well have been the truth.

At the end of their marriage, she simply grew weary of the fight for Joe’s heart. His increasingly violent behaviour towards her children terrified her. He vehemently refused to look at the real issues. Instead he blamed her for their problems focusing on his unwavering complaints about her body and mental stability. Eventually the stress overwhelmed Ginny. Her patience and ability to persevere just wore too thin to continue. It took her many years to come to peace with a place of separation. She gathered her tattered life. Slowly, as the bits and pieces separated and his lies became clearer and clearer, she began to weave a new existence.

With much work and again intense sessions with her therapist, she finally came to terms with Joe’s many infidelities, his hidden homosexuality, his drug addiction, his physical and mental abuse, his habitual lying and his pig-headed stubbornness to grasp what he was working so hard to destroy.

Small vestiges of a badly beaten ego held Ginny together. Her pride, though shattered and in pieces, managed somehow to retain a sense of dignity. She eventually was able to walk away and build a new life for herself.

The real end had come when Joe met Sarah. Ginny knew then that her marriage was truly over then. It was evident that Joe intended to continue the charade which was life with another woman. In many ways she would’ve been happier had Joe finally come clean and left her for another man.

In her heart, she still wished him happiness. She knew that the double life he led took him far away from that place. Though saddened by Joe’s lack of courage, she quickly adjusted to the new relationship, especially as she and Sarah had became friends the first time they met. For each woman, the friendship brought scintillating insight into sides of Joe unfamiliar to each. At the same time, it was uncanny how each had come to a similar understanding of who Joe really was beneath his smooth veneer of charm. It didn’t take much scraping for each woman to realize they had been conned by a consummate liar who lied when it would have been easier to tell the truth.

Joe was a great actor and with chameleon powers, could easily play the part of a normal human being. He was anything but. He did his best to destroy the women's amicable relationship. He almost succeeded. Ginny carefully tried to warn Sarah about who Joe really was, but saw that Sarah, still in the honeymoon stage of the romance, was not likely to hear her concerns.

Joe was determined the two women were not to be friends. His ability to lie, manipulate, and plant seeds of destruction was masterful. Eventually the two women became estranged. In spite of the well fed animosity, each woman harboured a sadness that an active friendship had not endured past the first year. Each understood that in some way, Joe was responsible for planting the seeds of discord between them. Each doubted the lies he wove to throw them off balance and his plan might have succeeded had it not been for one thing. His blatant homophobia finally surfaced to a place of dawning consciousness for Joe. He’d had inklings many times throughout his life, but had been able to hide from the truth by his indulgence in rampant heterosexual behaviour. That had worked for many years, and then he met Ricky.

At first this relationship was centered around a number of places they had in common. He and Ricky shared a mutual love of drugs. They also shared an ability to keep this part of their lives a relative secret.

Things changed one night when they were both stoned, watching pornography. They’d jokingly released their penis’ but quickly realized the act was not especially funny. They found themselves wrapped in each other’s arms, stroking one another’s body, lips glued in a frenzied passion. Joe was terrified. He’d spent years convincing himself that his suspicions were unfounded and a tremendous amount of energy proving to others that he was not a homosexual.

Nature finally won out, his elaborate efforts to hide his sexual orientation collapsed like a house of cards in the wind. He and Ricky began an affair. Each was deeply ashamed. It nonetheless consumed their lives. They found time to spend hours together. Contrary to the cover story of lies Joe gave Sarah, they spent this time wrapped around one another, indulging in carnal delights that both satisfied and horrified each man.

The end came for Joe in an ironic twist of fate. He and Sarah had become increasingly more antagonistic to one another, each tolerating the other less and less. His ability to cover the trail of secrets and lies evaporated. Eventually he admitted to Sarah what was going on. He made it clear to her that if she were to tell anyone, or cause any problems that he would kill her. Her response and the ensuing arguments left large bruises on her body. In a state of fear, Sarah reluctantly agreed to an uneasy truce that would allow Joe to maintain his cover as a married, heterosexual. In reality, his life had once again fallen apart. Yet another marriage seemed destined to implode. He managed to keep his relationship with Ricky hidden, in spite of this card house of lies threatening imminent collapse. The house of lies might have gone on for some time had it not been for the bad dope.

He and Ricky had purchased marijuana that had been grown in a rich culture of chicken manure. Unfortunately, the manure also contained a large amount of Salmonella. They didn’t realize at first that there might be a connection to the violent bouts of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and other horrifying symptoms they each began to exhibit.

By the fifth day, Joe felt he was going to die. Little did he know that his premonition was about to become reality. He demanded Sarah take him to the hospital. At first she refused. The look in his eye quickly squelched her resistance. Her one tiny act of defiance was to quietly phone Ginny and tell her what was going on. Ginny, more from curiosities than anything else agreed to meet her at the hospital.

By the time they all arrived at the emergency, Joe was almost in a coma. His answers to the doctor’s questions were not entirely lucid. Still, given his polished act as a deceiver, did not raise a huge red flag.

Many other more pressing cases awaited the doctor. He left Joe with the nurses and Sarah. The nurses wheeled him into a room. They stripped him and began questioning him more carefully. Ginny stood beside Sarah, gently holding her hand in sympathy.

They both appeared distraught. The nurse filling out forms mistakenly believed they were concerned for Joe’s life. Little did she know that both women were aware that Joe had an allergy to penicillin. They were aware of what few others were. Due to Joe’s paranoia about others knowing his business, and his predilection for lying even when the lies threatened his life, he had managed to keep his secret safe.

The nurse checked off the various questions and as Joe answered, Sarah and Ginny simply failed to correct him when he was questioned about any allergies to medication.

In their own way, they also were good actresses and though honest (for the most part) by nature, felt compelled to support Joe’s story. What appeared to be deep concern for Joe’s well-being, actually hid their fear that their deception would be caught and turned against them.

The nurse released what was meant to be a life saving amount of penicillin into Joe’s IV.

She checked his vitals and left the room. It was an especially busy night on the emergency ward. Her attention was needed elsewhere. She smiled at Sarah and Ginny and said, “I’m sure I’m leaving him in good hands. Call if anything changes”

Sarah and Ginny waited. As the penicillin entered Joe’s bloodstream it quickly began to shut down his immune system. His body, already compromised by extreme reaction to the salmonella poisoning, was unable to defend itself from the attack. As he desperately gasped for air, he opened his eyes one last time. Imagine his shock to find both Ginny and Sarah standing over him, holding hands. They smiled sweetly as they leaned in and whispered, “Goodbye Joe.”

Did they ever regret the part they played in supporting the lie that took Joe’s life?

Perhaps...perhaps not.